2023 JAPAN INTER-COLLEGE CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Thursday, October 31st – Sunday, September 3rd
- Tokyo Aquatics Center
- LCM (50m)
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap
- Results (in Japanese)
The 2023 Japan Inter-College Championships rolled on with multiple Olympians diving into the Tokyo Aquatics Center pool.
Through 3 days of competition, the men’s team standings see Meiji University in the lead with 361 points while the women’s squads are led by Chukyo University who has amassed 262 points thus far.
Top 3 Men’s Squads Through Day 3
- Meiji – 361 pts
- Nihon – 303 pts
- Waseda 265 pts
Top 3 Women’s Squads Through Day 3
- Chukyo – 262 pts
- Kanagawa – 245 pts
- Hosei – 227 pts
Following up on her 800n free victory from earlier in the competition, 21-year-old Olympian Miyu Namba topped the women’s 400m free as well.
Namba got to the wall in an outing of 4:10.33 for the gold. Although that’s well off her lifetime best of 4:05.25 from last year’s World Championships Trials, it was enough to beat the field by over 3 seconds.
The men’s 200m IM winner is also a multi-medalist, as So Ogata got it done for gold in 1:57.49. The Nihon swimmer added this event to his 400m IM victory from earlier in the meet.
Ogata represented one of three sub-2:00 swimmers in the 2IM race, with Ikuru Hiroshima hitting 1:59.05 for silver while Kosuke Makino rounded out the top 3 in 1:59.51.
For 20-year-old Ogata, his effort this evening came within earshot of his lifetime best in the event. Ogata’s PB remains at the 1:57.02 turned in during the semi-finals of this year’s World Championships. In Fukuoka, Ogata placed 8th overall in the 2IM in a time of 1:57.82.
Shiho Matsumoto ripped a new lifetime best of 2:10.95 to take the women’s edition of the 200m IM. Her time cleared the field by over 3 seconds, coming just over half a second within range of the meet record of 2:10.31.
Matsumoto remains Japan’s 10th-swiftest performer all-time in this event.
Chukyo’s women’s 4x100m medley relay also came within striking distance of the meet record, with the combination of Tomoko Takeba, Kyoko Yoshida, Hiroshita Natsuki and Yume Jinno collectively clocking a result of 4:01.73.
Takeba led off in 1:01.40 while Yoshida kept up the moment with a 1:08.59 breast split. Natsuki logged 57.51 on the fly leg before Jinno sealed the deal with an anchor of 54.23 on freestyle.
Another notable split came from Nagisa Ikemoto on the runner-up team of Kanto Chuo University. Ikemoto put up a final leg of 53.75 as the sole sub-54-second swimmer of the field. Ikemoto topped both the women’s 100m and 200m freestyle races at this competition.
On the men’s 4x100m medley relay, Meiji University’s quartet of Riku Matsuyama (54.20), So Kojima (1:00.38), Yoshinori Narushima (51.89) and Tomonobu Gomi (48.80) got the job done in a combined effort of 3:35.27. That fell just .27 outside of the 3:35.00 meet record mark in the event.
Other notable splits came from Olympic silver medalist Tomoru Honda, who registered 51.08 on fly while Kosuke Yanagimoto produced an anchor of 48.60 for Nihon.
The men’s 100m breaststroke winner here, Taku Taniguchi, posted 59.30 for breaststroke on the bronze medal-earning squad from Chukyo. Taikan Tanaka hit 48.61 as teh anchor on Waseda’s team.
Additional Winners
- Yoshimitsu Hideno of Kanagawa University touched in 1:00.40 to take the women’s 100m back.
- Meiji’s Taiki Yanagawa got it done for gold in the men’s 100m back in 53.86.
- The men’s 400m free saw Shui Kurokawa just out-touch 1500m freestyle winner here Kazuki Imoto. Kurokawa produced a time of 3:50.00 while Imoto settled for silver in 3:50.24.
