Skip to main content

London Olympics Athletics Day Two - Japanese Results

by Brett Larner

The big race of the second day of Olympic track and field competition was of course the historic men's 10000 m, which saw training partners Mo Farah (U.K.) and Galen Rupp (U.S.A.) go 1-2 to give the U.K. its first-ever Olympic 10000 m gold and the U.S. its first men's 10000 m medal since the Tokyo Olympics.  Ethiopia's Tariku Bekele claimed bronze over his brother Kenenisa Bekele, with Saitama-based Bitan Karoki, a graduate of Hiroshima's Sera H.S. who now runs for Team S&B, taking 5th to land as the top Kenyan after losing out to the superior closing speed of the top four.  Two-time Japanese 10000 m national champion Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin), the only Japanese man in the race, ran up to expectations, sitting mid-pack through the slow early stages before falling away once the true action began and crossing the finish line in 28:44.06 for 22nd place.

100 m national champion Takayuki Kishimoto (Keio Univ.) had better luck, bringing the Japanese performance of the day as he ran a PB of 10.07 to take second in heat six behind world leader Yohan Blake (Jamaica) and advance to the semi-final.  Past national champion Masashi Eriguchi (Team Osaka Gas) ran only 10.30 in heat two and failed to move on to the next round.  400 m national champion Yuzo Kanemaru (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) and women's pole vault national record holder Tomomi Abiko (Shiga Lake Stars AC) likewise did not advance out of the opening rounds.

2012 London Olympics Athletics Day Two
London, England, 8/4/12
click here for complete results
click here for triathlon results

Men's 10000 m
1. Mohamed Farah (U.K.) - 27:30.42
2. Galen Rupp (U.S.A.) - 27:30.90
3. Tariku Bekele (Ethiopia) - 27:31.43
4. Kenenisa Bekele (Ethiopia) - 27:32.44
5. Bitan Karoki (Kenya) - 27:32.94
6. Zersenay Tadese (Eritrea) - 27:33.51
7. Teklemariam Medhin (Eritrea) - 27:34.76
8. Gebregziabher Gebremariam (Ethiopia) - 27:36.34
9. Polat Kemboi Arikan (Turkey) - 27:38.81 - PB
10. Moses Ndiema Kipsiro (Uganda) - 27:39.22
-----
22. Yuki Sato (Japan) - 28:44.06

Men's 20 km Race Walk
1. Ding Chen (China) - 1:18:46 - OR
2. Erick Barrondo (Guatemala) - 1:18:57
3. Zhen Wang (China) - 1:19:25
4. Zelin Cai (China) - 1:19:44
5. Miguel Angel Lopez (Spain) - 1:19:49 - PB
-----
18. Isamu Fujisawa (Japan) - 1:21:48
25. Takumi Saito (Japan) - 1:22:43
36. Yusuke Suzuki (Japan) - 1:23:53

Women's Triathlon
1. Nicola Spirig (Switzerland) - 1:59:48
2. Lisa Norden (Sweden) - 1:59:48
3. Erin Densham (Australia) - 1:59:50
4. Sarah Groff (U.S.A.) - 2:00:00
5. Helen Jenkins (U.K.) - 2:00:19
-----
14. Mariko Adachi (Japan) - 2:02:04
34. Juri Ide (Japan) - 2:04:43
39. Ai Ueda (Japan) - 2:06:34

Men's 400 m Heat Five
1. Chris Brown (Bahamas) - 45.40 - Q
2. Tony McQuay (U.S.A.) - 45.48 - Q
3. Nigel Levine (U.K.) - 45.58 - Q
4. Yuzo Kanemaru (Japan) - 46.01

Men's 100 m Heat Two
1. Justin Gatlin (U.S.A.) - 9.97 - Q
2. Derrick Atkins (Bahamas) - 10.22 - Q
3. Rondel Sorrillo (Trinidad & Tobago) - 10.23 - Q
-----
6. Masashi Eriguchi (Japan) - 10.30

Men's 100 m Heat Six
1. Yohan Blake (Jamaica) - 10.00 - Q
2. Ryota Yamagata (Japan) - 10.07 - Q, PB
3. Bingtian Su (China) - 10.19 - Q
4. Antoine Adams (St. Kitts & Nevis) - 10.22 - q

Women's Pole Vault Qualification Round Group A
1. Yarisley Silva (Cuba) - 4.55 - q
2. Jennifer Suhr (U.S.A.) - 4.55 - q
3. Lisa Ryzih (Germnay) - 4.55 - q
-----
11. Tomomi Abiko (Japan) - 4.25

(c) 2012 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...