Atsushi Haraguchi was the only Japanese athlete in action in a final on day four of the Cali 2022 World U20 Championships, taking 7th in the men's pole vault final. Haraguchi only made one successful clearance, passing on 4.90 m and 5.05 m before making 5.15 m on his second attempt. Passing again on 5.25 m, he took three shots at 5.35 m. Success there would have tied his PB, but Haraguchi missed all three to end up 7th. Anthony Ammirati of France took gold with a 5.75 m clearance, Finland's Juho Alasaari in silver with a 5.60 m U20 NR and Poland's Michal Gawenda bronze at 5.45 m.
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In qualifying rounds, the men's 4x100 m team of Koki Ikeshita, Hiroto Fujiwara, Shunki Tateno and Hiroki Yanagita led the qualifiers with a season best 39.12, the only team to score an auto-qualifying time. Jamaica was next at 39.24 and Nigeria 3rd at 39.41. Tateno seemed to be in good shape after a DNS in yesterday's 200 m heats, with Yanagita turning in a solid anchor leg run. Hopes are high for a medal in tomorrow's final, Japan's first on the championships unless one of its race walkers gets there first in the Saturday morning session.
In the women's 1500 m, 16-year-old Yuya Sawada turned in one of the biggest performances by a Japanese athlete so far in Cali, running a PB 4:15.29 to make the final with the 3rd-fastest time in the field. Sawada's time was the 2nd-fastest ever by a Japanese U18 athlete and moved her up to #4 on the high school all-time list and #7 on the U20 list. Any improvement on that in the final would put her in range of something historic. Teammate Azumi Nagira was unable to join her in the final, 7th in Heat 2 in 4:27.81.
Kento Inoue and Ryusei Nakamura made the final in the men's javelin throw, Inoue 7th among the qualifiers with a 69.84 m throw and Nakamura just squeezing in as the last qualifier at 68.88 m. At the other end of the spectrum, neither man in the 800 m made it out of the heats, Shuta Azuma 6th in Heat 3 in 1:50.22 and Kizuku Ushiroda 6th in Heat 1 in 1:51.16.
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