The swimming competition of the National Athletic Meet was held in Utsunomiya City, and Mio Narita, a first-year high school student who won the gold medal in this event at the World Junior Championships, won the men's and women's B200m individual medley, setting a new personal best. .
The national polity, which will be held for the first time in three years due to the influence of the new coronavirus, will start some competitions as ``pre-event competitions'' from the 10th of this month before the opening on the 1st of next month, and the swimming race will start on the 17th. It was held in Utsunomiya city.
Of the competitions held on the 19th, the final day, the boys and girls B 200m individual medley final was won by Narita, who won the World Junior Championships held from the end of last month to this month, representing Tokyo. I participated.
By the 17th, Narita has participated in the boys' and girls' B 100-meter backstroke, 400-meter relay, and 400-meter medley relay, winning all of them.
The final on the 19th was the 8th race of the tournament, but Narita finished second in the first butterfly stroke, followed by powerful strokes in his favorite backstroke to take the lead.
Narita, who continued to pull away from the rest, improved his personal best by nearly one second with a time of 2 minutes 10.27 seconds, beating the 2nd place by about 4 seconds and winning the tournament with a new record.
Mio Narita "I was very surprised. It gave me confidence."
Narita said, "I felt like I was going freestyle, and I felt more tenacious than usual. I thought it would be nice if I could run 2 minutes and 10 seconds, but I'm really surprised that I managed to reach the first half of 10 seconds. It gave me confidence,” he recalled.
As for winning the 4th title at this year's event, he said, "I was happy to achieve my goal of winning 2 titles in the individual event, and I am very happy that I was able to win 2 titles in the relay with everyone's efforts." However, he seems to have been inspired by overseas athletes of the same generation at the World Junior Championships, etc., saying, "When I went to the world competition, there were many faster athletes. I want to do my best."