2024 JAPANESE OLYMPIC TRIALS
It was a shocker of a day for the men’s 400m IM at the Japanese Olympic Trials.
First, favorite medal Tomoru Honda missed out on making the final entirely. During this morning’s heats, the 22-year-old Honda clocked a time of 4:16.97. That was well off the 4:09.98 personal best he put on the books last December to render him 10th and out of the top 8.
Then, during tonight’s final, 13-time world champion Daiya Seto missed hitting the Japanese Swimming Federation (JASF)-mandated qualification time of 4:10.63 needed for Paris.
18-year-old Tomoyuki Matsushita upstaged Seto this evening. Carrying a final 100m free of 56.71, Matsushita got to the wall first in 4:10.04, a new lifetime best. Seto touched nearly a second later in 4:10.84, a result .19 shy of the QT.
Seto has proven on multiple occasions he is more than capable of producing the QT. He owns a lifetime best of 4:06.09 from 2020 and possesses 6 of the top 10 Japanese performances of all time.
At last year’s JPN World Championships Trials, Seto put up a 4:07.92 scorer. He then hit a result of 4:09.41 to achieve bronze in Fukuoka.
Seto still has an Olympic qualification opportunity in the men’s 200m IM, an event in which is ranked 9th in the world with a season-best 1:57.54, a time already within .03 of the 1:57.51 QT.