The Japanese teenager Shin Ohashi said a bout of Covid helped him smash the men’s 200m breaststroke world record in a time of 2min 4.83sec at the Asian Games on Thursday. The 17-year-old won his second gold of the Games in Tokyo despite running a temperature of about 39C just days before the competition began. The win continued his stunning rise in the sport and marked him out as the man to beat at the Los Angeles Olympics in two years’ time.
Ohashi said his illness had been a blessing in disguise after cutting more than half a second off the previous world record, held by China’s Qin Haiyang, which had stood since July 2023. I think that was a good thing.” Ohashi had already won the 100m breaststroke gold this week in Tokyo after a dead heat with China’s Dong Zhihao. He will try to make it a hat-trick when he swims in Friday’s 50m breaststroke.
Ohashi took control from the off in the 200m final and from then it was a race against the clock. He finished 3.84sec faster than the silver medallist Denis Petrashov of Kyrgyzstan. The “Frog King” won the 100m-200m double at the 2004 Athens Olympics and repeated the feat four years later in Beijing.
Ohashi said he was “watching all the other swimmers and trying to learn from them”. He continued: “I don’t really have any heroes, I think all swimmers are fantastic. But in terms of achievements, Kitajima is the one I would like to emulate most.”
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