Skip to main content

A Pair of Golds to Wrap the Games - Asian Games Athletics Day Six Japanese Results



Hayato Katsuki kicked off the final day of Jakarta Asian Games athletics competition with Japan's last individual medal of the Games, a gold in the men's 50 km racewalk. Katsuki finished in 4:03:30 more than three minutes up on silver medalist Qin Wang of China and almost seven minutes ahead of bronze medalist Hyun Myeong Joo of South Korean despite sustaining a five-minute time penalty 34 km into the race. Japan's Satoshi Maruo was another three minutes back in 4th.

Indoor mile national record holder Ryoji Tatezawa was in range of a top six finish at best in the men's 1500 m, but in a race that went out slowly enough for announcers to be comparing it to a Japanese high school qualifying round race Tatezawa lacked the gears to stay relevant over the final lap, finishing 9th of 11 finishers in 3:49.40.



The relays went about as expected. The women's 4x100 m and 4x400 m each finished 5th, while the men's teams brought home medals over both distances. With its powerful Ryota Yamagata, Shuhei Tada, Yoshihide Kiryu and Aska Cambridge lineup the men's 4x100 m was all but a foregone conclusion, so much so that there was an air of disappointment when then did it in only 38.16. In the stadium there was a lot more buzz over the home Indonesian team beating China for silver in a national record 38.77, and even on Japanese Twitter there were almost as many cheers for Indonesia as for Japan. The men's 4x400 m team was no match for Qatar's 3:00.56 Asian record, battling India for silver and losing out to take bronze in 3:10.94.

Japan's final medal count of six gold, two silver and ten bronze ranked it 4th behind China, Bahrain and India. In some respects it's a decent total given Japan's relative weakness in throws, but on the other hand the competition in Tokyo two years from now isn't going to be any weaker than it was in Jakarta. But with 22 finishes from 4th through 6th place besides the medalists the overall depth and quality of this Japanese team was very good, the potential there to do better if they can learn from the experience in the Indonesian heat and humidity this summer.

Jakarta Asian Games Day Six Japanese Results

Jakarta, Indonesia, 8/30/18
complete results

Men's 1500 m Final
1. Jinson Johnson (India) - 3:44.72
2. Amir Moradi (Iran) - 3:45.62
3. Mohammed Tiouali (Bahrain) - 3:45.38
4. Manjit Singh (India) - 3:46.57
5. Musaab Ali (Qatar) - 3:47.35
-----
9. Ryoji Tatezawa (Japan) - 3:49.40

Men's50 km Racewalk
1. Hayato Katsuki (Japan) - 4:03:30
2. Qin Wang (China) - 4:06:48
3. Hyun Myeong Joo (South Korea) - 4:10:21
4. Satoshi Maruo (Japan) - 4:14:13
5. Hendro (Indonesia) - 4:32:20 - NR

Women's 4x100 m Relay Final
1. Bahrain - 42.73 - MR
2. China - 42.84
3. Kazakhstan - 43.82
4. Thailand - 44.56
5. Japan - 44.93
6. Taiwan - 45.19
7. Vietnam - 45.42
8. Hong Kong - 45.73

Men's 4x100 m Relay Final
1. Japan - 38.16
2. Indonesia - 38.77 - NR
3. China - 38.89
4. Taiwan - 38.98
5. South Korea - 39.10
6. Thailand - 39.29
7. Hong Kong - 39.48
DQ - Malaysia

Women's 4x400 m Relay Final
1. India - 3:28.72
2. Bahrain - 3:30.61
3. Vietnam - 3:33.23
4. China - 3:33.72
5. Japan - 3:34.14
6. Kakazhstan - 3:36.73
7. Thailand - 3:47.89
DQ - Indonesia

Men's 4x400 m Relay Final
1. Qatar - 3:00.56 - AR
2. India - 3:01.85
3. Japan - 3:01.94
4. Sri Lanka - 3:02.74
5. Bahrain - 3:03.97
6. China - 3:07.16
7. Iraq - 3:07.64
8. Pakistan - 3:08.87

© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Sprinter Shoji Tomihisa Retires From Athletics at 105

A retirement ceremony for local masters track and field legend Shoji Tomihisa , 105, was held May 13 at his usual training ground at Miyoshi Sports Park Field in Miyoshi, Hiroshima. Tomihisa began competing in athletics at age 97, setting a Japanese national record 16.98 for 60 m in the men's 100~104 age group at the 2017 Chugoku Masters Track and Field meet. Last year Tomihisa was the oldest person in Hiroshima selected to run as a torchbearer in the Tokyo Olympics torch relay. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the relay on public roads was canceled, and while he did take part in related ceremonies his run was ultimately canceled. Tomihisa recently took up the shot put, but in light of his fading physical strength he made the decision to retire from competition. Around 30 members of the Shoji Tomihisa Booster Club attended the retirement ceremony. After receiving a bouquet of flowers from them Tomihisa in turn gave them a colored paper placard on which he had written the characters