Skip to main content

Asian Junior Championships Day Four Highlights


Japan capped the final day of its role as host nation for the Asian Junior Athletics Championships with a pair of championships records that erased marks set by China way back in that nation’s 90’s heyday.

Nozomi Tanaka, newly-graduated from high school and opting for the club runner life like her mother, sub-2:30 amateur Chihiro Tanaka, got the party started with a 9:04.36 record in the girls’ 3000 m that took almost 6 seconds off Li Xin Lan’s 1997 mark. Her high school and club teammate Yuna Wada wasn’t far off Lan’s old record with a 9:14.13 for silver more than 20 seconds ahead of China’s Fan Liu.

The Japanese girls’ 4x400 m likewise took down a Chinese record set in 1997, running 3:38.20 for gold. India and Sri Lanka were a distant 2nd and 3rd, with China nowhere to be found in the final. One member of Japan’s 4x400 m squad, Kasumi Yoshida, doubled after winning an individual gold in the 400 m hurdles earlier in the day in 58.43. Her teammate Natsumi Murakami missed silver by 0.04, finishing just behind Taiwan’s Jui Hsuan Yang 58.89 to 58.92.

Karin Odama rounded out the day’s girls’ medal haul with a gold in the heptathlon, scoring 5133. The only event of the day in which Japanese girls didn’t take gold was the 200 m, where Yanan Tao of China took the top spot in 24.01. Japan’s Miku Yamada missed getting into the medals by 0.05, running 24.52 for 4th.

On the boys’ side Japan scored two golds, Yusuke Shirao joining Yoshida on top of the 400 m hurdles in 50.52 and Kyohei Tomori clearing 2.16 m for the first time to win the high jump. As in the 10000 m, despite being Asia’s distance power the Japanese boys missed the low-hanging fruit of gold in the 5000 m, Ajeet Kumar of India running a PB 14:15.24 to beat Japan’s Ren Tazawa by 2 seconds and Kiyoto Suzuki finishing out of the medals in 4th.

Japanese boys also picked up bronze in the 200 m and triple jump courtesy of Justin Junpei Tsukamoto and Shunsuke Izumiya. Where the girls dominated the 4x400 m, it was the only event of the day where the boys came up empty-handed, finishing 4th in 3:10.01 almost 2 seconds behind gold medalist Sri Lanka.

In the final medal count Japan came out on top with 14 gold medals, 15 silver and 13 bronze. China was next, with 11 gold, 8 silver and 4 bronze. The success of its national team in this championships is bound to buoy hopes for Japan's next big hosting gig two years down the road.  Watch complete replays of all four days of the 18th Asian Junior Athletics Championships here.

18th Asian Junior Athletics Championships

Day Four Highlights
Gifu, 6/10/18
click here for complete highlights

Girls
Girls’ 200 m Final +0.1 m/s
1. Yanan Tao (China) – 24.01
2. Amasha De Silva (Sri Lanka) – 24.47 – PB
3. Jisna Mathew (India) – 24.48
-----
4. Miku Yamada (Japan) – 24.52

Girls’ 3000 m
1. Nozomi Tanaka (Japan) – 9:04.36 – MR
2. Yuna Wada (Japan) – 9:14.13
3. Fang Liu (China) – 9:35.69

Girls’ 400 m Hurdles Final
1. Kasumi Yoshida (Japan) – 58.43
2. Jui Hsuan Yang (Taiwan) – 58.89 – PB
3. Natsumi Murakami (Japan) – 58.92
-----
5. Moeka Sekimoto (Japan) – 1:00.17

Girls’ 4x400 m Relay Final
1. Japan – 3:38.20 – MR
2. India – 3:41.11
3. Sri Lanka – 3:45.16

Girls’ Heptathlon
1. Karin Odama (Japan) – 5133
2. Cai Juan Chen (Taiwan) – 4925
3. Diana Geints (Kazakhstan) – 4804 – PB

Boys
Boys’ 200 m Final -0.2 m/s
1. Tai Sheng Wei (Taiwan) – 21.05
2. Min Kyu Shin (South Korea) – 21.06
3. Justin Junpei Tsukamoto (Japan) – 21.09 – PB
-----
6. Yuki Takagi (Japan) – 21.59

Boys’ 5000 m Final
1. Ajeet Kumar (India) – 14:15.24 – PB
2. Ren Tazawa (Japan) – 14:17.26
3. Seyedamir Zamanpour (Iran) – 14:25.25 – PB
-----
4. Kiyoto Suzuki (Japan) – 14:26.03

Boys’ 400 m Hurdles Final
1. Yusuke Shirao (Japan) – 50.52
2. Bassem Mohamed Awad Hemeida (Qatar) – 50.55
3. Mahdi Pirjahan (Iran) – 51.18 – PB

Boys’ 4x400 m Final
1. Sri Lanka – 3:08.70
2. Thailand – 3:09.20
3. Malaysia – 3:09.60
-----
4. Japan – 3:10.01

Boys’ High Jump Final
1. Kyohei Tomori (Japan) – 2.16 m – PB
2. Nuh Abdulkadir Ibrahim Anuh (Qatar) – 2.14 m
3. Hao Zhang (China) – 2.12 m
-----
13. Ryuta Bando (Japan) – 1.95 m

Boys’ Triple Jump Final
1. Kamalraj Kanagaraj (India) – 15.75 m -0.3 m/s
2. Gyu Min Yu (South Korea) – 15.56 m -0.3 m/s – PB
3. Shunsuke Izumiya (Japan) – 15.47 m +0.1 m/s

© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
53 comments
Read more