Rio de Janeiro Olympics Athletics Day Seven Japanese Results

by Brett Larner

Japan's top two decathletes, Suzuki Hamamatsu AC teammates Keisuke Ushiro and Akihiko Nakamura, wrapped up their Rio Olympics with good second day performances to move up through the rankings. 24th and 25th after the first day of competition, Ushiro advanced to 20th, just shy of the 8000 point mark. Nakamura won his 1500 m heat by over 10 seconds in 4:18.37 to pick up 823 points and move up to 22nd.

But the bigger news was in the men's 4x100 m heats, where the young Japanese team of Ryota Yamagata (Seiko), Shota Iizuka (Mizuno), Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) and Asuka Cambridge (Dome) lopped 0.35 seconds off the Japanese national record and 0.14 off China's minutes-old Asian record to win its heat in 37.68 over a Bolt-and Blake-less Jamaican squad. With the U.S.A. and Canada also not running some of their A-listers Japan's time ranked it 2nd going into the final just 0.03 behind the U.S. team. Anticipation is high for Japan's first sprint relay Olympic medal since Beijing.

Rio de Janeiro Olympics
Aug. 18, 2016
click here for complete results

Decathlon Final Standings
1. Ashton Eaton (U.S.A.) - 8893 - OR
2. Kevin Mayer (France) - 8834 - NR
3. Damian Warner (Canada) - 8666
-----
20. Keisuke Ushiro (Japan) - 7952
22. Akihiko Nakamura (Japan) - 7612

Men's 4x100 m Relay Heat Two
1. Japan - 37.68 - Q, AR
2. Jamaica - 37.94 - Q
3. Trinidad and Tobago - 37.96 - Q

© 2016 Brett Larner
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