Without a breaststroke race on day 2 of the Japanese National Sports Festival, nothing was likely to live up to the fireworks we saw on day 1, where 18-year old Akihiro Yamaguchi broke the World Record in the 200 breast.
But things didn’t slow much as the meet rolled into the 400 IM, where Japan has recently discovered that they are the holders of the best young IM group in the world.
18-year olds Daiya Seto and Olympic bronze medalist in the event Kosuke Hagino squared off in the race, but surprisingly it was the mildly-less-heralded Seto who led this race wire-to-wire. Aside from the backstroke leg, Seto was dominant in about every part of this IM aside from the backstroke (where Hagino briefly took the lead at the turn) and rushed home to a new Meet Record in 4:10.10: his personal best and the 6th-best in the World this year.
Hagino was 2nd in 4:13.41; since London, he hasn’t been able to really approach the 2:08 that earned him a medal, but to repeat 4:13’s and 4:14’s as many times as he has since is still quite a feat.
In other big swims, Shoko Tanabe, Haruka Ueda, Yuka Kato and Mai Harada from Tokyo swam a 1:41.61 in the women’s 200 free relay to break a Japanese National Record (averaging 25.4’s) in an event that is rarely swum on full tapers. Kenji Konagaya also broke the Meet Record in the men’s 100 free in 48.99: another Japanese sprinter who seems to be teetering on the verge of a breakthrough with this best time.
