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
Comments