Sani Brown Back With 100 m National Title - National Track and Field Championships Day Two Highlights

After losing most of last year to a hernia, Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Tumbleweed TC) was back, winning the 100 m national title for the third time in his career on Day 2 of the 2022 National Track and Field Championships Friday in Osaka. After running 10.11 in the heats and then clearing the 10.05 standard with a 10.04 in the semifinals, Sani Brown overcame a slow start to run down Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) and Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) for the win in 10.08 (+1.1). With a top 3 finish and the standard his place on the Oregon World Championships team is guaranteed, but in his post-race interview he said he was disappointed at the weakness of his performance in the final and promised he'd better it at Worlds.

Sakai continued his rise through the ranks of Japanese sprinting with a PB 10.10 for 2nd, with 18-year-old Yanagita not quite matching his run in the semis but still impressive at 10.19 for 3rd. Olympic team members Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) and Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) were 4th and 6th in 10.19 and 10.27, and with Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) and Bruno Dede (Seiko) not making the final, Aska Cambridge (Nike) a DNS and NR holder Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) not even entered there's a pretty good chance Japan's 4x100 m team next month will be almost completely new.

In the women's 100 m final Arisa Kimishima (DK Shiken) turned in a PB 11.36 (+0.6) for the win, enough to move her up to all-time Japanese #4. All-time #3 Mei Kodama (Mizuno) was 2nd in 11.40, with Midori Mikase (Sumitomo Denko) 3rd in 11.55 (+0.6). 100 mH NR holder Masumi Aoki (77 Ginko) was 4th in 11.59 less than an hour after leading the semifinals in her main event in 13.03 (-0.1).

Another all-time Japanese #4 mark came in the men's hammer throw, where Ryota Kashimura (Yamada Holdings) opened with a PB 72.77 m throw. Kashimura was over 72 m on two other attempts, but his first mark ended up his best of the day and enough for the win. Takahiro Kobata (BUAC) also broke into the all-time top 10, throwing a 71.34 m PB on his third attempt for 2nd. The top 2 in the women's hammer both threw PBs, Remi Katsuya (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) coming in at all-time Japanese #10 with a final attempt of 61.94 m and Sara Fujimoto (Kondotech) with a mark of 61.75 m.

In the men's 400 m, Fuga Sato (Nasu Kankyo) won in 45.49 over Kaito Kawabata (Chukyo Univ. AC), 2nd in 46.00, both of them bettering their chances of surviving the Worlds quota cutoff. Collegians Arran Meldrum (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) and Joseph Nakajima (Toyo Univ.) both ran PBs, Meldrum just getting Nakajima at the line for 3rd, 46.05 to 46.07. Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) won the women's 400 m title in 53.03.

After a fast qualifying round Tokai University 4th-year Kazuto Iizawa (Tokai Univ.) scored his first men's 1500 m national title, outkicking Rikuto Iijima (Ami AC) and Keisuke Morita (Subaru) in the home straight for the win in 3:42.82. Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) was 4 seconds slower than in her last-place finish at the Prefontaine Classic 1500 m last month, but that was still enough to win by 4 seconds and pick up Worlds spot.

Kanae Tatsuta (Nippatsu) cleared 4.25 m on her first attempt to win the women's pole vault, skipping 4.30 m to give the NR a shot at 4.45 m but missing all three attempts. Riku Ito (Kinki Kogyo H.S. Staff) jumped 16.57 m (+1.5) on his last attempt to win the men's triple jump, beating top-ranked Yuto Adachi (Fukuoka Univ.) whose 5th attempt was a 16.22 m (-1.5) PB that put him in 2nd.

Along with Aoki's solid performances in the first two rounds of the women's 100 mH, the men's 400 mH saw all three contenders for the Oregon team, Kazuki Kurokawa (Hosei Univ.), Masaki Toyoda (Fujitsu) and Takayuki Kishimoto (Fujitsu) advance, Kurokawa the fastest at 49.81. Longtime #1 Takatoshi Abe (Yamada Holdings) was a DNS.

Complete results from day 2 of the National Track and Field Championships are available here.

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...

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...

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...

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