The Cali 22 World U20 Championships got underway Monday, with Japan fielding a team of 34. There are eight current U20 Japanese women under 9:10 for 3000 m, but even though that distance has been an area of strength in past World U20 Championships Japan was strangely absent from the first track final of the meet. Gold went to Kenyan Betty Chelangat in 9:01.03, Ethiopian Tsiyon Abebe taking silver in 9:03.85 and Kenyan Nancy Cherop bronze in 9:05.98.
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U20 and high school NR holder Keita Sato ran the day's other final, the men's 5000 m. Ranked 6th in the field on SB, Sato spent the first 2/3 of the race hovering around 8th to 10th before abruptly fading after 3600 m and finishing 11th in 14:26.19. High schooler Hiroto Yoshioka made a big play to get into contact with the lead group right before Sato dropped and held on for 7th in 14:10.68, the only athlete born outside Africa to make the top 10.
Ethiopia took gold here with Addisu Yihune outkicking Eritreans Merhawi Mebrahtu and Habtom Samuel by less than a second for the win in 14:03.05. Right there with them in the last 100 m, Kenyan Samuel Kibathi began to pitch forward as he ran down the straight, then collapsed face down just meters from the finish. Kibathi quickly recovered and got back up to take 6th in 14:07.82, but it was an unusual moment for a long distance race that may have shown the effects of Cali's moderate elevation.
In qualification rounds, Momoko Tsuji and Aoi Murakami rode the momentum of Haruka Kitaguchi's women's javelin throw bronze medal last week in Oregon, both making the javelin final in Cali. Tsuji cleared the 54.50 m auto-qualifying mark with a second attempt of 56.07 m that put her in 2nd overall among qualifiers. Murakami's second attempt of 52.38 m put her in the top 12 and on to the final ranked 8th.
Both men in the 100 m heats made the semi-finals, Oregon 4x100 m team member Hiroki Yanagita 2nd in his heat and 4th-fastest overall in 10.24 +0.8 and Hiroto Fujiwara 4th in his heat in 10.41 +1.7. No such luck in the 110 m hurdles, with neither Tatsuki Abe nor Ryona Manago going on to the semis.
The lone Japanese entrant in the men's 1500 m, Junpei Maseda was 5 seconds off his best at 3:52.25, but with slowest qualifier Kevin Kamenschak of Austria running 3:46.60 it would have taken a PB for Maseda to make the next round. Gai Kitagawa was closer in the men's long jump, the top non-qualifier at 7.54 m just 3 cm behind Swiss qualifier Cyrill Kernbach. Nozomi Watanabe jumped only 7.32 m and did not go on.
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