Double Olympic breaststroke champion Kosuke Kitajima salvaged his pride on the final day of the national swimming championships Sunday, rebounding from a pair of losses to stretch his winning streak in the 100 meters.
Hanae Ito reacts after winning the women's 200-meter backstroke event in a national-record 2:09.15 on the final day of the national swimming
championships at Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming
Center.
Kitajima took the lead by nearly 0.50 second at the halfway stage and went on to claim his seventh straight 100-meter national title with a time of 1 minute, 0.71 second, finishing 0.35 ahead of runnerup Makoto Yamashita.
"I'm relieved that I got a ticket for the national team in the very end," Kitajima said after his victory in the final breaststroke event of the four-day championships at Tokyo Tatsumi International Swimming Center.
"The results at this national meet showed that I still have a lot of things to learn and I'm determined to make a comeback come this summer," Kitajima said, looking toward the Pan-Pacific Championships in Canada in August.
The Athens Olympic champion in the 100 and 200 slumped to fourth in the 200 final on Thursday before missing a sixth consecutive title in the 50 with a second-place finish on Saturday.
In other events, Hanae Ito won her first crown in three years in the women's 200-meter backstroke in a national-record 2:09.15, beating Olympic bronze medal winner Reiko Nakamura into second place by 0.90.
Another national record was set when Takeshi Matsuda clocked 7:55.11 in winning the men's 800-meter freestyle.
Tomomi Morita completed a men's backstroke treble with a 200-meter victory in 1:58.79, while 27-year-old veteran Takashi Yamamoto claimed his 10th title in the men's 100-meter butterfly in 52.53.
Yuko Nakanishi topped the field in the women's 100-meter butterfly in 58.93 and Yoshimi Miwa emerged victorious in the women's 100-meter breaststroke in 1:08.72.