Shin Ohashi Improves Standing As Fastest 16-Year-Old 200 Breaststroker With 2:08.89

2025 MARE NOSTRUM – CANET

• Saturday, May 24th & Sunday, May 25th
• Prelims at 9am local (3am ET)/Finals at 5:30pm local (11:30am ET)
• Canet, France
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• Entries
• Day 1 Finals Recap | Day 1 Finals Recap
• Day 2 Prelims Recap | Day 2 Finals Recap
• Live Results

Shin Ohashi continued to improve his standing as the fastest 16-year-old 200-meter breaststroker in history during the final session of the 2025 Mare Nostrum Swim Tour in Canet. Ohashi improved on the 2:09.04 he swam in Barcelona with a blistering 2:08.89, beating Kirill Prigoda for gold in Canet and breaking 2:09 for the first time.

Ohashi was behind at the halfway point of the race after opening with a 1:02.23, but came home in 1:06.66 to get his hands on the wall ahead of both Prigoda and his former lifetime best. The swim is a .15 second improvement from the 2:09.04 he swam in Barcelona.

Ohashi switched up his race strategy from the Barcelona meet earlier this week. Instead of pushing the pace on the opening 100 meters, Ohashi pressed his back half. He was well behind his Barcelona pace at the 100-meter mark, but his 33.58 on the third 50 was nearly three-tenths faster than it was a few days ago.

He was still behind his Barcelona pace at the final 50, but a 33.08 closing split powered him ahead of his days-old lifetime best. That split was a .76 second improvement from Barcelona.

All-Time Top 5 Male 16-Year-Old 200 Breaststrokers (LCM)

1. Shin Ohashi, Japan – 2:08.89 (2025)
2. Josh Matheny, United States – 2:09.40 (2019)
3. Ippei Miyamoto, Japan – 2:10.51 (2016)
4. Daniel Gyurta, Hungary – 2:10.75 (2004)
5. Matthew Wilson, Australia – 2:11.23 (2015)

Ohashi first took over as the fastest 16-year-old in history at the Japanese Nationals in March. There, he swam a 2:09.35, which put him five-hundredths ahead of Josh Matheny’s gold medal performance at the 2019 World Junior Championships. Ohashi’s swim in March to take over the rankings wasn’t a lifetime best though. He swam 2:09.22 last November as a 15-year-old. He has dropped .33 seconds since then.

Ohashi remains the seventh-fastest male 200 breaststroker in the global rankings this season and inches closer to Prigoda, who ranks sixth with the 2:08.38 he swam earlier this week at the Barcelona stop on the Mare Nostrum tour. Though Ohashi ranks top 10 in the world this season, three of the six men ahead of him are his countrymates. And with Japan’s World Championships qualification meet already past, he will not compete at the 2025 World Championships in Singapore. However, he has asserted himself as the favorite for the World Junior Championships if he chooses to compete there.

Yesterday, Ohashi won silver in the 100 breaststroke with a blazing 59.88, improving from the fifth-place finish he earned in Barcelona with a 1:00.55.