Japan’s 17-year-old swimmer Ohashi targets breaststroke world record at Asian Games

TOKYO – Japan’s 17-year-old Shin Ohashi is aiming to break the men’s 200-metre breaststroke world record of 2min 5.48sec at the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

“Competing at home makes it easier to target a record,” said Ohashi, who is set to compete in the 50-, 100- and 200m breaststroke events.

Ohashi drew attention at a regional high school championship in July 2025 when he clocked 2:06.91 in the 200m breaststroke, the third-fastest time ever by a Japanese swimmer at the time.

At the Japan national championships in March, Ohashi marked a personal-best 2:06.59 in the 200m, the second-fastest time ever by a Japanese swimmer, and completed a sweep of the three breaststroke events.

However, he expressed frustration with the result and voiced his determination to break the world record.

Ohashi reviewed his race strategy after losing steam late in a race and finishing with a bronze in the 200m at the Pan Pacific Championships in August, his first major senior international meet.

He is now training with the goal of turning in the mid-1:00 range and swimming each of the remaining two 50-metre laps in the low 32s. Such a performance would put him in the 2:05 range, a threshold no Japanese swimmer has ever broken.

Japanese legend Kosuke Kitajima, who won consecutive Olympic gold medals in both the 100m and 200m breaststroke in 2004 and 2008, set a then-world record at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, at the age of 20.

Ohashi hopes to follow in Kitajima’s footsteps at the latest Asian Games, where the swimming competition will be held in Tokyo.

“I want to perform the race the way I want to,” he said. KYODO NEWS