Skip to main content

Dean Wins First National Title Since 2012 as National Track and Field Championships Wrap Up


The National Track and Field Championships wrapped up Sunday in Osaka with a few more additions to the Oregon World Championships team and a few left to wait another two weeks til the qualification deadline.

The most emotional performance of the day came in the men's javelin throw. Roderick Genki Dean (Mizuno) won the 2012 National Championships and then took 9th in the final at that year's London Olympics while still a student at Waseda University. Injury setbacks meant it took him until 2020 to break 80 m again, and in all those years he never won another national title. Today he threw 81.02 m on his third attempt, beating runner-up Kenji Ogura (Tochigi Sports Assoc.) by 77 cm for the win. 27th of 32 in the quota pre-Nationals, his mark and win all but guarantee that he'll be in Oregon next month. "It was a long time coming," he said in his victory interview.


In the women's 400 mH, Ami Yamamoto (Ritsumeikan Univ.) broke 57 seconds for the first time to beat favorite Eri Utsunomiya (Hasegawa) for the win 56.38 to 56.90. That was enough to put Utsunomiya into the Worlds quota for now, but while Yamamoto fell short of the quota her time put her at all-time Japanese #6 and marked her as a contender for the Paris Olympic team.

In the women's 800 m, Ayano Shiomi (Iwatani Sangyo) took the race out hard and solo with a 1:00 first lap, then hung on in the home straight to win by 0.27 over 1500 m winner Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) in 2:04.24. Her win bumped Shiomi up to 48th of 48 in the quota, but with two weeks still to go there's not much chance she'll survive. Still, though, you don't see many people pull off a race like that, so points for style and hopefully she'll be on the national team next year or the year after.

The men's 800 m didn't have the same kind of frontrunning, two-time runner-up Mikuto Kaneko (Chuo Univ.) kicking away from a pack of 4 to take the win in 1:47.07. 6 of the 8 finalists were college runners, amateur Yugo Shikata (Takarazuka T&F Assoc.) 4th in 1:47.88 and high schooler Kizuku Ushiroda (Soseikan H.S.) 6th in 1:49.14.


Both having already cleared the 13.32 World standard in the men's 110 mH, Shunzuke Izumiya (Sumitomo Denko) and Rachid Muratake (Juntendo Univ.) just needed to make top 3 in the final for the JAAF to put them on the national team, and that's exactly what they did. Izumiya scored the win in 13.21 (-1.2), with Muratake overcoming a slow start and hitting every hurdle to take 2nd in 13.31. Shuhei Ishikawa (Fujitsu) was 3rd in 13.48.

In the women's 200 m Mei Kodama (Mizuno) came back from a loss in the 100 m to win in 23.34 (+2.6), holding off 100 m winner Arisa Kimishima (DK Shiken) despite tying up in the last 50 m. Remi Tsuruta (Minami Kyushu Family Mart) was 3rd in 23.59.


Yuki Ueyama (Sumitomo Denko) turned in a PB-tying 20.46 (+1.7) for the men's 200 m win, with Tokyo Olympian Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) just pulling off a 2nd-place finish in 20.62. Both are likely to make the 200 m quota, in which case Koike will be the only member of last summer's Olympic 4x100 m to compete in individual events in Oregon. Ryota Suzuki (Suzuki) was 3rd in 20.64, with past Olympian Shota Iizuka (Mizuno), at 30 now the oldest man in the race, 7th in 20.84.

In the women's 5000 m both Tanaka and NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) won Oregon places, Tanaka first across the line in 15:05.61, Kenyan pacer Agnes Mukari (Kyocera) next in 15:08.54 but not counting in the standings, and Hironaka 2nd Japanese in 15:11.08. Half marathoner Rino Goshima (Shiseido) ran a PB 15:13.53 for 3rd, just short of the 15:10.00 Worlds standard, with marathoner Yuka Ando (Wacoal) 4th in a PB 15:18.66 and sub-15 runner Kaede Hagitani (Edion) 5th in 15:23.49. Goshima and Ando will have the chance to go for the standard again in Hokkaido 10 days from now. If both miss, Hagitani will likely be added to the Worlds roster.

On the field, favorite Yuki Hashioka (Fujitsu) overcame problems with his left ankle to clear the men's long jump Worlds standard and win with a second-round jump of 8.27 m (+1.4). 2nd-placer Hibiki Tsuha (Otsuka Seiyaku) jumped 8.07 m (+2.3) and 3rd-placer Keisuke Matsumoto (Kyukuto Yugyo) a PB 8.07 m (+1.9), the first time 3 Japanese men cleared 8 m at the same Nationals. NR holder Shotaro Shiroyama (Zenrin) couldn't pull out of his slump this season, finishing only 4th at 7.98 m (+1.3) on his final attempt. 30th of 32 in the quota, Hiromichi Yoshida (Kamizaki T&F Assoc.) was only 8th in 7.84 m (+1.0), not helping his chances of joining Hashioka in Eugene.


Nagisa Takahashi (Mason Work) set a new PB of 1.81 m to win the women's high jump on her first attempt, the only woman over 1.80 m. Nanaka Kori (Niigata Albirex RC) won the women's shot put with a 15.57 m throw on her last attempt to overtake leader Fuyuko Oyamada (Nihon Univ.), whose 2nd attempt of 15.37 m had led up to that point. Hikaru Murakami (NTS Sports) threw a PB 18.29 m to win the men's shot put.

Complete results from all four days of this year's National Track and Field Championships are available here.

© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Stefan said…
I watched the Women's 800m race, and Ayano Shiomi ran a great race. Tactically, it was brilliant against Nozomi Tanaka. She stayed out of trouble, led from the get go, ran to her strength (400m speed) and gave herself every possible chance of winning. And as good as Tanaka is, in an 800m race you can't allow such a huge head start. She only just won but boy, was it exciting to watch.

I didn't realise Rino Goshima ran a PB in the 5000m nor did I realise that Yuka Ando did likewise. Good to see. I'm looking forward to the Hokkaido meet now.
June 14, 2022 at 1:24 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Murayama and Sasaki Making U.S. Debut at New York Mini 10 km

Every year since 2012 that there's been a United Airlines NYC Half , JRN has partnered with the NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon to bring two top-tier collegiate Japanese men to the NYC Half for what's usually been their international debuts. For years we've wanted to extend that program to include top collegiate women, but that has always faced 2 problems. For one, while the half marathon distance is the main focus for Japanese collegiate men due to the stage lengths at the Hakone Ekiden, few collegiate women run it. Those that do run the National University Women's Half Marathon in Matsue, held the same day as the NYC Half. This year, though, we're finally making it happen in a slightly different way. Amisa Murayama and Nazuki Sasaki of 2025 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national collegiate championship runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University are joining the field for the NYRR's Mastercard New York Mini 10 km on June 6. After running an 18:14 CR ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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."...
82 comments
Read more

Some Reflections on the Ekiden

by Brett Larner This ekiden season I've had a few thoughts kicking around, and watching this week's Hakone Ekiden a few of them became clearer.  These are still in progress, but at the moment this is what I'm thinking in terms of running as a spectator sport and about the quality of Japanese men's distance running right now. Quality: Japanese men's running is coming up very, very quickly.  I was in the lead car at November's Ageo City Half Marathon , where 18 men, 17 of them university runners, broke 63 minutes.  As it was going on we all thought it was a slow race because there were so many people running that pace all the way, no separation at all in the mass of the pack. See the JRN header photo above, taken just past halfway.  That's pretty unusual in Japan, especially at the university level; generally you'll get a handful of guys who run an aggressive pace and a mass running dead on a safe pace, 3:00/km in a half marathon, for example. Th...
18 comments
Read more