At the weekend's Junior Olympics in Yokohama's Nissan Stadium, Asakawa Junior High School 9th-grader Kosuke Ishida won in 8:17.84 to take almost 1.5 seconds off the 3000 m junior high school boys national record. A totally solo run in heavy rain, Ishida won by a margin of almost 16 seconds over his closest competition. The record followed his 1500 m junior high school national record of 3:49.72 at the Sept. 23 Nittai University Time Trials meet in Yokohama, cementing his position at the top of next year's incoming high school class.
Held together with the Junior Olympics, the JAAF Relay Championships saw another record fall in the men's 4x100 m. In the first qualifying heat Kyoto's Rakunan High School, alma mater of Japan's first sub-10 man Yoshihide Kiryu, set a new high school national record of 39.57, the team of Ryo Wada, Daisuke Miyamoto, Yoshinobu Imoto and Kentaro Hiraga shaving 0.07 seconds off the record it had previously set in 2012 with Kiryu anchoring. Kiryu was on-hand to congratulate the Rakunan boys, running third for the Toyo University team which won the heat in 39.22. Rakunan went on to run 40.04 for 7th in the final, Toyo taking 2nd behind Chuo University 39.30 to 39.47.
© 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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