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Katagihara Breaks 25-Year-Old 1500 m Meet Record - Kanto Regionals Day Two Highlights


The 101st Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships continued Friday at Tokyo's National Stadium. The biggest news of the day was in the women's 1500 m final, where Saki Katagihara (Tsukuba Univ.) broke the 4:16.64 meet record set way back in 1997 by another Tsukuba athlete, Kumiko Okamoto, to win in 4:16.41. Okamoto had pressure from Mao Kogure (Juntendo Univ.) over the last lap but held her off in the home straight, Kogure running a PB 4:16.87 for 2nd and just missing hitting the old MR too. 3rd-placer Risa Yamazaki (Nittai Univ.) was also under 4:20 at 4:18.51, with collegiate record holder Mizuki Michishita (Rikkyo Univ.) 4th in 4:20.65.

Another ancient MR fell in the D1 men's shot put. On his final attempt, favorite Hitoshi Okumura (Kokushikan Univ.) threw a PB 18.26 m for the win, 0.11 m further than the 1998-era meet record of 18.15 m by Yasuo Noguchi (Nihon Univ.). The top 4 all threw PBs. With his senior year having just begun Okumura is now just 0.38 m off the collegiate record. Maki Saito (Tokyo Joshi Taiiku Univ.) also beat her own MR in the women's discus throw with a 57.43 m PB on her final attempt, almost 11 m better than 2nd-placer Haruka Osako (Kokushikan Univ.). The NR is only 59.03 m, set in 2019 by Nanaka Kori (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.).

#1-ranked Kazuto Iizawa (Tokai Univ.) took a predictable win in the D1 men's 1500 m final in 3:44.44, but D2 men's winner Kento Yamauchi (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) wasn't far off his mark in 3:45.61, a time that would have put him 4th in the D1 race.

Nihon University couldn't improve on its near-miss on the collegiate record in the qualifying round yesterday but still pulled off the win in the D1 men's 4x100 m final in 39.18. Waseda University anchor Yudai Nishi nearly ran Nihon's Akise Ichinose down but came up just short, Waseda taking 2nd in 39.24. Toyo University was 3rd in 39.37 after three of its runners made the top 6 in the 100 m final. Daito Bunka University took the D2 4x100 m final, running a D2 MR 39.70, with Nittai University winning the women's 4x100 m final in 45.01 by 0.24 over Aoyama Gakuin University.

Back to that D1 men's 100 m final, though. Toyo 1st-year Hiroki Yanagita lived up to potential, running a PB 10.19 (-0.2) for the win and confirming his position as the next sprinting hope coming up through the ranks. Towa Uzawa (Tsukuba Univ.) was 2nd in 10.32 with Toyo's Ryo Wada 3rd in 10.34. Toyo's Shota Nakamura took 6th in 10.44. Toyo's Joseph Nakajima also won the D1 men's 400 m final in 46.19, the only runner in the top 5 not to PB. All around it was a pretty good day for the Toyo sprinting program that invested so heavily in training infrastructure for its most famous alumnus, Yoshihide Kiryu.

The D1 decathlon came down to the 1500 m to decide the podium. The leader after 9 events, Takato Kitagawa (Kokushikan Univ.) could only summon up a 4:52.11. That was slow enough for Tomoki Yamashita (Nihon Univ.) and Kitagawa's teammate Taiga Oka to pass him by, Yamashita running 4:35.11 to win overall in a PB 7091 and Oka 4:28.05 for 2nd in a PB 7029. Kitagawa was 3rd in 7026, also a PB, beating 4th-placer Masaki Shimizu (Tokyo Gakugei Univ.) by just 1 point.

In other results:
  • Yuna Miura (Tsukuba Univ.) took the top spot in the women's 100 m final in 11.74 (+0.8), with Shodai Hirano (Daito Bunka Univ.) winning the D2 men's 100 m final in 10.54 (+0.3).
  • Keiko Iida (Chuo Univ.) was 1st in the women's 400 m final in 53.84, the only athlete under 55 seconds. Arran Meldrum (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) won the D2 men's 400 m final in a meet record 46.30, not far off D1 winner Nakajima's time.
  • Nanako Tamaoki (Kokushikan Univ.) won the women's 100 mH final in 13.37 (+0.1). Taiga Yokochi (Hosei Univ.) won the D1 men's 110 mH final in 13.81 (-0.3) by 0.01 over Ken Toyoda (Keio Univ.), Junki Yamamoto (Daito Bunka Univ.) winning the D2 final in 14.21 (+0.7).
  • Miyu Naito (Kanagawa Univ.) dropped a PB 46:43.31 to win a close women's 10000 mRW.
  • Kaede Ito (Nittai Univ.) won the women's high jump, clearing 1.77 m on her first attempt but unable to get over 1.80 m.
  • Rintaro Hirota (Nihon Univ.) jumped a PB 15.99 (-0.2) to win the men's D1 triple jump, with 2nd-place Kenshin Suzuki (Meiji Univ.) giving him a scare with a 15.90 (+0.5) PB jump on his final attempt. D2 triple jump winner Hajime Araki (Chiba Shoga Univ.) jumped 15.18 m (+0.5), the only athlete to clear 15 m.
  • Momoko Watanabe (Tsukuba Univ.) won the women's hammer throw with a mark of 58.30 m.
In qualifying action, the main news was in the men's 5000 m. U20 NR holder Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.) was a DNS in the D2 heats, leaving Kamina Leakey (Soka Univ.) to lead the 24 qualifiers in 13:56.73, the only one of them to go under 14 minutes in qualifying. 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) made the D1 heats a totally different story, going out at 13:20 pace in Heat 1 and forcing the rest of the field to follow. He quickly relaxed and let a few others lead, but over the last lap he opened a 7-second lead to win Heat 1 in 13:51.90. A total of 5 qualifiers for Sunday's D1 final cleared 14 minutes.


© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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