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Ren Tazawa Wins Japan's First Asian Championships 10000 m Gold in 42 Years - Day One Highlights


The 2023 Asian Athletics Championships started Wednesday in Bangkok, Thailand. Japan's fastest-ever collegiate 10000 m runner Ren Tazawa said pre-race that he would go for a sub-28 win to have a shot at getting into the quota for next month's Budapest World Championships. But while he, teammate Yuto Imae, Kenya-born Kazakhstani Shamrock Kimutai and others gave it a go, it was just too hot and humid to sustain.

Tazawa led the entire way except for some early assistance from Imae and a very brief mid-race attack from Kimutai, going through halfway in 14:17.99 and crossing the finish line in 29:18.44. Kimutai was 2nd in 29:31.63, with Imae getting caught by India's Abhiskhek Pal in the last 200 m and knocked out of the medals. Tazawa's gold was the first AAC 10000 m gold for Japan since 1981, which seems surprising, but while his time was over a minute short of what he needed for the Budapest quota there's still a chance he'll make it as area champion. That won't be clear for a few weeks yet, less than ideal in the longer distances.

In the women's 4x100 m, China held off the Japanese women for gold 43.35 to 43.95 with an especially good run from anchor Ge Manqi. Hosts Thailand won bronze in 44.56. In the absence of a Japanese men's 4x100 m team Thailand took gold with a solid 38.55 NR and CR, beating China by 0.32. South Korea also got under 39 seconds, running 38.99 for bronze.

Japanese women swept the day's other three finals, Mariko Morimoto winning the triple jump in 14.06 m +0.0, Nozomi Tanaka the 1500 m in a 4:06.75 CR with Yume Goto in silver in 4:13.25, and Marina Saito the javelin throw with a 61.67 throw on her second attempt.

Yuma Maruyama was in good position at the end of the first day of the decathlon with 4017 points, just 17 points behind India's Tejaswin Shankar and 7 points behind Thailand's Suttisek Singkhon. Teammate Shun Taue was closer to the bottom of the field of seven athletes.

Fuga Sato and Kentaro Sato led the men's 400 m opening rounds, Fuga winning semi-final 1 in 45.61 and Kentaro semi-final 2 in 45.64. The final is scheduled for the evening session Thursday. Complete Day 1 results are here.

© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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