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.

World Marathon Majors Japanese Entries

We're back from a short summer break. A week and a half out from the first race of the season's four World Marathon Majors races, here's a look at Japanese athletes scheduled to run. Everything right now is about qualifying for the MGC Race, the official trials race for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to be held in the fall of 2027 in Nagoya. The JAAF makes no mistake about wanting to keep its top people racing domestically where it can get a share of revenue from the TV broadcast and race operations, so anyone who decides to race overseas has to do it in a WA platinum label race and hit either 2:06:30 or 2:23:30, regardless of place, course or weather if they want to make the trials. At the same time concessions are make for domestic races, like for example the late-August Hokkaido Marathon where up to 3 men and 3 women can qualify if they go 2:12:00 or 2:32:00. As a result, you get things like last year where amateur runner Yudai Fukuda made the trials by finishing 3rd Jap...

Nakajima Breaks 100 mH NR Twice, Kitaguchi Returns - August Track Roundup

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...

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