47th NATIONAL JOC SPRING SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS (JPN)
- Thursday, March 27th – Sunday, March 30th
- Tokyo Aquatics Centre
- SCM (25m)
- Results (in Japanese)
The 47th National Junior Olympic Cup (JOC) Spring Swimming Championships concluded from Japan today. The four-day competition came on the heels of the World Championship Trials which took place at this same Tokyo Aquatics Centre venue from March 20th through March 23rd.
Several swimmers competed at both meets, including teenager Tatsuya Murasa.
Murasa, who turned 18 just days ago, raced his way to the top of the podium in the short course meters 100 freestyle tonight.
Stopping the clock at a time of 47.09, Murasa beat the field by over a second en route to establishing a new competition record.
The next-closest swimmer was Takumi Funahashi who touched in 48.44 followed by Takuma Kitajima who captured bronze in 48.52.
As for Murasa, the freestyle ace split 22.66/24.43 to set himself apart from the field and register the 2nd-fastest time of his young career. His PB remains at the 47.07 he notched at last year’s Short Course World Championships as lead-off on the Japanese men’s 4x100m free relay that finished in 11th place. That slightly faster result represents the current high school benchmark.
We reported that Murasa had already set a new Japanese National High School Record in the SCM 200 free at this competition. He turned in a time of 1:41.47 to beat the field by over 3 seconds in that race.
Speaking of high school records, the Toyokawa High School boys’ 4x100m medley relay established a new standard en route to gold to close out this competition.
The foursome of Katsu Nakahara (52.23), Gasaki Nishikawa(58.75), Yorihito Numata (52.23) and Iku Matsuyama combined to stop the clock at 3:31.09. That collective effort knocked over a second off the previous record of 3:32.14 the Chukyo University team logged at last year’s edition of this meet.
