101st JAPAN SWIM
- Thursday, March 19th – Sunday, March 22nd
- Tokyo Aquatics Center
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- SwimSwam Preview
- Day 1 Recap/Day 2 Recap/Day 3 Recap
- Live Results
Japan’s oldest national record was finally taken down on the final night of action at the 101st Japan Swim, the competition which determines the nation’s Pan Pacific Championships and Asian Games roster.
22-year-old Ichika Kajimoto won the women’s 800m freestyle in a huge lifetime best of 8:23.11 to not only beat her competitors by over seven seconds but also eliminate the nation’s benchmark of 8:23.68 Sachiko Yamada has held for nearly 22 years, since the 2004 Japanese Championships.
Entering tonight’s main event, Kajimoto’s best-ever 8free performance checked in at the 8:26.02 put up at last year’s edition of this competition. That means she hacked nearly three seconds off that prior PB to become the fastest Japanese female in history.
Silver tonight went to Ruka Takezawa in 8:30.57 and Rin Matsuzaki earned bronze in 8:35.54.
Kajimoto now checks in as the 6th-swiftest performer worldwide on the season.
2025-2026 LCM Women 800 FREE
LEDECKY
8:08.57
| 2 | Summer MCINTOSH | CAN | 8:10.45 | 03/04 |
| 3 | Lani PALLISTER | AUS | 8:11.28 | 04/06 |
| 4 | Li Bingjie | CHN | 8:16.27 | 03/19 |
| 5 | Yang Peiqi | CHN | 8:19.53 | 03/19 |
As fast as Kajimoto was this evening, her time incredibly still fell short of the stiff selection standard of 8:22.20 the Japanese Swimming Federation (JASF) established for Pan Pac and Asian Games qualification. That is not only notably faster than the World Aquatics ‘A’ standard of 8:26.71 but it is also surpasses the former national record.
Kajimoto is a dual-discipline athlete, as she is an accomplished open water competitor who won gold in the 3k knockout sprints at the 2025 World Championships.
I didnt know Ledecky and McIntosh have already swum 8:04 and 8:05 this year.. i thiught those were their PB’s.. otherwise why is Lani listed as only 8:18
The time are wrong I think. If they are saying 3/4, its whatever they did at that last pro meet.
Maybe it’s mistakenly grabbing their seed times? They were 8:08.57 and 8:10.45
For some reason I thought the record would be from Ai Shibata due to her winning the gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics the same year. Does anybody know if Yamada swam that record time before or after the Olympics?
Before, it was at Japanese trials, she also became world SC champion later in 2004 and was SCM WR holder before Manaudou, but her Olympics was a disaster, she went PB+20s or something crazy in the 800 after being close to her best in the 400m.
How can someone break a national record as old as this and still have their federation think “that’s not enough for qualification”? Oh C’mon Japan Swimming, make it make sense.
probably because the time would be nowhere near medaling at world meets, though asain games dosnt make much sense as it would certainly have a fighting chance there.
Imagine if every federation around the world said that to relevant athletes……..there’d be no heats and just a swim between 5 people per event…..3 or 4 in the event of a Women’s 1500 ECT. Completely absurd attitude and very disrespectful to the fastest ever Japanese Woman over 800m in my opinion. We see what she can do when given a chance, referring to her World Champs success in Singapore.
I do agree, GB and Australia also do this and it leaves people at home who should compete. But they all go off this stupid “podium potential” thing I mentioned above
In addition to these 3 countries, I think there are another 3-4 European countries and I do not know how it is from other parts of the world that use their own Q-times that are faster than World Aquatics A-cuts.
If countries were not allowed to have Q-times faster than the A-cut there would probably several events where the time to make semifinals would be faster but the difference for Top 8 would probably be small and Top 3 (medals) would probably not be any difference or only in an event here and there every 3 OG cycles.