Yui Ohashi Reaches World Championship Standard at Japan Open

The second day of the Japan Open concluded on Friday with one new world championship qualifying performance.

In the women’s 400 IM, Yui Ohashi won in 4:33.81, a qualifying time for the world championships in Gwangju. But she was not a new qualifier, having reached that mark previously with a 4:33.02.

She was nearly nine seconds ahead of the field as Sakiki Shimizu finished second (4:42.68), followed by Ageha Tanigawa (4:43.81).

Here is what happened in the other events:

In the men’s 1500 free, Ayatsugi Hirai won in 15:01.52, followed by Atsuya Yoshida (15:10.97) and Syogo Takeda (15:11.47). The qualifying time is 14:54.47 for worlds.

In the women’s 50 breast, Reona Aoki won in 30.78, followed by Satomi Suzuki (30.86) and Misaki Sekiguchi (31.72). The qualifying time is 30.30.

In the men’s 50 breast, Yasuhiro Koseki won in 27.27, followed by Taku Taniguchi (27.57) and Hayato Watanabe (27.58). A 26.85 was needed to qualify for worlds.

In the women’s 200 free, Rio Shirai won in 1:57.06, followed by Chihiro Igarashi (1:57.91) and Tomomi Aoki (1:58.03).

In the men’s 200 free Katsuhiro Matsumoto won the even in 1:46.62, followed by Naito Ehara (1:47.88) and Jaehoon Yang of Korea (1:48.08). The Japanese automatic world qualifying time is 1:45.75, which Matsumoto already achieved earlier this year.

In the women’s 100 back, Natsumi Sakai won in 59.95, followed by Marina Furubayashi (1:00.50) and Anna Konishi (1:00.74). The qualifying time is 59.88.

In the men’s 100 back, Ryosuke Irie won in 53.90, followed by Masaki Kaneko (54.38) and Taishi Natsume (54.71). The qualifying time is 53.36 bur Irie has already been named to the roster in the 200 back and the medley relays.

The meet isn’t quite the same without Rikako Ikee, the star of last year’s Asian Games, who was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year.

But other top swimmers did their best to pick up the slack with some fast racing as Reona Aoki and Yasuhiro Koseki qualified for this summer’s world championships on the first day.

Check out what Yui Ohashi and the rest of the field did on Day 1.

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