Kosuke Hagino Is Back: Wins Twice Handily On Day 1 Of Madrid Open

2017 CAMPEONATO OPEN ABSOLUTO COMUNIDAD DE MADRID

• Friday, March 10th – Sunday, March 12th
• Centro de Natacion Mundial 86, Madrid, Spain
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Japanese Olympic gold medalist Kosuke Hagino was back in action tonight in Madrid, having taken several months off since his elbow surgery last September. The post-Rio rest did the athlete good, as the 24-year-old raced his way to two event wins on day 1 of the Campeonato Open Absoluto Comunidad De Madrid.

In the 100m backstroke prelim this morning, Hagino fired off a speedy 54.58 to take the top seed in his very first race back.  He’s been as fast as 52.78 in his career in this event, a mark from 2014 that still keeps the Toyo University swimmer within the world’s top 20 performers of all time. Later tonight, Hagino slowed down to a final mark of 56.29 to score the gold in the event, still by a comfortable margin.

A major influence on his evening performance, however, was the fact that Hagino doubled up on events, racing in the 400m IM timed final. Racing essentially on his own ss he would ultimately crush the field by over 15 seconds, Hagino stopped the clock in a mark of 4:15.23 to establish a quick baseline off which to assess his elbow recovery. Although he won the Olympic gold medal last summer in a much faster Asian Record-setting time of 4:06.05, tonight’s performance checks in among the world’s top 10 fastest this season and is an extremely positive indicator of the champion’s recovery headed into April’s Japanese National Championships.

The current world leader in the women’s 100m breaststroke, Japanese athlete Reona Aoki, put her talent on display in Madrid as well, taking her signature event handily tonight. 1:08.55 is what she produced this morning to claim the top seed, then Aoki took things up a few notches to nab the win in 1:07.07. Aoki already ranks ahead of the globe with the 1:05.29 time she earned back in January at the Tokyo New Year Swimming Meet.

As with Hagino, Aoki raced in two events, also collecting a silver medal in the women’s 200m IM. She was one of three Japanese swimmers to sweep the podium in the event, led by Yui Ohashi‘s winning time of 2:13.28 and included Wakaba Tuyuuchi‘s bronze medal effort of 2:17.79.

Brazil’s Joanna Maranhao was another foreign athlete to stand atop the podium, winning two events, both as timed finals. She touched in 8:45.01 to take the women’s 800m freestyle, followed by a solid 2:12.15 to win the 200m butterfly.