Skip to main content

Sato Runs All-Time Japanese #3 5000 m in Heusden

by Brett Larner

A large Japanese men's contingent returned this year to Heusden, the site of Takayuki Matsumiya's 13:13.20 national record for 5000 m, for the July 13 KBC Nacht meet. Moscow World Championships 10000 m team members and Saku Chosei H.S. graduates Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and Suguru Osako (Waseda Univ.) ran the 5000 m A-heat in pursuit of A or B-standard times that would allow them the option of doubling in Moscow.  Sato, already all-time Japanese #2 over 3000 m and #3 over 10000 m, surprised by chopping ten seconds off his best to finish 8th just off the national record in 13:13.60 for another all-time Japanese #3 ranking.  Osako, who recently turned 22, came up short of the B-standard but went under 13:30 for the first time, finishing 17th in a new PB of 13:27.54.  Having cleared the World Championships A-standard, Sato is now the only Japanese man with the 5000 m A or B and could line up in both the 5 and 10, something that would have been hard to imagine just six months ago when he ran a halfhearted 2:16:31 marathon debut in Tokyo.

2012 national champion Komazawa University-related athletes featured heavily in the 5000 m B-heat.  2013 graduate Hiromitsu Kakuage (Team Konica Minolta) ran a PB of 13:32.22 for 4th with fellow alum Takuya Fukatsu (Team Asahi Kasei) 9th in 13:42.54. Current Komazawa ace Shinobu Kubota scored a new PB of 13:45.50 in his first solid performance since a failed marathon debut at Lake Biwa in March, while 2013 5000 m national champion Sota Hoshi (Team Fujitsu) was far off peak form in 14:28.99.  Among non-Komazawa men in the field, former Toyo University star Tomoya Onishi (Team Asahi Kasei) was just short of his best in 13:43.73, while Minato Oishi (Team Toyota) was just behind him in a new best of 13:45.10 and the three other Japanese athletes in the B-heat all cleared 14 minutes.  After the midsummer track tour Oishi will be back in Europe for the Aug. 31 Lille Half Marathon in France.

2013 KBC Nacht
Heusden-Zolder, Belgium, 7/13/13
click here for complete results

Men's 5000 m A-Heat
1. Albert Rop (Bahrain) - 12:59.43 - PB
2. Ben St. Lawrence (Australia) - 13:10.83
3. Ben True (U.S.A.) - 13:11.59 - PB
4. Hassan Mead (U.S.A.) - 13:11.80 - PB
5. Andrew Bumbalough (U.S.A.) - 13:12.01 - PB
6. Arne Gabius (Germany) - 13:12.50 - PB
7. Dame Tasama (Ethiopia) - 13:12.64 - PB
8. Yuki Sato (Japan/Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 13:13.60 - PB
9. Zane Robertson (New Zealand) - 13:13.83 - PB
10. Ryan Hill (U.S.A.) - 13:14.22 - PB
-----
17. Suguru Osako (Japan/Waseda Univ.) - 13:27.54 - PB

Men's 5000 m B-Heat
1. Meshack Letim (Kenya) - 13:27.33 - PB
2. Elliott Heath (U.S.A.) - 13:27.60
3. Maverick Darling (U.S.A.) - 13:27.93 - PB
4. Hiromitsu Kakuage (Japan/Team Konica Minolta) - 13:32.22 - PB
5. Joe Stilin (U.S.A.) - 13:34.19
6. Philipp Pflieger (Germany) - 13:34.54
7. Brenton Rower (Austria) - 13:38.18
8. Morten Munkholm (Denmark) - 13:41.81 - PB
9. Takuya Fukatsu (Japan/Team Asahi Kasei) - 13:42.54
10. Ababa Lama (Ethiopia) - 13:43.25
-----
12. Tomoya Onishi (Japan/Team Asahi Kasei) - 13:43.73
14. Minato Oishi (Japan/Team Toyota) - 13:45.10 - PB
15. Shinobu Kubota (Japan/Komazawa Univ.) - 13:45.50 - PB
16. Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Japan/Team Asahi Kasei) - 13:50.27
17. Ryo Kiname (Japan/Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) - 13:50.72
18. Yohei Nishiyama (Japan/Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 13:55.18
20. Sota Hoshi (Japan/Team Fujitsu) - 14:28.99

(c) 2013 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
1 comment
Read more

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...
8 comments
Read more