Aya Terakawa dominates Women’s 100m backstroke semi-finals - Tatsumi International Pool, Tokyo
Aya Terakawa dominated the semi-finals of Women’s 100m backstroke on third day of the Tatsumi International Pool in Tokyo, Japan on Wednesday, April 4.
Terakawa remained in a significant lead over her challengers and cemented her place in the playoff as strongest contender for gold medal. With her alluring efforts and magnificent stroke, she was the only swimmer to clock a sub 1 minute effort in the discipline.
The Japanese veteran clocked an effort of 59.75 seconds to qualify into the final as fastest swimmer.
Her magnificent remained 0.70 seconds ahead of Shiho Sakai, who proved her eligibility for the second best position of the discipline by ending her swim in a time of 1 minute and 00.45 seconds.
Noriko Inada remained just 0.10 seconds slower from her former finisher and reached the playoff as third best finisher by clocking an effort of 1 minute and 00.55 seconds.
She was followed by Miyuki Takemura, who remained almost one second behind and reached the finishing wall with the timing of 1 minute and 01.41 seconds for fourth position.
Subsequently, the arena witnessed exhausting efforts of Mai Harada and Maho Tsujimoto, who tried to overpower each other for the fifth position of the discipline but ended in a joint finish with the timing of 1 minute and 01.85 seconds.
Next was the Women’s 200m butterfly semi-finals, where Natsumi Hoshi claimed top qualification spot of the race by completing her swim in a time of 2 minutes and 07.42 seconds.
Her tremendous effort remained almost three seconds ahead of Yuka Katou, who secured second best position of the discipline by hitting the wall with an effort of 2 minutes and 10.49 seconds.
Masami Uchikoshi and Hiroko Sugino failed to surpass each other for third position and hit the finishing wall with a same timing of 2 minutes and 10.89 seconds.
Nao Kobayashi was just 0.18 seconds behind the duo of third fastest finishers and settled on the wall as fifth fastest finisher with the timing of 2 minutes and 11.07 seconds.
Furthermore, the session ended after the completion of all events while these finalists will face each other in the playoff to secure top spot on the podium.
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