japan running news

In front of an almost sellout crowd packing the stadium to see the breakthrough Taiwanese men's sprinters in action, Japan wrapped the final day of athletics competition at the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade with a pair of 4x100 m relay medals that assured it the top spot on the overall medal table.

The women's 4x100 m team, comprised of Ichiko Iki, Miyu Maeyama, Mizuki Nakamura and Sayaka Takeuchi, were well off lead pair Kazakhstan and Switzerland through the race, lagging a relatively short distance behind bronze medal position Poland. Japan crossed the finish line in 4th in 44.56, breaking a collegiate national record that had stood for almost 11 years but short of the medals. That changed on review, though, when winners and defending gold medalists Kazakhstan were disqualified for a lane violation. The DQ bumped Japan up to an unexpected bronze medal.

The atmosphere in the stadium was raucous for the men's 4x100 m featuring Taiwan's very own 100 m gold medalist a…

Runner-up at June's National Championships, Marina Saito broke through with a women's javelin collegiate national record 62.37 m throw on her last attempt to take silver at the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade. On her second throw Saito marked 61.06 m, the only woman to clear 61 m under Poland's Marcelina Witek threw a PB of 63.31 m on her fifth attempt. Needing a massive throw to retake the top spot, Saito cleared the Japanese university national record by a meter with a PB of 62.37 m and moved up to all-time Japanese #2 but had to settle for silver. The woman whose record she broke, Haruka Kitaguchi, struggled on her first three throws and failed to advance to the top eight, her best throw only 56.30 m.

Another medal came in the men's triple jump. Ranked #1 in the qualifying rounds, Ryoma Yamamoto led off with a jump of 16.80 m (+1.7 m/s) that put him into 2nd behind Azerbaijan's Nazim Babeyev. Unable to improve on that, Yamamoto looked set for silver until Hugues…