Saturday is day three of the 101st Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships at Tokyo's National Stadium. It's a day mostly dedicated to qualifying rounds for Sunday, the only track final being the D1 10000 mRW at 17:55. Toyo University dominates the D1 men's walks, both the meet and collegiate records being held by Toyo alumni Daisuke Matsunaga and Koki Ikeda. But the favorite this time around is 4th-year Ryo Hamanishi (Meiji Univ.), with a best of 39:23.40 the only athlete in the race under 40 minutes. Only three others, Kento Yoshikawa (Tokyo Gakugei Univ.), Eiji Suzuki (Tokai Univ.) and Mitsuki Murate (Tokyo Gakugei Univ.), have broken 41 minutes, meaning it'll take a pretty big upset for Toyo to be in the game.
The women's heptathlon also gets underway, its meet record of 5633 having come last year via Karin Odama (Nittai Univ.). Field event finals include the D1 men's high jump, D1 men's pole vault, women's triple jump, D1 men's hammer throw, D2 men's long jump, D2 men's shot put, women's javelin throw and D2 men's javelin throw.
In qualifying rounds, D1 and D2 men will be trying to make it to Sunday's 3000 mSC final, where the women will have a straight final. NR holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) opted for the 5000 m instead, and in his absence in the D1 race Atsushi Shobu (Waseda Univ.) leads Heat 1 with a best of 8:37.24. Miura's teammate Soma Hattori leads Heat 2 in 8:39.19, and if both he and Shobu make it to the final there's a chance we'll see Masanari Shintaku's 8:35.2 MR from 1977, if you can believe it, finally go down.
Top-ranked D2 runner Hibiki Obara (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) is even faster at 8:27.80, and it would take a pretty slack final for him not to get the 8:42.57 D2 MR come Sunday. D2 heats start at 14:55, with the D1 races getting underway at 15:40. Streaming starts at 9:10 a.m. local time, with complete entry lists, meet schedule and live results here.
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