The 21-year-old Japanese won each of the three rounds of the women’s 3k knockout race, putting herself in contention as one of the international contenders moving forward.
Japan’s Ichika Kajimoto successfully bided her time in winning the women’s 3k knockout sprint event on the last day of the World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup stop in Setúbal, Portugal.
Kajimoto paced herself to perfection, winning the 1500m and 1000m rounds, before out-sprinting the likes of open water veterans Caroline Jouisse and Lea Boy. Kajimoto swam 6:41.60 to win the last 500m ahead of France’s Jouisse (6:43.50) and Germany’s Boy (6:44.40).
"I’m happy and it was an exciting race"
Kajimoto was the national champion in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle earlier this year at the Japan National Championships and has never won a medal at a global event. Kajimoto has competed at the World Juniors in 2022 as well as the World Aquatics Championships in Doha 2024, but this is just her third appearance at the World Cup.
Boy, the winner from Ibiza, tried to control the pace in the final, replicating her strategy from the last World Cup, but Kajimoto was not having it, perfecting her line and each turn. Although the conditions were a bit more wavy than the men’s race, Kajimoto’s smooth and controlled stroke played to her advantage.
“Yeah, it's a nice new format,” Boy said. “We like to swim it this way and not only 10k round for round, for round. It's a little bit more special.
“The course here is a little bit different to the other site. We don't have very (many) waves this time, so it was very nice. And the sun was out, so the water was cold, but with the sun it's okay.”
The temperature of the water was up to 20 degrees Celsius during the women’s race as opposed to the 18.5 it was for the men. Even with a later start time than usual of 2:00 p.m. the water was a bit chilly, favouring the swimmers with more short-hand speed.
Boy and Kajimoto shared the podium in Ibiza in April, with the German winning and the Japanese in third.
Jouisse, the bronze medallist from the 10k yesterday, upgraded to silver today, her first of such colour individually at the World Cup.
“I'm really happy about the ten kilometres and I always want to perform in the ten kilometre because that's the Olympic event,” Jouisse said. “So, that's my main focus. The three kilometre is new, so I'm discovering it every time and I try a new strategy every time. So, it didn't work out in Ibiza, it worked out in the national and it worked out today as well. So, I'm kind of glad because every time I did something different.”
Rising American star Brinkleigh Hansen (6:47.00) just missed the podium in fourth, and she will be making her senior international debut this summer at the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore at age 15. Since 2001, the United States has always had a breakout high school girl on the Worlds team the year after the Olympics, and Hansen appears to be the next one after she was world junior champion last year in the 5k at age 14.
Monaco’s Lisa Pou (6:49.10) also competed in the final in fifth, ahead of China’s Tian Muran (6:51.90) and Great Britain’s Ella Dyson (6:52.80).
Japan’s Airi Ebina (6:53.90), Spain’s Angela Martinez Guillen (6:54.00 and Portugal’s Mafalda Rosa (7:05.20) also competed in the final.
The attention now shifts to the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore on July 15 with the women’s 10K.
“Training, training, training,” Boy said of what is next before the World Championships. “We stay at home and go six days before the first race to Singapore, and now it's just time for training.”
The final World Aquatics Open Water Swimming World Cup race will be in Golfo Aranci, Italy, on October 10 & 11.
Contributing: Lydia Ferrari Kehoe