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Walsh Breaks Twilight Games 400 m Meet Record But Comes Up Just Short of Doha Qualifying Mark



Men's 400 m national champion Julian Walsh (Fujitsu) ran 45.78 to win the 15th Twilight Games for the fourth year in meet record time Sunday at Kanagawa's Keio University. Meet records were also set in the women's 1500 m, with 2019 National Championships runner-up Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki TC) winning in 4:18.52, the men's high jump, where Ryo Sato (Tonichi Insatsu) cleared 2.25 m, and the men's javelin throw, where Takuto Kominami (Tsukuba Univ.) threw a PB 81.11 m for the win. National champion Ryohei Arai (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) was only 3rd with a throw of 76.84 m.

Despite breaking his own meet record to win a fourth Twilight Games title, Walsh was unhappy with his performance. His time was just 0.48 short of the 2019 Doha World Championships qualifying standard. "I want to rework my training and go for the standard again," he said with obvious disappointment. Walsh had planned to hold back on the back straight and then push the end, but from the start he struggled to get into the right rhythm. "None of it really went well," he said.

Walsh will next shoot for a breakthrough to the Doha standard in about a month at a Sept. 1 time trial meet. "My overall speed isn't good enough, so that's what I need to work on," he said.

source article:
https://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2019/07/29/kiji/20190729s00056000115000c.html
translated and edited by Brett Larner

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