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.
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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.
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