Japan's National Track and Field Championships wrap up Sunday in Osaka. Streaming starts at 10:25 local time, switching over to NHK's live broadcast at 3:30 p.m. The daily schedule is here, start lists here, and live results here.
The women's 5000 m looks like the race of the day, with five women under the 15:10.00 Oregon World Championships standard not including Kenyan pacer Agnes Mukari (Kyocera). NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post), Kaede Hagitani (Edion) and Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) have all gone under 15 minutes, Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido) and Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) just over. Any of them makes the top 3 will be Oregon-bound, and anyone who knocks at least three of them off will have a shot. Hironaka is the obvious favorite and Hagitani the most likely choice for 2nd, but beyond that it's wait and see. Tanaka's chances aren't helped by the fact that she's entered in the 800 m final just over an hour before, where she's ranked #1. Kimura has been back on track this season after a couple of bad years and could pick her off. It should be one of the highlights of this year's Nationals whatever happens.
With most of the big names absent there's no clear favorite in the men's 800 m final, just 0.29 separating top 3 Junki Ishimoto (Nihon Univ.), Daiki Nemoto (Juntendo Univ.) and Kizuki Ushiroda (Soseikan H.S.) in the semifinals. Mikuto Kaneko (Chuo Univ.) is the highest-ranked Japanese man in the Worlds quota standings at 64th, but it would take something massive from him to bridge the gap up to the bottom of the 48-deep quota.
The men's sprints have been showing signs of a generational change at Nationals this year. In the 200 m final, Olympians Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) and Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) just making it through in the two time qualifier spots as the oldest in the field, beaten there by people as much as 11 years younger. Koki Ueyama (Sumitomo Denko) was fastest in the semis at 20.48, with the two youngest guys, Reona Miura (Waseda Univ.) and To Uzawa (Tsukuba Univ.) running PBs of 20.63 and 20.66 to make it there. Koike was only 4th in the 100 m, and without a solid run in the 200 m there's a good likelihood that there won't be anyone from last year's Olympic 4x100 m in Oregon.
Women's 100 m champ Arisa Kimishima (DK Shiken) is seeded #1 in the 200 m final with a 23.93 semi, the only other athlete going under 24 seconds there being Remi Tsuruta (Minami Kyushu Family Mart) at 23.99. But everyone in the field has run faster than that, with Mei Kodama (Mizuno), Ami Saito (Osaka Seikei AC) and Hanae Aoyama (Konan Univ.) all there. Tsuruta's PB of 23.17 is the fastest of them, making this one of the more unpredictable races of the weekend.
Men's 110 mH NR holder Shunsuke Izumiya (Sumitomo Denko) and Olympic team alternate Rachid Muratake (Juntendo Univ.) have both cleared the Oregon standard, Muratake doing it with a 13.27 (+0.5) PB in the semis yesterday, so a top 3 finish by either in today's final will put them on the Worlds team. Shunya Takayama (Zenrin) is on the edge of the quota, and a big run from him will help his chances of moving up. Beating either Muratake and Izumiya would almost definitely put him in range.
Eri Utsunomiya (Hasegawa) is right on the edge of the women's 400 mH quota too, currently ranked 41st against a quota of 40. Utsunomiya leads the final qualifiers with a 57.16 in the semis, and a win with a time in the same range should be enough to boost her up to near 36th. Whether that'll be enough to get her to Oregon remains to be seen. Her strongest competition is Ami Yamamoto (Ritsumeikan Univ.), 57.34 in the semifinals, and a win from Yamamoto could be enough to keep Utsunomiya home.
Two women in the high jump cleared 1.80 m in the Nationals qualifying window, Nagisa Takahashi (Mason Work) and Reina Takeyama (Edion) and are the probably favorites. In the men's long jump, Yuki Hashioka (Fujitsu) and Hiromichi Yoshida (Kamisaki T&F Assoc.) are in the Worlds quota, but with NR holder Shotaro Shiroyama (Zenrin) in the field the national title is hard to call. Shiroyama has jumped only 7.90 m in the Nationals window and will need a comeback to have a shot at either the title or making Worlds.
After a long period of struggle Roderick Dean (Mizuno) has been on the way back this year, and as of right now he's the only Japanese man in the World quota at 27th of 32. He's thrown 82.18 m in the Nationals window, bettered only by Takuto Kominami (SomeQ) at 82.52 m. Kenji Ogura (Tochigi Sports Assoc.) is close behind at 81.63 m, and at 38th he's close enough to the quota to have a shot. Yuta Sakiyama (Ehime T&F Assoc.) is the only other athlete over 80 m, having thrown 80.51 m.
U20 NR holder Nanaka Kori (Niigata Albirex RC) is the only athlete over 16 m in the women's shot put, her nearest competition coming from Fuyuko Oyamada (Nihon Univ.) at 15.75 m. NR holder Daichi Nakamura (Mizuno) hasn't thrown within a meter of his 18.85 m record lately, but with Reiji Takeda (Tochigi Sports Assoc.) and Jason Atuobeng (Fukuoka Univ.) knocking on its door at 18.64 m and 18.42 m this Nationals window it wouldn't be a surprise to see one of them break Nakamura's record for the win.
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