japan running news

16-year-old Yuya Sawada continued her climb through the ranks of Japanese women's middle distance, building on her 4:15.29 PB in the 1500 m heats with a 4:12.87 PB for 6th in the final on the last day of the Cali 22 World U20 Championships . With Ethiopian Birke Haylom setting a championships record 4:04.27 and Kenyans Brenda Chebet and Purity Chepkirui both under 4:08 Sawada was still far off the medals, but having come to Cali with a best of 4:17.75 she bridged half the gap.  Her time was just 0.02 off the U18 NR held by Yuriko Kobayashi and moved her up behind Kobayashi to all-time #2 on the Japanese U20 and high school lists. And having done it with two big performances in high-pressure races Sawada is now one of the highest-potential young athletes Japan has. Strangely enough, though, none of the others were entered in the 5000 m, mirroring Japanese women's absence from the 3000 m. The two men in the 3000 m steeplechase final couldn't match Sawada's performanc...

Japan finally got onto the medal board at the Cali 22 World U20 Championships with medal-winning performances in two of the country's strongest events bookending the fifth day of the meet and one more unexpected one to punctuate them. In the day's first event, Ai Oyama and Ayane Yanai took silver and bronze in the women's 10000 m race walk. It almost literally couldn't have been closer up front, with Mexican Karla Ximena Serrano beating Oyama by just 0.09 to take gold in a PB 46:24.35. Yanai was all alone in the bronze position in 46:43.07, almost a minute ahead of 4th-placer Olivia Sandery of Australia. The Japanese men were expected to medal in the day's last event, the 4x100 m relay where they had led the qualifying round. First three runners Kowa Ikeshita , Hiroto Fujiwara and Shunki Tateno lacked the same kind of spark in the final, and when anchor Hiroki Yanagita took the baton he was back in a group around 4th~6th. But with a brilliant run he ran down...

No Japanese athlete made it to any of the five finals on day three of the Cali 22 World U20 Championships , but qualifying rounds did see most of the athletes in action advance to their next rounds on upcoming days. In the men's 3000 m, both H.S NR holder Keita Sato and #3 Hiroto Yoshioka placed 5th in their heats to take auto-qualifying spots, Sato in Heat 2 with an 8:00.17 SB and Yoshioka in Heat 1 in 8:15.95. Both men in the 3000 m steeplechase also qualified for the final, Ryotaro Onuma taking an auto-qualifying place at 3rd in Heat 2 in 9:00.02 and Asahi Kuroda getting through on time in the fastest Heat 3 with an 8:51.04 for 5th. Likewise in the men's 400 m hurdles heats, Sojiro Moritaka 2nd in Heat 3 in 51.04 for a semi-final auto-qualifying spot and Daiki Ogawa through on time in 51.52 for 4th in Heat 4. In the women's hammer throw, Raika Murakami was a surprise, throwing a 61.28 m SB for 10th of the twelve qualifiers. Moe Matsuoka narrowly missed the women...