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Japan Shut Out of Marathon Medals - Hangzhou Asian Games Athletics Day 6 and 7 Highlights


The athletics component of the Hangzhou Asian Games wrapped Wednesday and Thursday with road events spread across both days and the final evening of track and field action Wednesday. In road racing, Japan's Subaru Ishida was the top individual finisher in the 35 km race walk mixed team event Wednesday morning, beating China's Qin Wang by just 16 seconds in 2:31:12. China's top woman Shijie Qieyang took the individual win in 2:45:13 and beat Japan's Masumi Fuchise by 5:46, giving China the team gold in 5:16:41 to Japan's 5:22:11. India was a distant bronze in 5:51:15. The second individual Japanese woman, Maika Yagi was 4th in 2:59:52, with Hayato Katsuki a DNF after receiving a penalty.

The marathons took place Thursday morning. The men's race was a tight pack through 38 km that included 2:06 men Yohei Ikeda of Japan and Shumi Dechasa of Bahrain, 2:07 runners Jie He and Shaouyui Yang of China and Japan's Toshiki Sadakata, 2:08 Mongolian Gantulga Dambadarjaa, 2:11 North Korean Ilryong Han and random 2:17 runner Shokhrukh Davlatov of Uzbekistan. A serious move from He with 4 km broke things up, and the only one to stay with him was Han, the first North Korean to run a certified marathon since the pre-pandemic days of 2019.

He had the wheels for a home soil win, pulling away from Han over the last km to win in 2:13:02. Han took silver in 2:13:27, with Yang scoring bronze in 2:13:39 to shut Japan out of the medals. Sadakata, who had initially dropped back, came up fast over the last 2 km and just got Dechasa at the line for 4th, both of them clocking 2:13:51. Ikeda was 6th in 2:15:04.

Attrition happened faster in the women's race, where a sextet of China's Deshun Zhang and Zhixuan Li, Kenyan Bahraini Eunice Chumba, Kyrgyzstan's Sardana Trofimova, South Korean Kyungsun Choi and Japan's Hikari Onishi steadily wore down over the second half. By 30 km it was just Chumba, Zhang and Trofimova, then minutes later only Chumba and Zhang.

By 35 km Chumba had a 9-second lead, and that only grew as she pulled away to win gold in 2:26:14. Zhang was next in 2:27:55, with Trofimova hanging on to bronze in 2:28:41. Onishi was 5th in 2:30:06, Mirai Waku a disappointing 13th of 16 finishers in 2:40:54.


On the field, the men's high jump lived up to hopes as one of the highlights of the Games. Asian record holder Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar tied his own Games record of 2.35 m for gold, with Diamond League champ Sanghyeok Woo of South Korea scoring silver at 2.33 m. Japan's Tomohiro Shinno delivered a season best 2.29 m jump for bronze, his teammate Ryoichi Akamatsu off his late-season game at only 2.19 m for 6th.

Bronze medals came in the men's javelin throw and women's triple jump too. Roderick Genki Dean was already in the bronze position behind Indian greats Neeraj Chopra and Kishore Kumar Jena when he threw 82.68 m on his 5th attempt, almost 5 m behind silver medalist Jena but enough to guarantee him hardware. Chopra took gold with a season best 88.88 m, Jena throwing a PB 87.54 for silver. Japan's Kenji Ogura took 5th at 77.87 m. In the triple jump, Uzbekistan's Sharifa Davronova jumped a PB 14.09 m (+0.3) for gold, China's Rui Zeng in silver at 13.92 m (-1.2) and Japan's Mariko Morimoto bronze at 13.78 m (-0.8).


On the track, Ayano Shiomi moved up from last coming into the home straight to place a solid 5th in 2:05.21. Sri Lankan Tharushi Mudiyanselage took the gold in 2:03.20, Indian Harmilan Bains silver in 2:03.75 and China's Chunyu Wang bronze in 2:03.90. Men's 5000 m U20 NR holder Keita Sato was also out of the medals, running in a lead group of 7 until near 3000 m before a surge dropped him. All three medalists broke Qatari Mohamad Algarni's 13:26.13 Asian Games record, Ethiopian Bahraini Birhanu Balew winning gold in a new 13:17.40 record off an incredible last lap, India's 3000 mSC gold medalist Avinash Mukund Sable next in 13:21.09 and Balew's fellow Ethiopian Bahraini Dawit Fikadu Admasu bronze in 13:25.63. Sato was 6th in 13:39.18.

In the final medal standings for athletics, Japan landed 5th with 2 gold, 7 silver and 8 bronze medals. Hosts China led with 19 gold, 11 silver and 9 bronze, Bahrain next with 10 gold, 1 silver and 5 bronze, and India 3rd with 6 gold, 14 silver and 9 bronze. Complete results here. Athletics may be finished, but the Hangzhou Asian Games as a whole continue through Sunday.

© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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