Asian rivalry burning brighter
The rivalry between Chinese and Japanese swimmers at the shortcourse world championships foreshadows an intense pool battle at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Tuesday’s opening night of the 25m worlds in Hangzhou provided no shortage of thrills with a string of world and continental records shattered, but it was the battle between the host and its main Asian rival that stole the show in and out of the pool.
At the center of the spotlight was Japanese men’s medley specialist Daiya Seto, who edged South Africa’s Chad Le Clos and China’s Li Zhuhao to set a new short-course world record of 1min, 48.24sec in the 200m butterfly.
To focus on the 200 fly, Seto gave up the 200 individual medley scheduled in the same session, which was won by Chinese star Wang Shun. But the 24-year-old native of Moroyama in central Japan vowed to try to make up for it in his strength event, the 400 IM, on Saturday.
“I always want to break the record at any meet I enter, so I will try to do it again in the 400 IM,” said Seto, a two-time long-course 400 IM world champion (2013 and 2015).
“It’s a pity that I missed the 200 IM; hopefully I can have another head-to-head fight with Wang in the event at the next competition.”
Wang, also a medley swimmer having registered for the 400 IM in Hangzhou, rose to the challenge without hesitation.
“Seto is a strong competitor. A race against him is always exciting and usually brings out the best in me,” said Wang, who became the first Chinese man to defend a shortcourse world title with the 200 IM victory.
“I will try to improve my form and put out my best performance to race against him in the 400.”
The rivalry between China and Japan has been pushing swimmers on both sides to train harder heading into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
At the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea, Japan’s Kosuke Hagino stunned China’s heavily favored Sun Yang to snare gold in the 200m freestyle.
Hagino then led Japan past China to finish first in the 4x200 free relay, stoking what Sun later described as a “healthy motivation” for both sides.
After losing to Japan again by 0.28 seconds in the 4x200 free relay at the Asian Games in Jakarta in August, Sun said to outperform the Japanese on their home soil in 2020 is the “ultimate goal” of Team China.
The rivalry intensified at the Asiad, with China and Japan each winning 19 gold medals and 38 of the 41 golds up for grabs.
To prepare for the Hangzhou meet, last month a group of Japanese swimmers, including national 50 and 100m free record holder Katsumi Nakamura, flew to Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan province, to improve their aerobic endurance at a high-altitude camp — a training method Team China routinely adopts for major meets.
“The Japanese team appears very ambitious to dominate the pool at the Tokyo Olympics, which actually helps fire up our athletes to prepare to their best as well,” said national team manager Cheng Hao.
“We are confident we will live up to the challenge and we will try to beat our opponents in all our strength events.”