Skip to main content

Moscow World Championships - Day Two Japanese Results

by Brett Larner

National champion Hitomi Niiya (Team Universal Entertainment) ran exactly the race prefigured by her win at June's National Championships and in last year's London Olympics, going out right behind early rabbit Shalane Flanagan (U.S.A.) in the Moscow World Championships 10000 m, taking the lead after 3000 m and setting the pace all the way to the last lap before finishing 5th in a PB 30:56.70.  In a tearful post-race interview she said, "There's no reason to be at Worlds if you can't medal," but her fearlessness in setting her own pace and her improvement of her standing as all-time third-fastest Japanese for the second time at a major international championships did credit to both her and her coach Yoshio Koide.  Kyushu-based Sally Chepyego (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) also turned in a PB performance, taking 7th in 31:22.11.

In other events, 400 m national champion Yuzo Kanemaru (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) finished last in his qualifying heat but still slipped through to the semi-finals on time in 46.18.  Race walker Takumi Saito  (Toyo University) took 6th in the men's 20 km in 1:22:09, with his teammate Yusuke Suzuki (Team Fujitsu) not far back in 12th in 1:23:20. Decathlon national champion Keisuke Ushiro (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) improved on his standing from the first day of competition, ending up in 22nd overall.

Moscow World Championships - Day Two
Moscow, 8/11/13
click here for complete results

Women's 10000 m
1. Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia) - 30:43.35
2. Gladys Cherono (Kenya) - 30:45.17
3. Belaynesh Oljira (Ethiopia) - 30:46.98
4. Emily Chebet (Kenya) - 30:47.02 - PB
5. Hitomi Niiya (Japan) - 30:56.70 - PB
6. Shitaye Eshete (Bahrain) - 31:13.79
7. Sally Chepyego (Kenya) - 31:22.11 - PB
8. Shalane Flanagan (U.S.A.) - 31:34.83
9. Ababel Yeshaneh (Ethiopia) - 32:02.09
10. Christele Daunay (France) - 32:04.44

1. Luguelin Santos (Dominican Republic) - 45.23 - Q
2. Kevin Borlee (Belgium) - 45.32 - Q
3. Chris Brown (Bahamas) - 45.39 - Q
4. Nigel Levine (Great Britain) - 45.41 - Q
5. Omar Johnson (Jamaica) - 45.97 - q
6. Yuzo Kanemaru (Japan) - 46.18 - q
DNF - Daniel Aleman (Nicaragua)

Men's 20 km Race Walk
1. Aleksandr Ivanov (Russia) - 1:20:58 - PB
2. Ding Chen (China) - 1:21:09
3. Miguel Angel Lopez (Spain) - 1:21:21
4. Joao Vieira (Portugal) - 1:22:05
5. Denis Strelkov (Russia) - 1:22:06
6. Takumi Saito (Japan) - 1:22:09
7. Ruslan Dmytrenko (Ukraine) - 1:22:14
8. Inaki Gomez (Canada) - 1:22:21
9. Christopher Linke (Germany) - 1:22:36
10. Hyunsub Kim (South Korea) - 1:22:50
-----
12. Yusuke Suzuki (Japan) - 1:23:20

Men's Decathlon
1. Ashton Eaton (U.S.A.) - 8809
2. Michael Schrader (Germany) - 8670 - PB
3. Damian Warner (Canada) - 8512 - PB
4. Kevin Mayer (France) - 8446 - PB
5. Eelco Sintnicolaas (Netherlands) - 8391
6. Carlos Chinin (Brazil) - 8388
7. Rico Freimuth (Germany) - 8382 - PB
8. Ilya Shkurenev (Russia) - 8370 - PB
9. Willem Coertzen (South Africa) - 8343 - AR
10. Leonel Suarez (Cuba) - 8317
-----
22. Keisuke Ushiro (Japan) - 7751

(c) 2013 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
I think Niiya won a lot of fans for Japanese running. Especially since everyone in the world, including herself I suppose, knew that those four were going to blast past her on the last lap.
Brett Larner said…
Agreed.

She also did the same thing in the Olympics last year, which nobody seems to remember, but lasted longer up front, was faster and placed higher this time. Maybe in two years she'll have progressed far enough.

It was interesting too that she ran it exactly like she did at Nationals, just with a faster first 3000 m.

Most-Read This Week

Murayama and Sasaki Making U.S. Debut at New York Mini 10 km

Every year since 2012 that there's been a United Airlines NYC Half , JRN has partnered with the NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon to bring two top-tier collegiate Japanese men to the NYC Half for what's usually been their international debuts. For years we've wanted to extend that program to include top collegiate women, but that has always faced 2 problems. For one, while the half marathon distance is the main focus for Japanese collegiate men due to the stage lengths at the Hakone Ekiden, few collegiate women run it. Those that do run the National University Women's Half Marathon in Matsue, held the same day as the NYC Half. This year, though, we're finally making it happen in a slightly different way. Amisa Murayama and Nazuki Sasaki of 2025 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national collegiate championship runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University are joining the field for the NYRR's Mastercard New York Mini 10 km on June 6. After running an 18:14 CR ...

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Some Reflections on the Ekiden

by Brett Larner This ekiden season I've had a few thoughts kicking around, and watching this week's Hakone Ekiden a few of them became clearer.  These are still in progress, but at the moment this is what I'm thinking in terms of running as a spectator sport and about the quality of Japanese men's distance running right now. Quality: Japanese men's running is coming up very, very quickly.  I was in the lead car at November's Ageo City Half Marathon , where 18 men, 17 of them university runners, broke 63 minutes.  As it was going on we all thought it was a slow race because there were so many people running that pace all the way, no separation at all in the mass of the pack. See the JRN header photo above, taken just past halfway.  That's pretty unusual in Japan, especially at the university level; generally you'll get a handful of guys who run an aggressive pace and a mass running dead on a safe pace, 3:00/km in a half marathon, for example. Th...