The third day of the Yecheon U20 Asian Championships happened Tuesday in South Korea. In the men's 4x100 m relay Japan took the gold medal in 39.76. Scheduled to run in the 200 m, team members Shunya Kimura (Nihon Univ.) and Futo Takasu (Meiji Univ.) were forced to withdraw right before the start of the championships due to injury. This radically changed the team lineup from its original order.
100 m gold and bronze medalists Haruki Narushima (Toyo Univ.) and Kaito Kuroki (Higashi Fukuoka H.S.) ran 1-2 as planned, building a margin of error over the first half of the race. Kuroki handed off to Yuta Sekiguchi (Waseda Univ.), who showed excellent skills running the curve on third. Pole vaulter Eito Watanabe (Tsukuba Univ.), 4th in Sunday's pole vault final, was drafted in to handle anchor duties, and even though other teams made up ground on him he managed to hang on to the lead and bring Japan home in 1st. It was the second-straight U20 Asian Championships 4x100 m gold for Japan, following its win at the 2018 Gifu games.
In other events, Kana Mizumoto (Edion) won gold in the women's 3000 m in 9:16.93, dropping the rest of the field of four mid-race. Ryoma Konno (Tsukuba Univ.) broke 50 seconds for the first time in the men's 400 mH, taking silver in a PB of 49.91. Miki Hayashi (Chukyo H.S.) scored 5095 points in the women's heptathlon for silver. Shotaro Shimoike (Juntendo Univ.) clocked 44:05.50 for bronze in the men's 10000 mRW.
With one day of competition left Japan's gold medal count now stands at nine. On the final day of the championships 3000 m gold medalist Sonata Nagashima (Asahi Kasei) will go for a second gold in the 5000 m. The men's and women's 1500 m finals are also scheduled.
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