2019 TOKYO OPEN
- Thursday, November 21st – Sunday, November 24th
- Tatsumi International Swimming Center, Tokyo, Japan
- LCM
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap/Day 4 Recap
- Results (in Japanese)
25-year-old Daiya Seto is going anything but resting on his laurels since claiming two World Championships titles this summer in Gwangju, Korea. His 200m IM and 400m IM victories at that competition earned Seto automatic Olympic berths for the 2020 Games in his home nation, but that hasn’t stopped the man from still staying on his ‘A’ game.
Case-in-point, Seto raced his way to 2 new personal bests over the weekend at the inaugural Tokyo Open. In the 200m breaststroke, Seto pumped out a monster mark of 2:08.98 to hack more than a second off of his previous career-quickest in this off-event for the ANA swimmer.
To conclude the meet, Seto produced another lifetime best, this time in the 200m IM. Hitting the wall with a result of 1:55.98, Seto joined an exclusive club of sub-1:56 swimmers, of which the only other Japanese swimmer to be a member is national record holder Kosuke Hagino.
Comprised of splits of 24.89/54.01/1:27.26/1:55.98, Seto’s gold medal-worthy performance at the Tokyo Open overtook his previous lifetime best was represented by the 1:56.14 logged for gold at this year’s World Championships.
Check out how Seto made that 1:55.98 time happen, via the spectator-filmed video of his race below.
https://twitter.com/1matsuzakasedai/status/1199071320836755456?s=12
There’s elevator music playing and like 3 people cheering at a mid season meet and he goes 1:55.9. Can you imagine what he’ll do at the Olympics in front of a home country*? Danger ahead…
*literally anything can happen in the months leading up to the Olympics
Butterfly and breaststroke legs are his strengths, with backstroke and freestyle a little weaker. Free split was 28.72.
He could be caught on the freestyle if someone can keep up with him through the first three legs. He looks in top form in this race.
Litherland almost did last summer
If there were a 450 LCM IM, Litherland would win gold. He just waits too long to start back-halfing it.
You are right, Jay almost ran him down. Seto can swim free well….his 400 free is faster than Chase’s and probably similar to Jay’s. The difference is Jay goes out with less effort on fly and Seto works it harder…..
A huge time for November — I think we can expect big performances from Seto, Hagino and other Japanese swimmers at their home Olympics
Chase is probably shaking in his boots
Chase hasn’t shown any reason to believe he’ll be in the running for the win, especially in the 200 IM. Plus, he just got run down badly by Seli in the 400 SCM IM. Yet another bad sign for his 400 IM. I think there’s a good chance he doesn’t make the U.S. team for the 200 IM.
Lochte and Andrew?
He is a warrior! Nice how the videographer caught pretty much all the swimmers rather than simply zooming in in Seto the whole time.
Wow. And he might be able find a.bit more room to drop. Looks like he might have been a bit off on his back to breast turn — hard to tell, but he looked a bit too close to the wall.