Monday 17 September 2012

New World Record: Akihiro Yamaguchi Sets New Mark in 200m Breaststroke (With Video)



Get used to this name... Akihiro Yamaguchi. You should be hearing plenty more from him in the coming years.

After a stunning 2:07.01 at the Japan Open, the 18-year-old is now the fastest man to ever swim the 200 breaststroke long course. His last 50m was particularly impressive, splitting nearly a second faster than Daniel Gyurta's closing 50m in his Olympic winning and previous world record time of 2:07.28.

Japan has incredible depth in the 200 breast with 9 men in the world top 50, and now they have someone sitting on the top of the world pile. Talk about picking up Kosuke Kitajima's mantle and running with it.

Unfortunately John Leonard couldn't be reached for comment, otherwise we would know what illegitimate steps Yamaguchi took to finish his race off so well.

3 comments:

  1. I'm not completely sure why, but his stroke reminds me of Rebecca Soni

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  2. How about the flutter kick he takes off the wall as an illegitimate step? Can see it off the 100 wall when the camera is behind the blocks. Occurs just before camera switches. Would like to see an underwater video of that.

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  3. How so? Rebecca Soni doesn't seem to come out of the water so much, and her face is down. Something else worth noting is that her hands come together mid-recovery as opposed to before starting her recovery.

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