After having to cancel the Japanese Long Course Championships due to the earthquake and tsunami catastrophe, the Japanese swimming federation still managed to put together a high qualify Shanghai 2011 trials meet in Hamamatsu.
Yosuke Miyamoto became the first Japanese to swim under 15:00 in the men’s 1500 freestyle, with a 14:57.56, compared to Ryoji Sononaka’s 15:04.91 back in 2009.
Natsumi Hoshi dropped the national record in the women’s 200 butterfly with a 2:06.05, where Yuko Nakanishi’s record from 2008 was 2:06.38.
Haruka Ueda managed a 1:57.37 in the women’s 200 free, where her national record from 2009 was one hundredth of a second slower, 1:57.38.
There were also three world’s best this year, with Takeshi Matsuda beating out Michael Phelps himself with a 1:54.12 in the 200 butterfly, compared to Phelps’ 1:55.34 from the Indy Grand Prix. Aya Terakawa set a world’s best this year in the 100 back with a 59.17, compared to Belinda Hockings’ 59.55 from earlier this week. And Kosuke Kitajima set a world’s best in the 100 breaststroke with a 59.44, beating out Yuta Suenaga’s 59.93 from Tokyo in February.
And this was only the first day of the meet.
Read more here on SwimmingWorld Magazine.
