2025 JAPAN SWIM
The 2025 Japan Swim spanned Thursday, March 20th through Sunday, March 23rd and brought some of the best and brightest athletes to the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in the hopes of making the squad for this summer’s World Championships.
As a deviation from past years, the Japanese Swimming Federation (JASF) relaxed its qualification criteria for Singapore. Instead of historically stiffer standards than the World Aquatics ‘A’ standards, the JASF defaulted to those ‘A’ standards to represent the benchmarks athletes needed to surpass to make the grade.
When all was said and done, a total of 34 swimmers were named to the Japanese World Championships roster, including 19 men and 15 women.
The age range spans 17 years to 34 years, showing the depth and dedication of the Japanese top-tier contingent.
Newly minted High School National record-setter Tatsuya Murasa is just 17 years of age while 2024 Olympic finalist Satomi Suzuki is 34 years old.
Of note, Olympic medalist Daiya Seto is absent from the roster, his first time missing out on a World Championships lineup since 2013. We reported how the 30-year-old withdrew from the Japan Swim due to still feeling fallout from the broken rib he suffered last year.
Additionally, 2020 Olympic Games silver medalist in the 200m fly, Tomoru Honda, is missing. The 23-year-old placed well out of the top 2 in the men’s 200m fly but previously said he most likely would not swim in Singapore even if he had qualified.
We’ll keep an eye on the likes of 3-time Olympian Rikako Ikee, University of Tennessee commit Mizuki Hirai, Olympic finalist Mio Narita, mainstay 200m breast powerhouse Ippei Watanabe and more as they take on the world in Singapore.
Men’s Roster
Kazushi Imafuku
Yamato Fukasawa
Kosuke Makino
Katsuhiro Matsumoto
Tomoyuki Matsushita
Riku Matsuyama
Naoki Mizunuma
Tatsuya Murasa
Akira Namba
Asaki Nishikawa
Kodai Nishiono
Hidekazu Takehara
Taikan Tanaka
Taku Taniguchi
Takumi Terada
Genki Terakado
Ippei Watanabe
Toshinari Yanagisawa
Masaki Yura
Women’s Roster
Reona Aoki
Airi Ebina
Yasuki Fujimoto
Mizuki Hirai
Rikako Ikee
Nagisa Ikemoto
Ichika Kajimoto
Kotomi Kato
Waka Kobori
Shiho Matsumoto
Miyu Namba
Mio Narita
Satomi Suzuki
Miki Takahashi
Chiaki Yamamoto
AloJapan.com