Skip to main content

Endo Wins Men's 5000 m to Seal Up Place on Oregon Team - National Championships Day One Highlights


Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) opened the first day of the 2022 National Track and Field Championships in Osaka by becoming the first athlete at Nationals to score a place on the team for next month's World Championships. Saying post-race that he'd run the 5000 m envisioning the semis at Worlds, Endo hung back in the early stages, moved up to cover a mid-race move by Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu), then kicked away with ease in the last 1000 m to take the win in 13:22.15. Combined with his 13:10.69 in April it was enough to land him on the team. Olympian Hiroki Matsueda (Fujitsu) was 2nd in 13:30.15, enough to move up the world rankings but still short of what he'd need to break into what's left of the quota places. Kanta Shimizu (Subaru) came up from the chase pack for 3rd in 13:31.51, with the next 7 all under 13:40. Shiojiri ended up 9th in 13:40.99, with Takuma Sunaoka (Konica Minolta), sub-13:20 this season, last in 14:53.51.

NR holder Naoto Tobe (JAL) was a DNS in the men's high jump with an Achilles tendon injury that will probably keep him home this summer, but Tomohiro Shinno (Kyudenko) stepped up to win at 2.30 m, enough to move him up from 18th to 15th in the quota. Interviewed later he said that he felt pretty good about his chances of staying in the top 32. 2nd through 4th all cleared 2.20 m, with Ryoichi Akamatsu (Awas) scoring enough points to move him up from his more precarious spot at 30th in the quota.

Sumire Hata (Shibata Kogyo) overcame a -2.5 m/s headwind to win the women's long jump with a third-round 6.43 m jump. That was good enough to improve her quota spot from 22nd to 20th and improve her chances of making the cut. Nanaka Kori (Niigata Albirex RC) pulled out a 58.70 m throw for the win on her last attempt in the women's discus throw, just off her own national record and putting the Worlds quota in range if she can duplicate that performance one more time before the June 26 deadline. Likewise for Masateru Yugami (Toyota), who threw 59.43 m in the men's discus, his best since 2019, to move just outside the quota. But that was only good enough for 2nd, with Yuji Tsutsumi (Alsok) throwing 59.45 m for the national title.


In qualifying rounds the biggest news was the men's 100 m, where Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) failed to make the final. With Aska Cambridge (Nike) a DNS and NR holder Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) not even entered that meant a lot of the core of Japan's 4x100 m crew won't be on the starting line in the final tomorrow. Even Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) barely made it, squeezing through on time in 10.25 (+0.5). But even as those veterans struggled, there was good news. Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Tumbleweed TC) was back, running 10.11 (0.0) to lead the heats and then clearing the Worlds standard with a 10.04 (+0.8) to top the semis. Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) won the first semi in 10.13 (+0.5) with Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) 2nd in 10.15, and in the second semi 18-year-old Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) continued to climb the ranks with a 10.16 (0.0) PB for 1st. A win from Sani Brown in the final tomorrow looks like a given, but the lineup for the Worlds 4x100 m could be very different from last summer's Olympic DNF roster.

The women's 100 m title is less sure, with Midori Mikase (Sumitomo Denko), Arisa Kimishima (DK Shiken) and Mei Kodama (Mizuno) all within 0.02 of each other in the semis and Masumi Aoki (77 Ginko) just behind. Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) led the women's 400 m semis by over a second in a PB 52.74, with Worlds quota occupiers Kaito Kawabata (Chukyo Univ. AC) and Fuga Sato (Nasu Kankyo) both winning their semis in the men's 400 m. Sato dropped the fastest time overall, 45.55. There weren't any surprises in the women's 1500 m heats, where 4:18.58 was the slowest time qualifier and all the favorites advanced, but the men's 1500 m Heat 2 was unexpectedly fast. NR holder Nanami Arai (Honda) ran 3:41.47 for 1st, with 7th-place Daichi Takeuchi (Toenec) running 3:43.67 as the slowest time qualifier. 8th-place Shoma Funatsu (Kyudenko) ran 3:45.42, faster than Heat 1 winner Keisuke Morita (Subaru) but shut out of the final.

Complete results are available here. The National Track and Field Championships continue through Sunday. Look for Day Two preview and streaming shortly.

© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Rigajags said…
As predicted, Endo won. Quite easily too. Not a good run by Sato after running 13.22 last month. He is young though, i hope he builds for autumn/winter
Yoshii out with injury.

I wonder what happened to kosuke ishida: been missing or terrible results after killing It at izumo and all Japan Ekiden.
Nowhere to be seen again.

June 10, 2022 at 6:50 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Arao Becomes 1st Man in 40 Years to Score Back-to-Back Ome Road Race Wins

30 km is an under-appreciated distance, and both of Japan's big races at that distance happened Sunday. At the Ome Road Race in western Tokyo's mountains, Sydney Marathon 6th-placer Masato Arao (ND Software) became the first man since the great Kunimitsu Ito in 1985-1986 to win back-to-back years. Arao, who finished 39th of 40 on his leg at the New Year Ekiden last month, stayed in the pack through 20 km before going on the attack, putting over a minute on New Year Ekiden Sixth Stage CR breaker Yudai Shimazu (GMO). Sub-1:31 winning times are rare on the tough and hilly Ome course, but Arao's 1:30:54 almost equaled his 1:30:50 from last year, making him the first Japanese man ever to do it twice and second only to CR holder Ezekiel Cheboitibin . Next up Arao races the Tokyo Marathon, where he is targeting sub-2:06. Shimazu was 2nd in 1:31:58 and Yuta Nakayama (JR Higashi Nihon) 3rd in 1:32:07. Cheboitibin was only 9th, running almost 8 minutes off his CR in 1:36:42. Shi...
3 comments
Read more

Osaka Marathon Preview

The Osaka Marathon is Sunday, one of Japan's biggest mass-participation races and the next stop on the calendar for its elite marathoners hoping to qualify for the L.A. Olympics marathon trials in the fall of 2027. Last year it snowed mid-race, but this year is looking warmer than ideal given the season, with sunny skies, almost no wind, and temps forecast to be 11˚ at the start and rising to 19˚ by the time the winners are finishing. NHK is broadcasting Osaka with a heavy emphasis on the men's race, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it from overseas. There's also official streaming on Youtube starting at 8:30 a.m. local time, although it doesn't look like it's the same as what NHK will be showing. Given Osaka's history at the elite level as the continuation of the men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, the women's field is small relative to the men's, just enough to tick World Athletics' label requirements and with almost no do...
1 comment
Read more

Nagoya Women's Marathon Elite Field

Last year's top 3 Sheila Chepkirui , Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba are back for this year's Nagoya Women's Marathon on Mar. 8, but things are being set up more for it to be a race between Chepkirui, 2:17:49 in Berlin 2023, Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda , 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024. Aynalem has the freshest sub-2:20 of the 3, with neither Chepkirui nor Maeda having done it in 2 years. Maeda's only recent result is a 1:10:07 from Houston last month, but when she ran her NR she didn't have any kind of tuneup race to indicate her fitness so it's probably best not to read too much into that. If it goes out as a 2:18 race those are the only 3 who can probably hang with it. If it turns out to be more of a 2:20 race like when Chepkirui won in 2:20:40 last year then there's a group of 7 at the 2:20-2:22 level who will be in the picture, including Chumba, Selly Chep...
Post a Comment
Read more