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Kariba Breaks 1500 m High School Record, Drury Runs Fastest-Ever Time by 10th Grader
After an easy win in her heat on the first day of the National High School Track and Field Championships in Sapporo, defending girls' 1500 m champ Caroline Kariba (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.) dominated the final Thursday with a new high school national record of 4:06.54. In the early going Kariba had company from Jecinta Nyokabi (Hakuho Joshi H.S.), Pauline Wanjiku (Teikyo Nagaoka H.S.) and Sherry Drury (Tsuyama H.S.), but by the end her final margin of victory over Nyokabi was over 7 seconds. With Nyakobi 2nd in 4:13.93 Drury was close behind in 3rd in a PB of 4:15.50, the fastest time ever by a Japanese-born 10th grader. Given that the old record was set by current NR holder Nozomi Tanaka, you can imagine the kind of media reaction.
In the boys' 1500 m final, Koshiro Tanimoto (Omuta H.S.) took the final in a home straight sprint finish again Koki Terada (Koku Gakuin Kugayama H.S.), 3:48.72 to 3:49.06. This year's 800 m U20 Asian champion Hironori Tachizako (Kagoshima Josai H.S.) was 3rd in 3:49.49.
The other big result in the first two days of the meet came in Thursday's boys' hammer throw final. Mauna Asari (Moriya H.S.) broke the meet record with a 66.74 m throw on his 4th attempt, winning by almost 5 m. Complete results are available here. The National High School Championships continue through Sunday.
Amazing times all round for the Girls 1500m and Sherry Drury keeps improving little by little. I hope she is sheltered from the media attention and can cope with the pressure. To beat Tanaka's time is a wonderful achievement.
Any news on Seira Fuwa? I've not heard boo from her camp. Hopefully, it is a good sign and she is training well away from the media spotlight. I just hope she is not injured or still recovering from injury.
Rino Goshima and Jun Kasai stepped up with PBs to win the 2024 National Championships 10000 m titles Friday at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium. In the women's race, Goshima, 4th in last December's 2023 National Championships 10000 m, went out front from the start with Kenyan teammate Judy Jepngetich pacing and 2023 3rd-placer Haruka Kokai in tow. Things were never on track to hit the 30:40.00 Paris Olympics standard, but except for a brief dip to 3:08 at 7000 m Goshima held steady at 3:05 to 3:06/km even as Kokai and Jepngetich fell off. With blood dripping from her left knee after getting spiked by Jepngetich, Goshima closed in 3:03 to take 5 seconds off her best from December's Nationals and win in 30:53.31, moving up to all-time Japanese #6. Jepngetich also PBd at 31:09.42 without counting in the standings, with Kokai 2nd in 31:10.53 and Kazuna Kanetomo 3rd in a PB 31:59.29. The runner-up last time, Yuka Takashima was last in 33:33.27. The men's race went out in a
Less than five months since the 2023 10000 m National Championships went down at the 2021 Olympic stadium in Tokyo, the 2024 edition happens Friday at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium, with NHK broadcasting it live starting at 19:25 local time. Doubling up on Nationals like this lets Japanese athletes double dip on placing points to try to get into the Paris Olympics on rankings. But between the number of people who've hit the 30:40.00 women's standard and 27:00.00 men's standard and the lopsided eight spots given away to top placers at World XC, there are only four women's spots and three men's available via rankings. Of those, three of the four women's spots and two of the three men's spots are currently occupied by top placers at December's 2023 Nationals, Ririka Hironaka , Haruka Kokai and Rino Goshima for women and Ren Tazawa and Tomoki Ota for men. The 2023 Nationals did get close to the standards, with Hironaka leading the top four women under
For everyone not running yesterday's 10000 m National Championships , where the Asahi Kasei corporate team dominated the men's race with four out of four men sub-28 including winner Jun Kasai , 27:17.46, the grand dame of Japan's long distance time trial circuit was happening on AK's home ground in Miyazaki at the Golden Games in Nobeoka . Not including kids' races, a total of 74 women and 227 men ran in 14 heats of 5000 m, with a packed-in crowd of fans lining the track beating on metal sponsor boards with batons. It's a pretty awesome meet, and memorable performances included: National champion Kamimura Gakuen H.S. standout Caroline Kariba continued to kill it in the second month of her corporate league career, winning the 5000 m A-heat in 15:00.95 in a race where 3 out of the top 4 including her ran PBs. National champion Meijo University seemed flat at this point in the season, with none of its people under 16 minutes and star Nanase Tanimoto leading
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Any news on Seira Fuwa? I've not heard boo from her camp. Hopefully, it is a good sign and she is training well away from the media spotlight. I just hope she is not injured or still recovering from injury.