Skip to main content

Japan Tops Medal Table at End of World University Games


The 2025 FISU World University Games wrapped Sunday in Rhine-Ruhr, Germany. In the men's 20 km race walk Atsuki Tsuchiya (Ritsumeikan Univ.) brought home one more medal for Japan, unable to match Italian Andrea Cosa's 1:19:48 WUG record for gold but just holding off Ukrainian Mykola Rushchak for silver 1:20:08 to 1:20:10. Keisuke Hara (Kyoto Univ.) wasn't far back in 4th, finishing in 1:20:26, with Taisei Yoshizako (Tokyo Gakugei Univ.) 12th in 1:23:11. As a team the three athletes's combined scores were good enough to take gold.

The women's 20 km race walk squad couldn't match the men's performance. With Australian Elizabeth McMillen setting a WUG record 1:28:18 for the win and silver and bronze medalists Jinlin Ning and Haiying Ji of China both under 1:30 Ayane Yanai (Ritsumeikan Univ.) was 14th in 1:35:04 and Sumika Tani (Kanazawa Gakuin Univ.) 19th of 25 finishers in 1:40:37.

In the women's 3000 mSC final Ayana Yamashita (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) turned in an excellent 9:54.49 PB, but that was only good enough for 10th. Gold went to Finland's Ilona Mononen in 9:31.86, with silver medalist Ankita of India running a PB 9:31.99 to make it an exciting finish. Germany's Adia Budde took bronze in 9:33.34.

Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) was also 10th in the women's hammer throw final, throwing 60.54 m to Chinese gold medalist Jie Zhao's 72.80 m. In the men's pole vault final Atsushi Haraguchi (Higashi Osaka Univ.) was one of 4 athletes not to clear any height. Norway's Simen Guttormsen was the gold medalist after clearing 5.75 m for the first time.

Japan's final medal count was 5 gold medals, 3 silver and 3 bronze, enough to put it 1st in the overall medal standings ahead of Australia and China. 3 of those golds were team medals, but considering the absence of Japanese athletes in the 5000 m and men in the 10000 m it was still overall one of the better World University Games in Japan's record books.

© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Hassan Runs NR/CR for Osaka Win, Dibaba Hits Women's CR, Yoshida and Shuley Earn Legends

This was maybe the most entertaining marathon in years. After rocking the 2nd leg at last year's Hakone Ekiden Hibiki Yoshida (Sunbelx) ran an incredible 1:01:01 CR for the 21.9 km New Year Ekiden 2nd leg last month, equivalent to a 58:47 half marathon. That predicted a 2:03:27 marathon if he ever ran one, and when Yoshida announced he was debuting at this year's Osaka Marathon he wasted no time in saying it'd be a shot at the 2:04:55 NR. Things went out fast enough with a 14:50 split through 5 km, 2:05:11 pace, but Yoshida just couldn't hold back and took off at 8 km. He clearly DGAF about what was probably going to happen as his projected finish kept getting faster, 2:04:41, 2:04:15, 2:03:51, 2:03:40, edging closer and closer to what his New Year time predicted, but not helped along by the fact that he missed 4 out of his first 5 drink bottles. People laughed, and then cheered him on. 30 km was the first time he slowed, his finish projection dropping to 2:03:53, an...
3 comments
Read more

Osaka Marathon Preview

The Osaka Marathon is Sunday, one of Japan's biggest mass-participation races and the next stop on the calendar for its elite marathoners hoping to qualify for the L.A. Olympics marathon trials in the fall of 2027. Last year it snowed mid-race, but this year is looking warmer than ideal given the season, with sunny skies, almost no wind, and temps forecast to be 11˚ at the start and rising to 19˚ by the time the winners are finishing. NHK is broadcasting Osaka with a heavy emphasis on the men's race, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it from overseas. There's also official streaming on Youtube starting at 8:30 a.m. local time, although it doesn't look like it's the same as what NHK will be showing. Given Osaka's history at the elite level as the continuation of the men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, the women's field is small relative to the men's, just enough to tick World Athletics' label requirements and with almost no do...
1 comment
Read more

Nagoya Women's Marathon Elite Field

Last year's top 3 Sheila Chepkirui , Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba are back for this year's Nagoya Women's Marathon on Mar. 8, but things are being set up more for it to be a race between Chepkirui, 2:17:49 in Berlin 2023, Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda , 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024. Aynalem has the freshest sub-2:20 of the 3, with neither Chepkirui nor Maeda having done it in 2 years. Maeda's only recent result is a 1:10:07 from Houston last month, but when she ran her NR she didn't have any kind of tuneup race to indicate her fitness so it's probably best not to read too much into that. If it goes out as a 2:18 race those are the only 3 who can probably hang with it. If it turns out to be more of a 2:20 race like when Chepkirui won in 2:20:40 last year then there's a group of 7 at the 2:20-2:22 level who will be in the picture, including Chumba, Selly Chep...
Post a Comment
Read more