The 18th Asian Games rolls on in Indonesia, with excellent swimming competition in Jakarta, including a monumental medal haul from Japan’s Rikako Irie.
With a gold in the women’x 4×100 m Medley Relay, she now has – with one day of swimming still to go – seven medals in all and five golds. That total of seven is second only to North Korean shooter Gin Man So (8: 7-1-0) from 1982 and ties Irie with seven others. The five golds is second only to So and is also tied with seven others. But she’s not done.
More highlights from the pool:
Men’s 200 m Backstroke: China’s Jiayu Xu won his third gold, sweeping the 50-100-200 m Backs, this time in 1:53.99, moving him to third on the world list for 2018. He finished well ahead of Ryosuke Irie (JPN: 1:55.11) and Keita Sunama (JPN: 1:55.54), but they moved to nos. 4-5 on the year list.
For Irie, it’s his 13th career Asian Games medal!
Men’s 100 m Breaststroke: Japan’s Yasuhiro Koseki completed a 100-200 m Breaststroke double, landing at no. 3 on the 2018 world list at 58.86, an Asian Games Record.
Men’s 100 m Butterfly: Singapore’s Joseph Schooling became the first swimmer to win an event who was not from China or Japan! He started with a successful defense of his title in the 100 m Butterfly, winning in an Asian Games record 51.04. That’s no. four on the world list for 2018.
Schooling came back on Thursday to win the 50 m Freestyle in 23.61.
Men’s 400 m Medley: Japan’s Daiya Seto and Kosuke Hagino went 1-2 in 4:08.79 and 4:10.30, placing them no. 2 and no. 4 on the world list for 2018, with Americans Chase Kalisz (4″07.95) and Jay Litherland (4:10.21) at nos. 1 and 3.
Women’s 200 m Butterfly: An impressive win by Yufei Zhang (CHN) in the no. 3 time for 2018, an Asian Games record of 2:06.61.
The swimming finishes on Friday; the track & field action starts on Saturday (25th).
Through the first five days of overall competition, China leads with 116 medals (55-40-21) to 86 for Japan (25-28-33) and 64 for Korea (17-20-27). Next best is Iran with 27 (10-9-8).
Behind Ikee as individual multi-medalists is Chinese swimmer Jaiyu Xu with four golds (4-0-0); swimmers Junxuan Yang (CHN: 2-2-1), Yang Sun (CHN: 3-2-0) and Japan’s Natsumi Sakai (JPN: 3-1-1) have five total medals.
