Skip to main content

London World Championships - Day Nine Japanese Results


Following up on its silver medal at the Rio Olympics, the Japanese men's 4x100 m relay squad delivered the first Japanese medal of the London World Championships as it took bronze behind hosts Great Britain and U.S.A. Swapping in alternate Kenji Fujimitsu for ailing anchor Aska Cambridge in the final, the team featured only two starting members of the Rio lineup. Lead runner Shuhei Tada, a student at Kwansei Gakuin University who burst onto the scene in May, again proved himself the best new development in Japanese men's sprinting with a fast start. Rio members Shota Iizuka and Yoshihide Kiryu did their bits on second and third to keep Japan even with Jamaica in 3rd before Fujimitsu delivered the goods.

With bronze at the Beijing Olympics and silver in Rio last year it was Japan's first-ever World Championships men's 4x100 m relay medal. At age Fujimitsu may not make it to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but with Cambridge, 200 m finalist Abdul Hakim Sani Brown and Rio team member Ryota Yamagata still in reserve Japan's chances for Tokyo continue to look good.

The men's 4x400 m team couldn't match the 4x100 m performance, finishing last in their qualifying heat. In the men's decathlon Japan's Akihiko Nakamura and Keisuke Ushiro took the bottom two spots, finishing 19th and 20th among the 20 athletes to complete every discipline. National champion Nakamura punctuated his performance by frontrunning the final event, the 1500 m, to win it by 4 seconds.

London World Championships Day Nine Japanese Results

London, England, 8/12/17
click here for complete results

Men's 4x100 m Relay Heat 1
1. U.S.A. - 37.70 - Q
2. Great Britain - 37.76 - Q
3. Japan - 38.21 - Q
4. Turkey - 38.44 - q

Men's 4x100 m Relay Final
1. Great Britain - 37.47
2. U.S.A. - 37.52
3. Japan - 38.04
4. China - 38.34
5. France - 38.48
6. Canada - 38.59
7. Turkey - 38.73
DNF - Jamaica

Men's 4x400 m Relay Heat 2
1. U.S.A. - 2:59.23 - Q
2. Trinidad and Tobago - 2:59.35 - Q
3. Belgium - 2:59.47 - Q
-----
8. Japan - 3:07.29

Men's Decathlon
1. Kevin Mayer (France) - 8768
2. Rico Freimuth (Germany) - 8564
3. Kai Kazmirek (Germany) - 8488
-----
19. Akihiko Nakamura (Japan) - 7646
20. Keisuke Ushiro (Japan) - 7498

© 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
photo by Ekiden Mania, © 2017 Kazuyuki Sugimatsu, all rights reserved

Comments

Anonymous said…
?? Fijimitsu's age?

Thanks for the report.
Brett Larner said…
Fujimitsu is 31. Nice to see him get this late in his career.
Anonymous said…
Thanks for the summary! Just wondering - what happened to Cambridge? Hopefully it was nothing serious.
Brett Larner said…
He had an injury during the final at Nationals in late June. Didn't seem to have fully recovered in time for London.

Most-Read This Week

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...

Restaurant Owner Selected as Olympic Torchbearer Dies in Fire After Becoming Despondent Over Impact of Coronavirus Crisis (updated)

On the evening of Apr. 30, the 54-year-old male owner of a restaurant in Tokyo's Nerima ward specializing in tonkatsu deep fried pork cutlets died from full-body burns in a fire at the restaurant. The man had been one of the people chosen as a torchbearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics torch relay. With the coronavirus crisis causing both the postponement of the Olympics and a loss of business at the restaurant, the man had recently started talking pessimistically about the future to those around him. With evidence of the man's body having been doused in tonkatsu cooking oil, metropolitan police from the Hikarigaoka Police Station are carefully examining the cause of the fire. At around 10:00 p.m. on the 30th, the fire broke out in the tonkatsu restaurant on the first floor of a three-story building. A neighborhood resident who noticed smoke called the fire department. Firefighters found the floor and part of a wall burning, with the man lying on the floor in the customer seat...

Kawauchi Wins Inaugural Kawauchi Half Marathon

http://www.minyu-net.com/sports/running/FM20160501-070419.php translated by Brett Larner 川内優輝ロード pic.twitter.com/rEJk7CQPFV — みとっぽ (黒) (@mitoppo_tmyk) April 30, 2016 Yuki Kawauchi Road in Kawauchi, Fukushima Held to inspire former residents to return to the area after the nearby TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident five years ago, the village of Kawauchi held the first " Kawauchi no Sato Kaeru Half Marathon - From Reconstruction to Creation " on April 30.  The course started and finished at the village heliport.  1188 runners from across the country gathered to celebrate the village's revival as they ran through its springtime streets. The event's organizing committee was made up of local government and board of education members with support from the Fukushima Minyu Newspaper and other sponsors.  The race's purpose was to transmit the vitality and charm of the reconstructing Kawauchi village to the rest of the nation in hopes of helpin...