Skip to main content

Meet, Youth, Collegiate and National Records - Oda Memorial Meet Highlights



The 55th Oda Memorial Meet went off as scheduled Thursday in Hiroshima with off and on rain leaving a wet track for most of the day. 

In the women's 5000 m, Teresia Muthoni (Daiso) set a meet record 15:06.76 for the win, with runner-up Naomi Muthoni (Univ. Ent.) the only other runner under the Olympic standard at 15:08.07. Japan-based Kenyans took five of the top six positions. Kazuna Kanetomo (Kyocera) won the B-heat in 15:55.24.

Kenyans swept the top three spots in the men's 5000 m A-heat, with local high schooler Cosmas Mwangi (Sera H.S.) taking 1st in 13:22.80. Keita Sato (Rakunan H.S.), who turned 17 in January, was 4th in 13:42.50, the 4th-best time ever by a Japanese high schooler and over 3 seconds under the previous U18 national record. The men's 3000 m also turned out high-level results, with Keisuke Morita (Komori Corp.) leading the top six under 8:00 in a meet record 7:53.01.

Another meet record came in the women's 3000 m steeplechase, with collegiate star Reimi Yoshimura (Daito Bunka Univ.) getting the better of rival Yuno Yamanaka (Ehime Ginko), winner of the 2000 mSC at last week's Hyogo Relay Carnival. Yoshimura ran 9:51.47 to Yamanaka's 9:53.00, both clearing the old  record. 

Yet another new record came in the men's 3000 m steeplechase, where Philemon Kiplagat (Aisan Kogyo), Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) and 2020 national champ Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) kicked past Rio Olympian Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) in the last 200 m to all go under the old meet record. Kiplagat took 1st in a new record of 8:25.13, Miura next in 8:25.31 and Yamaguchi 3rd in 8:26.52. All three came up short of the Olympic standard of 8:22.00, which both Kiplagat and Miura broke last summer outside the qualifying window. 

Outside the distance events, the national records fell in both the women's 100 m hurdles and men's 110 m hurdles. In the women's race, Asuka Terada (Japan Create) bettered her own record in 12.96 (+1.6 m/s) to win the final. Taio Kanai (Mizuno) took the men's final with a new record of 13.16 (+1.7 m/s), runner-up Shunsuke Izumiya (Juntendo Univ.) also bettering his own collegiate national record in 13.33 but coming up 0.01 short fo the Olympic standard.

No records fell in the women's or men's 100 m, the latter the most hyped-up event of the meet. Arisa Kimishima (DK Shiken) won the women's final in 11.64 (+0.9 m/s), with Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) taking the top men's spot in 10.14 (+0.1 m/s) over fellow big guns Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko), Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) and Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko).


© 2021 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Updates on Transfers

April 1 is the start of Japan's new academic and fiscal year, and there's always a wave of transfer announcements to go with it. Some notable ones yesterday: 800 m NR holder Rin Kubo skipped university to go straight to 2023 Queens Ekiden national champion Sekisui Kagaku after her graduation from Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S. Multiple NR holder Nozomi Tanaka rejoined the Toyota Jidoshokki women's team after having left it to pursue a solo pro career as a New Balance athlete. Already on the team for this fall's Nagoya Asian Games in the 10000 m, Ririka Hironaka announced a switch from her longtime home at Japan Post to the Uniqlo women's team. Collegiate marathon record holder Asahi Kuroda joined the 2026 national champion GMO corporate team after graduating from 2026 Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University last week. Hakone Ekdien First Stage CR holder Rui Aoki joins the Sumitomo Denko corporate team after running his final race for 2025 Izumo Ekiden w...

Chien Breaks TPE NR, Iwata Betters ID-Class WR - Weekend Track Roundup

The last weekend of the academic and fiscal year saw at least 5 meets with good results domestically and abroad. Kicking things off Friday was the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne, where Tomohiro Shinno and Naoto Hasegawa took 1st and 3rd in the men's high jump, both of them only clearing 2.18 m along with 2nd-placer Roman Anastasios . 12 other Japanese athletes were in action on the second day of the meet on Saturday, where 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura ran 3:42.84 for 6th in the men's 1500 m. Nagiya Mori had a better one in the men's 3000 m with a 7:45.40 for 4th. Both Yota Mashiko and Rui Suzuki cleared 8:00 too, Mashiko's 7:53.84 the 2nd-fastest ever by a Japanese-born high schooler. Abigail Fuka Ido and Nagisa Takahashi both placed 3rd in their events, Ido going 23.85 (-0.9) in the women's 200 m and Takahashi clearing 1.82 m in the women's high jump. 8 Japanese men were at The TEN in California to run 10000 m. In the B-heat won by Edward Marks in ...

JAAF Announces Marathon Teams for Nagoya Asian Games

On Mar. 25 the JAAF announced Japan's marathon team lineups for this fall's Nagoya Asian Games. Yuya Yoshida (GMO) and Ichitaka Yamashita (Mitsubishi Juko) make up the men's team, with Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) and Mikuni Yada (Edion) representing Japan in the women's marathon. Each country can field up to 2 men and 2 women per marathon team at the Asian Games. The top-ranked male and female athletes in the 2025-26 MGC Series rankings were given first priority, with the second slots going to people with high-level performances in the 2025-26 MGC Series. Yoshida ran 2:05:16 to win the 2024 Fukuoka International Marathon, and at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon ran an excellent 2:06:59 to take the top Japanese spot in the race and in the MGC rankings. After having run the Tokyo World Championships marathon last fall this will be his second-straight marathon national team in a major international championships. Yamashita ran 2:06:18 at February's Osak...