Day 6 of the Budapest World Championships started with Japan getting onto the medal board for the first time as one of its best individual chances came through. All three Japanese men in the 35 km race walk went out with the lead group and stayed there until just past 20 km, where 2021 50 km national champion Satoshi Maruo lost contact. 2023 35 km national champ Tomohiro Noda lasted another 8 km before dropping, leaving last year's Oregon silver medalist Masatora Kawano in contention for another medal as the pack dwindled. By 31 km it was down to just Kawano, last year's 4th-placer Brian Pintado of Ecuador, and 20 km gold medalist Alvaro Martin of Spain.
Kawano dropped back with 2 km to go, Martin pulling away to take a second gold in a 2:24:30 national record and Pintado getting onto the medal stand with a 2:24:34 area record for silver. Kawano finished with a 2:25:12 SB for bronze, Japan's first medal of any kind in a World Championships that looks set to produce its most-ever top 8 placings. Noda added to that count with a 6th-place finish in 2:25:50, with Maruo taking 13th in 2:29:52.
Another top-8 came in the simultaneous women's 35 km RW as Serena Sonoda worked together with Peruvian Evelyn Inga throughout the race and ended up 7th in 2:46:32, almost 8 minutes behind gold medalist Maria Perez of Spain. Masumi Fuchise clocked a PB 2:52:57 for 14th. Veteran Kumiko Okada was a late scratch shortly before the race due to lower back pain.
In qualifying rounds, Japan's two men in the 5000 m heats had almost identically ineffectual results even though they ran opposite races. 2023 National champion Kazuya Shiojiri stayed at the back of the pack throughout the race with Norwegian 1500 m medalists Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Narve Gilje Nordas, but when they moved up into qualifying territory Shiojiri stayed where he was, ultimately finishing 18th of 21 in his heat in 13:51.00 with two of the people behind him having been involved in a hard fall. It was exactly the kind of performance his Fujitsu teammates Yuta Bando and Hiroki Matsueda turned in at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago.
Indoor 5000 m NR holder Hyuga Endo went for a more active effort in Heat 2, keeping himself in the top 8 from the start. But when the race really got going he dropped, finishing 17th of 22 in 13:50.49. Last year in Oregon he was 13th in his heat in 13:47.07, so despite having prepared for Budapest in St. Moritz it was a step backward that didn't bode well for next year's Paris Olympics.
The men's 200 m semifinals were delayed by an accident involving a collision between two athlete transport carts, one of which had veteran Shota Iizuka and other Heat 1 entrants on board. Heat 1 was bumped to the end, with Heat 2 going off first and Heat 3 second. In Heat 3, Asian champion Towa Uzawa ran 20.33 -0.4 m/s for 5th. Iizuka needed to beat the 20.21 run by Heat 3 4th-placer Joseph Fahnbulleh of Liberia, meaning an improvement on the 20.27 he ran in the heats which was already the fastest he had run since 2016. It wasn't to be, as Iizuka ran 20.54 -0.1 m/s for 5th.
© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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