HAGINO Kosuke

General
DROPPING 400M MEDLEY
In early 2021, he decided that he would not defend the 400m individual medley gold he won at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, where he will concentrate on the 200m individual medley. "I decided to aim for the Olympics in an event where I can fight the world now. I don't know if that's 100% correct, but I chose to focus on the 200m individual medley event because I thought it was the right choice, and I've been practising with that in mind. Of course, I'm aiming for a medal and first place, but I want to prove things to myself more than anything else at the Olympics." (nhk.or.jp, 08 Apr 2021)

BUTTERFLY STRUGGLES
In February 2021 he introduced stretching and athletics into his training routine to strengthen his left abdominal muscles, which he felt were affecting his butterfly style and his overall stamina in individual medley. "For the past few years [speaking in 2021], the butterfly, the first stroke in an individual medley race, has been an issue. I couldn't swim as I expected, and I wasted my physical strength in the early stages of the race, and the race stalled in the second half. As a consequence, I sometimes only swam butterfly all day long in training because I felt that, if I didn't do it, it wouldn't get any faster. But there were days when it got worse the more I did and, then, I finally found the key to unlock the door. When I was checking the movements of my body with my trainer, we noticed that the left abdominal muscles were weaker than the right ones, so they were not able to lift my body straight, which affected my swimming. We repeated steady training with the aim of balancing the left and right muscles. I showed up in the pool one hour earlier and spent a limited time doing stretching and athletics training and, little by little, the movement in my butterfly has improved." (nhk.or.jp, 02 Apr 2021)

DEPRESSION BATTLE
In March 2019 he had a three-month break from swimming due to depression and did not participate in that year's world championships in Gwangju, People's Republic of Korea. He also believes that the break would have affected his performance at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo had the Games not been postponed. "I had started to dislike swimming and I even hated getting in the water [in 2019]. Even if I was practising hard, I couldn't get the results I wanted in competitions and I experienced extreme depression. Physically and mentally I went back to point zero. I've been swimming since I was little, and I had never had a long rest, aside from injuries. But I was able to confirm the meaning of swimming to me by moving away from it and I decided to go again. I think it would have been a little tough for me if the Olympics in Tokyo hadn't been postponed. I would have had less of a chance of winning gold and there is still room for improvement. But what I do know is that if I swim at my best, no one will beat me." (france24.com, 08 Apr 2021; japantimes.co.jp, 25 Jan 2020; swimswam.com, 02 Jan 2020, 01 Sep 2019; nikkansports.com, 03 Dec 2020, 26 Jul 2020; number.bunshun.jp, 11 Jun 2019)

HEALTH ISSUE
He was diagnosed with a life-endangering liver abnormality in January 2018 and received three weeks of treatment in hospital before returning to competition in April 2018. "I was told, 'It's really bad and, if you carry on swimming with it, you'll die'." (nikkansports.com, 26 Jul 2020)