Kosuke Kitajima

Kosuke Kitajima
Personal information
Surname:	Kosuke Kitajima
Nation:	Japan
Swimming style (s) :	chest
Society:	Longhorn Aquatics
Birthday:	22nd September 1982
Place of birth:	Tokyo
Size:	1.76 m
Medal table

Kōsuke Kitajima ( Japanese北島 康 介Kitajima Kōsuke ; born September 22, 1982 in Tokyo ) is a Japanese swimmer.

Career

Kitajima is one of the world's best breaststroke swimmers. His international career in classic chest style began at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney when he finished fourth in the 100 m chest. His breakthrough came in 2002 at the Asian Championships when he was able to improve the twenty-year-old world record in the 200 m chest.

When he won gold medals in the 100 and 200 m breasts at the 2003 World Swimming Championships in Barcelona , he grew up to be a superstar in his homeland, Japan. Equipped with advertising contracts worth millions, he started the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens with great expectations of his Japanese fans and became one of the superstars of the Games with two Olympic victories in the 100 and 200 m breaststroke. There was also the bronze medal in the 4 × 100 m individual medley, where he was the guarantee for winning a medal in his chest discipline. At the 2005 World Swimming Championships in Montreal , he won the silver medal over 100 m breaststroke behind the American Brendan Hansen . At the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 Kitajima was again Olympic champion in the 100 m and 200 m chest and won the bronze medal in the 4 × 100 m medley with the Japanese relay. Four years later at the Summer Olympics in London Kitajima could not win an individual medal (5th place over 100 m chest, 4th place over 200 m chest). With the tier relay, however, he won silver behind the United States.

Records

Personal best

Long track

• 100 m chest - 00: 58.91 min (August 11, 2008 in Beijing )
• 200 m chest - 02: 07.51 min (June 6, 2008 in Tokyo )

Short course

• 100 m chest - 00: 57.95 min (February 26, 2005 in Tokyo )
• 200 m chest - 2:06:06 min (January 17, 2004 in Berlin )

Web links

• Kosuke Kitajima in the database of Swimrankings.net (English)
• Kōsuke Kitajima in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )