In preparation for the World Championships to be held in Fukuoka City in July, Arai Matsuri won the women's high diving tournament that also serves as the selection of the diving Japan national team, making a big step forward in the national team.
The Japan diving competition is held at the Tokyo Aquatics Center in Koto-ku, Tokyo along with the Japan Swimming Championships, and the top two finishers in the individual event are selected from the average score of the qualifying round and the final, and in the synchro event, the winner team is selected based on reference points set by the Japan Swimming Federation.
In the women's high diving, Arai, who placed sixth in this event at last year's World Championships, improved her score by scoring the 2B, which rotates three and a half times in a positive direction, in the second run of the final.
After that, Arai continued to show a steady performance without making any mistakes, and in the fifth and final run, he stepped backwards, performed two and a half somersaults and twisted one and a half times, and scored a one-and-a-half twist technique "6B" to win the championship with a total of 2.3.
Arai also surpassed the reference score, which is the standard for national team selection, and made great strides toward the World Championship squad.
Yoshiren Yamazaki took second place and Mai Yasuda took third place.
In addition, the men's and women's synchronized high diving was held as an open competition, and in the men's competition, the pair of Kai Kanedo and Hiiragi Okubo scored the top 107.5, and in the women's competition, only one pair participated, with the pair of Arai and Minami Itabashi exceeding the reference score by nearly 2 points with 1.5253.
Arai who won the championship "I was able to perform freely"
Matsuri Arai, who won the women's high diving event, went into the tournament with a stress fracture in her right leg last December and lost the amount of practice, so she said, "I was able to fly less than half as many as usual, so I was very worried and didn't know how to finish it, but I just wanted to do my best."
Regarding his performance in the final, he reflected, "I couldn't decide on my performance in the first run, but it was good that I was able to switch to the second one.
On top of that, he was enthusiastic for the World Championships in July, saying, "I always fail or fail to grasp in the wrong moments, so I want to make all five of them say that I am happy."