Momoka Muraoka was the only Japanese athlete in action in the finals on the sixth day of track and field competition at the Tokyo Paralympics. A quintuple medalist at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics including a gold in the women's sitting giant slalom, Muraoka made her summer Paralympic debut in the T54 100 m partly out of sense of staleness and frustration with para-skiing. Making it to the final, she placed 6th out of eight in 16.71, 0.38 behind bronze medalist Cheri Madsen of the U.S.A. Muraoka will have a quick turnaround to the 2022 Beijing Paralympics just over six months away.
While the girls' race was a blowout by 2022 champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , the boys' race at Sunday's National High School Ekiden was a tense battle of turnover that saw all of the final top four teams take a stab at leading. 2023 3rd-placer Yachiyo Shoin H.S. handled the first 2 of the 7 stages in the 42.195 km race, with lead runner Rui Suzuki delivering a bold run on the 10.0 km First Stage that produced the fastest-ever time by a Japanese runner on the stage, 28:43, and put Yachiyo Shoin 29 seconds out front. Last year's Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu Suzuki ran Yachiyo Shoin down to put 2023 champ Saku Chosei H.S. into 1st on the 8.1075 km Third Stage, but Genta Sugano of last year's 8th-placer Sendai Ikuei H.S. had other plans and took the lead on the 8.0875 km Fourth Stage. Smiling and fist pumping to the crowd almost the entire way, Taketo Tsukada of last year's 6th-placer Omuta H.S. moved up from 3rd to 1st by 2 seconds over Saku Chosei on the 3.0 k...
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