Ryosuke Irie

He won a silver medal in the 200 metre backstroke and a bronze in the 100 metre backstroke at the 2012 Summer Olympics, along with a silver in the men's 4 × 100 m medley with the Japanese team. His beautiful backstroke technique has often been compared to Roland Matthes, who was described as the Rolls-Royce of swimming.

He swam the 200 meter backstroke in a Japanese record time of 1:52.86 on May 10, 2009 in a Japan-Australia swimming contest held in Canberra. Even though the time was lower than the world record, his time was rejected by FINA, swimming's international governing body, because he did not wear an approved suit. Japan's swimming federation did approve the record, however, along with several others in which Japanese swimmers wore unapproved suits that were later ruled to yield an unfair advantage. Irie's time would have sliced a massive 1.08 seconds off the 200 meter record set by American Ryan Lochte when he won gold at the Beijing Olympics. The high-tech swimsuit, which is made by Japanese sport wear manufacture Descente (who owns Arena), was not approved by FINA in a meeting held on May 20, 2009, and was called for modifications along with other 136 models. In the same meet, he swam a time of 52.56, which was only 0.02 seconds off the world record of Aaron Peirsol, set at the Olympic Games the previous year. With an approved suit, Irie won the silver, Lochte the bronze and Aaron Piersol won gold in the 200m backstroke at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome later that year. Irie's time of 1:52.51 was a new Asian record, and the second fastest in the history of 200m backstroke.

In August 2007, he attended his first world swimming competition, International Swim Meet 2007 held in Chiba, Japan. On August 22, he beat the previous high school record in 100 m backstroke with the time of 54.07 s. The next day, he beat another high school record in 200 m backstroke with the time of 1:57.03.

In 2005 he won the national high school championships in 200 meter backstroke when he was a first year grade student. He made new high school student record in Japanese national championships in April 2006. He narrowly missed the entry for FINA World Aquatics Championships of that year. He won a gold medal with the time of 1:58.85 in 200 m backstroke at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar.

Ryosuke Irie (入江 陵介 , Irie Ryōsuke, born 24 January 1990) is a Japanese competitive swimmer who competes in backstroke events. He is a Kinki University student in Osaka.

Ryosuke Irie is credited with having the most graceful and effective backstroke technique in the world. Before, he did a lot of backstroke training with a water bottle on his head (Invented by East Carolina University Swim and Dive, 1990's), to ensure that his head is very steady, and to maintain the smoothness of his stroke. Irie has paid a lot of attention to achieving a perfect technique from a young age, which is why despite his small size in comparison to other world-class backstrokers, he can still attain great results. While he did not medal at the Rio 2016 games his training continues as he hopes to win gold in his home country at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.