Japanese National Team for Cali 22 World U20 Championships

The same day most of Japan's team from the Oregon 22 World Championships made it back home, the Cali 22 World U20 Championships team took off from Tokyo ahead of next week's meet. 9 women representing 5 universities and 3 high schools across 6 events and 25 men from 17 universities and 3 high schools across 15 events are entered. But if the numbers in Eugene were anything to go by it's likely the number of them who make it to the starting line will be smaller.

The women are surprisingly absent from the 3000 m, usually an area of strength for them, but the women's team does include Moe Matsuoka (Chuo Univ.), 4th-fastest U20 worldwide in the 400 mH this year, 10000 mRW top 2-ranked Ai Oyama (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) and Ayane Yanai (Ritsumeikan Univ.), and 2022 worldwide #5 and #6 Momoko Tsuji (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) and Aoi Murakami (Nittai Univ.) in the javelin throw.

Notable names among the men's entries include Oregon 4x100 m team member and worldwide #6 junior Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) in the 100 m and 4x100 m, Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.) in the 3000 m and 5000 m, the H.S. national record holder in both events and U20 NR holder in the 5000 m, 110 mH U20 world #9 Ryona Manago (Fukuoka Univ.), 10000 mRW #2 and #3 Shotaro Shimoike (Kagoshima Kogyo H.S.) and Riku Oie (Juntendo Univ.), and long jump #9 Nozomi Watanabe (Tsukuba Univ.). A breakdown of who's on the team with best marks:

Women

1500 m - Azumi Nagira (Meijo Univ.) - 4:15.71

1500 m - Yuya Sawada (Hamamatsu Shiritsu H.S.) - 4:16.90

400 mH - Moe Matsuoka (Chuo Univ.) - 57.57

10000 mRW - Ai Oyama (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) - 45:19

10000 mRW - Ayane Yanai (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 45:21

long jump - Ion Kondo (Josai H.S.) - 6.13 m

hammer throw - Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) - 61.40 m

javelin throw - Momoko Tsuji (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) - 57.22 m

javelin throw - Aoi Murakami (Nittai Univ.) - 56.30 m

Men

100 m/4x100 m - Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) - 10.16

100 m/4x100 m - Hiroto Fujiwara (Chuo Univ.) - 10.37

200 m/4x100 m - Shunki Tateno (Toyo Univ.) - 20.98

4x100 m - Kowa Ikeshita (Kantaiheiyo Univ.) - 21.02 (200 m)

400 m - Masataka Tomoda (Tokyo Rika Univ.) - 46.37

400 m - Shion Arita (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) - 46.58

800 m - Kizuku Ushiroda (Soseikan H.S.) - 1:47.69

800 m - Shuta Azuma (Hiroshima Keizai Univ.) - 1:48.86

1500 m - Junpei Maseda (Waseda Univ.) - 3:47.62

3000 m/5000 m - Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.) - 7:50.81/13:22.91

3000 m/5000 m - Hiroto Yoshioka (Saku Chosei H.S.) - 8:01.29/13:38.96

110 mH - Ryona Manago (Fukuoka Univ.) - 13.47

110 mH - Tatsuki Abe (Juntendo Univ.) - 13.49

400 mH - Daiki Ogawa (Toyo Univ.) - 50.50

400 mH - Soshiro Moritaka (Kinki Univ.) - 50.71

3000 mSC - Asahi Kuroda (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 8:42.49

3000 mSC - Ryotaro Onuma (Josai Univ.) - 8:48.83

10000 mRW - Shotaro Shimoike (Kagoshima Kogyo H.S.) - 41:11

10000 mRW - Riku Oie (Juntendo Univ.) - 41:18

pole vault - Atsushi Haraguchi (Higashi Osaka Univ.) - 5.40 m

pole vault - Tsubasa Mizutani (Fukuoka Univ.) - 5.30 m

long jump - Nozomi Watanabe (Tsukuba Univ.) - 7.85 m

long jump - Gai Kitagawa (Tokai Univ.) - 7.61 m

javelin throw - Ryusei Nakamura (Kokushikan Univ.) - 72.16 m

javelin throw - Kento Inoue (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) - 71.43 m

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How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...

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