The final day of the Oregon 22 World Championships opened with a medal-winning walk from Masatora Kawano in the men's 35 km race walk. Teammate Daisuke Matsunaga went out hard, opening a lead of over a minute at one point before being reeled in early in the second half and fading to 26th. Kawano stayed in the lead group the entire way, the only person there never to take the lead at any point, covering any move without making any contribution to the race. When Italy's Massimo Stano made his final move for the win Kawano was right there, but he couldn't quite close it down and was consigned by the Italian to silver, 2:23:14 to 2:23:15. Sweden's Perseus Karlstrom took bronze in 2:23:44.
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Japan's Tomohiro Noda patiently worked his way up into the top 8 together with Canadian Evan Dunfee, but while Dunfee was able to carry his momentum all the way to final finishing position of 6th, Noda faded and was re-taken, ultimately just outside the top 8 at 9th in 2:25:29 just 8 seconds behind Colombian Eider Arevalo.
Two Japanese women, Mako Fukube and Masumi Aoki, made the 100 m hurdles semifinals, but neither was able to go to the evening's finals. Fukube was last in SF1 in 12.82 +0.9 but had the consolation prize of taking 0.04 off Aoki's national record. Aoki was 6th in SF2 in 13.04 -0.1.
The men's 4x400 m squad of Fuga Sato, Kaito Kawabata, Julian Walsh and Joseph Nakajima was an unexpected finale to the evening, only the second Japanese team to ever make a World Championships final and 2nd-fastest overall in the qualifying round. In that race leading two runners Sato and Kawabata were right there with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, keeping the last two guys in position to race for 2nd. In the final Sato and Kawabata couldn't replicate that, Sato far back from both and Kawabata only managing to claw back marginal ground.
But third runner Walsh closed up the gap and ran down both Trinidad and Botswana, putting anchor Nakajima in range to gun for Jamaica, Belgium, and a place in the medals. It wasn't to be, but Nakajima succeeded in bringing Japan home a totally unexpected 4th in an Asian record 2:59.51. It was a major breakthrough for Japanese sprinting and went a long way toward making up for fan disappointment at the 4x100 m team not making the final.
All told Japan's count in Eugene was one gold, two silvers, one bronze, and five other top 8 finishes. Of those, the gold, both silvers, and two of the top 8s were in race walks, the others being Haruka Kitaguchi's historic bronze in the women's javelin throw, the men's 4x400's 4th-place, Abdul Hakim Sani Brown taking 7th in the men's 100 m, and Tomohiro Shinno's 8th-place finish in the men's high jump. It's worth noting that except for the 4x400 m, all of these were firsts. Kitaguchi was the first-ever Japanese women's field event medal at Worlds, and both Sani Brown and Shinno were the first Japanese men to make the final in their events. That's progress.
There were a number of setbacks that held the numbers back, with long jumper Yuki Hashioka re-injuring his takeoff foot and unable to perform up to the ability he showed in leading the qualifying rounds, and positive COVID tests knocking out top 8 contender marathoners Kengo Suzuki, Mao Ichiyama and Hitomi Niiya as well as 4x100 m team leader Yuki Koike.
But by and large the Japanese team performed as expected, good and bad, the unexpected breakthroughs from Kitaguchi and the 4x400 m team making up for the COVID setbacks and with the possible exception of the inexperienced 4x100 m squad no real surprise major underperformances. There were a lot of 9th-place finishes, so numbers could have been different if things had played out slightly differently. Whatever the unrolling of tougher standards for next year's Budapest World Championships means for the size and strength of Japan's team, this year's performance will stand as one of the country's best yet.
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