The Budapest World Championships got off to a rocky start for the Japanese team as it came up empty-handed in the opening event in one of its two best shots at a medal. Silver medalist in the last two global championships, Koki Ikeda took the men's 20 km race walk out hard only to fade abruptly at 15 km and finish 15th in 1:19:44. Two-time defending world champion Toshikazu Yamanishi faded even earlier, ultimately landing 24th overall and 4th out of the four Japanese men in the race in 1:21:39. 24-year-old Yuta Koga took the top Japanese spot at 12th in his World Championships debut with a 1:19:02 season best, 1:15 out of the medals in a race that saw gold medalist Alvaro Martin of Spain clock a world-leading 1:17:32 and 2nd through 6th set new national records. Eiki Takahashi was 21st in 1:20:25.
Fresh from doing her final training in St. Moritz, women's 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka bookended the day with a good comeback run in the 10000 m after a long season of recovery from setbacks. In contrast to last year's Oregon World Championships where she front ran the 2nd-fastest time ever by a Japanese woman only to finish 12th, this time Hironaka hung around 5th through the slow first half, then kept in contact in the 2nd half when the African pack got moving. Ultimately she finished 7th in 31:35.12, jumping up a place at the last second when the Netherlands' Sifan Hassan fell right before the finish line while dueling for gold with winner Gudaf Tsegay. Post-race Hironaka celebrated for the Japanese media with a flag on the track like she was one of the medalists too. Appearing to be running with a slight limp, 10 km and women-only half marathon NR holder Rino Goshima was 20th of 21 finishers in 33:20.38.
In qualifying rounds, another one of Japan's medal hopes fell through in the women's long jump. After winning last month's Asian Championships with a 6.97 m NR, the 5th-best jump in the world this year, Sumire Hata had her 2nd-worst performance of the year with a jump of only 6.41 m -0.8 m/s on her 3rd attempt after fouling on her first two. That ranked her only 13th of 18 in her group and 23rd overall, nowhere near enough for her to advance to the final. Hikaru Ikehata likewise failed to advance in the men's triple jump, jumping 16.40 m -0.1 m/s for 9th in his group and 19th overall.
The news was better in the men's 3000 m steeplechase heats, where Ryoma Aoki, a former Hakone Ekiden uphill Fifth Stage winner who also trained for Worlds in St. Moritz, became the first Japanese man in 20 years to make a Worlds steeple final when he took 6th in Heat 1 in an 8:20.54 SB. Seiya Sunada, son of former 100 km WR holder Takahiro Sunada, fell early in the race and couldn't get back into contention, finishing 11th of 12 in 8:38.59 and not advancing. NR holder Ryuji Miura joined Aoki in the final, running 8:18.73 for 4th in Heat 3.
More good news came in the men's 100 m heats, where former NR holder Abdul Hakim Sani Brown won Heat 6 in a SB 10.07 -0.4 m/s to advance to the semifinals, and Asian champion Hiroki Yanagita took 3rd in Heat 7 in 10.20 -0.1 m/s to likewise make it through. Ryuichiro Sakai was almost as fast in Heat 4 at 10.22 -0.4 m/s but placed only 5th and did not move on.
Women's 1500 m NR holder Nozomi Tanaka squeezed through to the semifinals with the slowest time among the 24 qualifiers at 4:04.36, getting lucky with her heat drawing as runners in other heats went as fast as 4:01.66 without advancing. Yume Goto was 12th in Heat 3 in 4:10.22 and did not advance.
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