79th NATIONAL SPORTS FESTIVAL (JPN)
- Saturday, September 13th – Monday, September 15th
- Shiga/Infronia Kusatsu Aquatics Center
- LCM (50m)
- Recap #1
- Results
The final day of action unfolded from the 79th National Sports Festival in Japan, with one additional meet record biting the dust.
Racing in the men’s 400m freestyle final, 16-year-old Raito Numata blasted a lifetime best of 3:47.26 to get to the wall first, beating domestic rival Kazushi Imafuku in the process.
Numata’s time overtook the previous meet benchmark of 3:48.37 while Imafuku settled for silver just over half a second behind in 3:47.88. Shun Tanaka rounded out the podium in 3:51.23.
Numata’s new PB now renders him Japan’s 8th-swiftest performer in history, continuing his momentum from previously impressive performances. For instance, in May of this year, the teen fired off a time of 4:12.10 in the 400m IM, a mark which represented a new best for 16-and-under boys worldwide.
Sprint veterans Katsumi Nakamura and Shinri Shioura dove in for the men’s 50m freestyle tonight; however, neither was able to get to the wall first in the splash n’ dash.
Instead, it was Shuya Matsumoto who claimed gold in 22.06, leaving Nakamura and Shioura to earn the minonr medals. The former touched in 22.18 for silver while the latter hit 22.39 for bronze.
Finally, Yume Kamino was too quick to catch in the women’s 50m free, producing a gold medal-worthy result of 25.23.
That gave her the edge over Riru Kubota, albeit by a fingernail, as Kubota settled for silver in 25.29.
There was a tie for third place, with Ayu Mizoguchi and Ai Soma hitting the wall simultaneously in 25.42 to share bronze medal honors.
The IM duo of Numata and Kojima is genuinely ridiculous. Pair them with Ohashi and his breaststroke times and Japan is looking very dangerous down the road.
What are these japanese kids being fed?!?!
Shin Ohashi swam 58.58 (0.46 ts) the breast. leg in the 400 mixed junior relay and the other 16 year-old Yumeki Kojima 54.05 in the backstroke leadoff.
WOW!! Mind blowing fast from the young guns.