Summary of Japanese Medalists at Asian Athletics Championships

With a roster somewhat depleted of top-level talent Japan took no gold but managed to pick up five silver and nine bronze medals at the July 6-9 Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, India. Japanese women scored the majority of the medals, taking three silver and eight bronze medals to the men's count of two silver, one bronze.

Women's 10000 m national champion Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) and men's 110 m hurdles national champ Shunya Takayama (Zenrin) were the only athletes already named to Japan's London World Championships team to participate. Matsuda took the bronze medal in the 10000 m behind Daria Maslova (Kyrghizstan) and national championships 5th-placer Yuka Hori (Japan), while Takayama missed out on bronze by 0.04 seconds as he took 4th in 13.65 (-0.6 m/s).

With none of the Japanese medalists clearing London standards at the Asian Athletics Championships there were no additions beyond Matsuda and Takayama to the London team from among those who competed in Bhubaneswar. Among those who opted to stay home, women's javelin national champion Yuki Ebihara (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) threw 61.95 m at Sunday's Nambu Memorial Meet in Hokkaido to clear the London standard and position herself as an addition to the Worlds team. Likewise for men's 400 m hurdles runner-up Yusuke Ishida (Waseda Univ.) who hit the London standard dead on to win the Nambu 400 mH in 49.35 for a probable place in London.

A breakdown of Japanese medalists at the Asian Athletics Championships:

22nd Asian Athletics Championships

Bhubaneswar, India, July 6-9, 2017
click here for complete results

Women's 800 m Final
1. Nimali Waliwarsha Konda Liy (Sri Lanka) - 2:05.23
2. Gayanthika Thushari (Sri Lanka) - 2:05.27
3. Fumika Omori (Japan) - 2:06.50

Women's 1500 m Final
1. Chitra Pu (India) - 4:17.92
2. Geng Min (China) - 4:19.15
3. Ayako Jinnouchi (Japan) - 4:19.90

Women's 10000 m
1. Daria Maslova (Kyrghizstan) - 32:21.21
2. Yuka Hori (Japan) - 32:23.26
3. Mizuki Matsuda (Japan) - 32:46.61

Women's 100 m Hurdles Final -0.1 m/s
1. Jung Hyelim (South Korea) - 13.16
2. Ayako Kimura (Japan) - 13.30
3. Wang Dou (China) - 13.36

Women's 400 m Hurdles Final
1. Nguyen Thi (Vietnam) - 56.14
2. Anu R. (India) - 57.22
3. Sayaka Aoki (Japan) - 58.18

Women's 3000 m Steeplechase
1. Sudha Singh (India) - 9:59.47
2. Hyo Gyong (North Korea) - 10:13.94
3. Nana Sato (Japan) - 10:18.11

Men's Pole Vault Final
1. Ding Bangchao (China) - 5.65 m
2. Masaki Ejima (Japan) - 5.65 m
3. Ernest John Obiena (Phillippines) - 5.50 m

Men's Long Jump Final
1. Huang Changzhou (China) - 8.09 m -1.3 m/s
2. Chan Ming Tai (Hong Kong) - 8.03 m -1.0 m/s
3. Shotaro Shiroyama (Japan) - 7.97 m +1.5 m/s

Women's Shot Put
1. Manpreet Kaur (India) - 18.28 m
2. Guo Tianqian (China) - 17.91 m
3. Aya Ota (Japan) - 15.45 m

Women's Hammer Throw
1. Luo Na (China) - 69.92 m
2. Liu Tingting (China) - 69.45 m
3. Hitomi Katsuyama (Japan) - 60.22 m

Women's 4x400 m Relay
1. India - 3:31.34
2. Vietnam - 3:33.22
3. Japan - 3:37.74

Men's Decathlon
1. Suttisak Singkon (Thailand) - 7732
2. Kazuya Kawasaki (Japan) - 7584
3. Guo Qi (China) - 7495

Women's Heptathlon
1. Swapna Barman (India) - 5942
2. Meg Hemphill (Japan) - 5883
3. Purnima Hembram (India) - 5798

© 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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...

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...

japan running news

Search This Blog