Four New Meet Records on National Sports Festival Day 2

4 meet records fell on the second day of the 2025 National Sports Festival in Shiga. In the junior men's pole vault, Naoya Inoue (Anan Hikari H.S.) was the only one to go higher than 4.80 m, and massively so. Inoue cleared 5.32 m on his 3rd attempt, setting a new MR and beating his closest competition by 52 cm.

800 m NR holders Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) and Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) duly took the 800 m wins here in MR time. Kubo won the junior women's race by over 3 seconds in 2:01.72, with Ochiai winning the senior men's race in 1:45.20. The men's race was actually decently competitive, with Mikuto Kaneko (Arcyell) and Hiroki Minamoto (NTN) going 1:46.25 and 1:46.47, and the top 4 all going under the old MR. Ochiai's success while still a teenager seems to be motivating other Japanese men in what is probably Japan's weakest track event.

The other meet record came in the junior men's 100 m B-final, where Sekito Matsushita (Shizuoka H.S.) ran 10.35 (+0.8) for the win. More to come in the A-finals, with both Kai Sugano (Tokyo Nogyo Daini H.S.) and Sorato Shimizu (Seiryo H.S.) ran faster than Matsushita in the semifinals.

In other results on Day 2:

Issa Matsumoto (Morimura Gakuen H.S.) took the junior men's javelin throw in 63.49 m on his 2nd attempt.
Koki Hasebe (Gifu Shogyo H.S.) won the junior men's long jump by 5 cm in 7.19 m (+1.5) on his 5th attempt.
Ai Oyama (SDF Academy) won the senior women's 10000 m race walk in 44:59.44, almost a minute up on the chase pack.
Haruka Osako (Somayq) threw 15.36 m on her 2nd attempt, in the end enough to win the senior women's shot put by 50 cm but fouling on her last 3 attempts.
The junior men's triple jump went to Satoshi Inoue (Tamano Konan H.S.) with a 15.63 m (+1.4) on his 5th attempt, enough to overtake longtime leader Fukutaro Isoyama (Nishinomiya Higashi H.S.). Isoyama came back with his biggest jump in the final round but couldn't retake the top spot, ending up 2nd at 15.52 m (+0.5).
Yuzuki Yokoyama (Shiritsu Kashiwa H.S.) had an easy win in the junior women's 100 m B-final, running 11.69 (+0.3) to finish 0.21 up on Aoi Hashimoto (Kanazawa Izumigaoka H.S.).
Keeping on with what's already a long season, Tokyo World Championships team member Yuta Sakiyama (Ehime T&F Assoc.) won the senior men's javelin throw with a last attempt of 80.43 m that made him the only man over 80 m.
The 300 m was on the menu across all age groups. Haru Barogun (Ichikawa H.S.) took the junior women's race in 38.16, Worlds team member Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) the senior women's race in 37.10, Kenji Tojima (Shiritsu Funabashi H.S.) the junior men's race in 32.76, and Kenki Imaizumi (Uchida Yoko AC) the senior men's race in 32.61.

The National Sports Festival continues through Tuesday.

Hokkaido Marathon Elite Field

The Hokkaido Marathon happens Aug. 30 in Sapporo. Although it's not a top-tier race on the global schedule, the JAAF gives it special status in qualification for the MGC Race Los Angeles Olympics marathon trials, with 3 spots available to men who run under 2:12:00 and women under 2:32:00. Compare that to the criteria for making the trials by running the WA platinum label Sydney Marathon the same day, where men have to run under 2:06:30 and women 2:23:30 regardless of how they place. It's hard to see that as anything other than disincentivizing Japanese runners from racing abroad, with protecting the JAAF's financial interest in domestic races being the priority over getting the best athletes into the Olympic trials. But anyway, there are pretty good fields of people willing to not step out of line. All 6 women with marathon finishes to their name have run under 2:30 in the last 3 years led by veteran Hitomi Niiya with a 2:21:50 in Tokyo 2 years ago. Most are in the 2:26-2...

Olympic Marathoner Nakamoto Scores 10000 m PB

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2012/05/19/kiji/K20120519003286760.html translated by Brett Larner London Olympics men's marathon team member Kentaro Nakamoto (Team Yasukawa Denki) set a 10000 m PB May 19 at Sayagatani Field in Kita-Kyushu, finishing 9th at the Kyushu Corporate Track & Field Championships in 28:54.59. "A PB makes me feel pretty good inside about things," Nakamoto commented with a smile. "I'll be going into marathon training in good shape." Nakamoto's previous best time was 29:04.24. In today's race he stuck to the back of the lead pack, saving his energy for a intended surge over the final stage but unable to execute as planned. "My closing speed is still a problem," he said without seeming too concerned. His coach Naoki Yamagashira said, "We achieved our goal of improving his track speed. He scored 100% today." Next up Nakamoto will run the Bupa London 10000 road race on April 27 as par...

Japan's Team for Nagoya Asian Games

The JOC announced the full lineups for the men's and women's teams for September's Nagoya Asian Games . Being hosted in Japan the Asian Games are a pretty big deal, and it's pretty close to the maximum of 2 athletes per event. The men's and women's triple jump, the women's 400 m and the women's discus throw only have 1 athlete on the Japanese team, and it's a big FU to the shot putters apparently as nobody was named to either the men's or women's teams even though people ranked lower in the World Athletics Asian rankings than top JPN shot putters Daichi Morishita and Chiharu Saka did make the team in other events. But, let's focus on what it is, not what it isn't. Going off this week's Asian rankings 8 men and 5 women are ranked #1 in their event, with a total of 19 men and 14 women ranked in the top 3. Factor in a limit of 2 per nationality and the relays and Japan's chances of scoring a great medal haul are looking good. M...

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