Asian Junior Championships Day Four Highlights

Japan capped the final day of its role as host nation for the Asian Junior Athletics Championships with a pair of championships records that erased marks set by China way back in that nation’s 90’s heyday.

Nozomi Tanaka, newly-graduated from high school and opting for the club runner life like her mother, sub-2:30 amateur Chihiro Tanaka, got the party started with a 9:04.36 record in the girls’ 3000 m that took almost 6 seconds off Li Xin Lan’s 1997 mark. Her high school and club teammate Yuna Wada wasn’t far off Lan’s old record with a 9:14.13 for silver more than 20 seconds ahead of China’s Fan Liu.

The Japanese girls’ 4x400 m likewise took down a Chinese record set in 1997, running 3:38.20 for gold. India and Sri Lanka were a distant 2nd and 3rd, with China nowhere to be found in the final. One member of Japan’s 4x400 m squad, Kasumi Yoshida, doubled after winning an individual gold in the 400 m hurdles earlier in the day in 58.43. Her teammate Natsumi Murakami missed silver by 0.04, finishing just behind Taiwan’s Jui Hsuan Yang 58.89 to 58.92.

Karin Odama rounded out the day’s girls’ medal haul with a gold in the heptathlon, scoring 5133. The only event of the day in which Japanese girls didn’t take gold was the 200 m, where Yanan Tao of China took the top spot in 24.01. Japan’s Miku Yamada missed getting into the medals by 0.05, running 24.52 for 4th.

On the boys’ side Japan scored two golds, Yusuke Shirao joining Yoshida on top of the 400 m hurdles in 50.52 and Kyohei Tomori clearing 2.16 m for the first time to win the high jump. As in the 10000 m, despite being Asia’s distance power the Japanese boys missed the low-hanging fruit of gold in the 5000 m, Ajeet Kumar of India running a PB 14:15.24 to beat Japan’s Ren Tazawa by 2 seconds and Kiyoto Suzuki finishing out of the medals in 4th.

Japanese boys also picked up bronze in the 200 m and triple jump courtesy of Justin Junpei Tsukamoto and Shunsuke Izumiya. Where the girls dominated the 4x400 m, it was the only event of the day where the boys came up empty-handed, finishing 4th in 3:10.01 almost 2 seconds behind gold medalist Sri Lanka.

In the final medal count Japan came out on top with 14 gold medals, 15 silver and 13 bronze. China was next, with 11 gold, 8 silver and 4 bronze. The success of its national team in this championships is bound to buoy hopes for Japan's next big hosting gig two years down the road. Watch complete replays of all four days of the 18th Asian Junior Athletics Championships here.

18th Asian Junior Athletics Championships

Day Four Highlights
Gifu, 6/10/18
click here for complete highlights

Girls
Girls’ 200 m Final +0.1 m/s
1. Yanan Tao (China) – 24.01
2. Amasha De Silva (Sri Lanka) – 24.47 – PB
3. Jisna Mathew (India) – 24.48
-----
4. Miku Yamada (Japan) – 24.52

Girls’ 3000 m
1. Nozomi Tanaka (Japan) – 9:04.36 – MR
2. Yuna Wada (Japan) – 9:14.13
3. Fang Liu (China) – 9:35.69

Girls’ 400 m Hurdles Final
1. Kasumi Yoshida (Japan) – 58.43
2. Jui Hsuan Yang (Taiwan) – 58.89 – PB
3. Natsumi Murakami (Japan) – 58.92
-----
5. Moeka Sekimoto (Japan) – 1:00.17

Girls’ 4x400 m Relay Final
1. Japan – 3:38.20 – MR
2. India – 3:41.11
3. Sri Lanka – 3:45.16

Girls’ Heptathlon
1. Karin Odama (Japan) – 5133
2. Cai Juan Chen (Taiwan) – 4925
3. Diana Geints (Kazakhstan) – 4804 – PB

Boys
Boys’ 200 m Final -0.2 m/s
1. Tai Sheng Wei (Taiwan) – 21.05
2. Min Kyu Shin (South Korea) – 21.06
3. Justin Junpei Tsukamoto (Japan) – 21.09 – PB
-----
6. Yuki Takagi (Japan) – 21.59

Boys’ 5000 m Final
1. Ajeet Kumar (India) – 14:15.24 – PB
2. Ren Tazawa (Japan) – 14:17.26
3. Seyedamir Zamanpour (Iran) – 14:25.25 – PB
-----
4. Kiyoto Suzuki (Japan) – 14:26.03

Boys’ 400 m Hurdles Final
1. Yusuke Shirao (Japan) – 50.52
2. Bassem Mohamed Awad Hemeida (Qatar) – 50.55
3. Mahdi Pirjahan (Iran) – 51.18 – PB

Boys’ 4x400 m Final
1. Sri Lanka – 3:08.70
2. Thailand – 3:09.20
3. Malaysia – 3:09.60
-----
4. Japan – 3:10.01

Boys’ High Jump Final
1. Kyohei Tomori (Japan) – 2.16 m – PB
2. Nuh Abdulkadir Ibrahim Anuh (Qatar) – 2.14 m
3. Hao Zhang (China) – 2.12 m
-----
13. Ryuta Bando (Japan) – 1.95 m

Boys’ Triple Jump Final
1. Kamalraj Kanagaraj (India) – 15.75 m -0.3 m/s
2. Gyu Min Yu (South Korea) – 15.56 m -0.3 m/s – PB
3. Shunsuke Izumiya (Japan) – 15.47 m +0.1 m/s

© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges. Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...

japan running news

Search This Blog