Japan Swim 2010 Recap

The Japanese nationals have produced some outstanding swims and not all of them from the swimmers you would expect.

My star of the meet

Ryo Tateishi



A clean sweep of the Breaststroke events was expected at this competition, but Kosuke Kitajima was the man tipped for the feat. Instead Ryo Tateishi took the honours in the 50m, 100m and 20m Breast. In doing so he vaulted himself to the top of the world rankings in the 100m and 200m and into the consciousness of world swimming.

Tateishi's times were as follows - 50m - 27.62 (third in the world this year), 100m - 59.84 (first in the world), 200m - 2:09.21 (first in the world).

With the exception of the 200m, where the double-double Olympic champion had a poor second half of the race, Tateishi beat an in-form Kitajima.

Kitajima has long flown the flag alone for male Japanese breaststrokers, but he now has some serious company. It should drive both men onto great things in the next few years.