Skip to main content

Inagaki Breaks JHS 3000 m Record - National Sports Festival Results


The National Sports Festival wrapped up Tuesday in Saga with one of the best races of the meet, the junior women's 3000 m. The top 5 all went under 9:00, with Daisy Jerop (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) dominating in 8:56.36. Sharon Mwanti (Yamanashi Gakuin H.S.) was 2nd in 9:01.65, with Mei Hokiyama (Yamada H.S.) close behind in 9:04.86 for 3rd, Rin Setoguchi (Kamikura Gakuen H.S.) 4th in 9:06.63 and Pauline Wanjuku (Teikyo Nagaoka H.S.) 5th in 9:09.36. All told the top 12 broke 9:30.


The junior boys' 3000 m was almost as competitive. Sei Yoshida (Tokai Sapporo H.S.) and Kain Inagaki (KERT) raced right to the line, Yoshida getting the win in 8:07.12 but Inagaki scoring a junior high school record with an 8:07.29 for 2nd. 3rd and 4th-placers Yudai Fujii (Miyazaki Nichidai H.S.) and Taira Ichikawa (Sendai Ikuei) couldn't have been closer, Fujii taking 3rd in 8:17.06 and Ichikawa 4th in 8:17.07, with the rest of the top 10 all getting under 8:30.


Monday's junior men's 5000 m had 8 under 14 minutes. Yamato Hamaguchi of 2023 National High School Ekiden champion Saku Chosei H.S. outran them all for the win in 13:40.65, Haruki Niizuma (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S,) outrunning Felix Muthiani (Yamanashi Gakuin H.S.) 13:44.72 to 13:45.43 for 2nd. MR holder Yuma Yamamoto and Sekisui Kagaku teammate Chikako Mori went 1-2 in the senior women's 5000 m, Yamamoto running 15:50.98 with Mori 5 seconds back.


Ai Watanabe (Sonoda Joshi Gakuin Univ.) had an excellent run to win the senior women's 800 m in a meet record 2:02.39, enough to move her up to all-time Japanese #8. But it wasn't enough to beat the top time in Saturday's junior women's 800 m, where NR holder Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) ran a MR 2:02.09 for the win. Sherry Drury (Tsuyama H.S.) fell just before the finish while leading her qualifying heat in the junior 800 m and failed to make the final.


Sota Okamura (Kanoya Taiiku Univ.) also broke the MR in the senior men's 800 m, winning in 1:47.09. A surprise came in the junior men's 800 m, where Muthiani doubled to easily beat NR holder Ko Ochiai (Shiga Gakuen H.S.) 1:48.22 to 1:49.67. 3rd-placer Seita Kikuchi (Morioka Nishi H.S. almost got Ochiai too, finishing just back in 1:49.94 and showing that the higher you climb, the bigger the target on your back.


© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee


Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Rin Kubo went out in 58s for 400m, maybe a bit too hot as she wanted to get a PB and a new NR in the process. She must be reflecting that PBs aren't so easy to come by. Nevertheless another superb run from a stand out athlete. Outstanding run by Ai Watanabe. Very surprised and happy about her excellent time too. I look forward to future match ups between the pair. Hopefully, they can push each other to even better performances.
Having watched Sherry Drury this year, it would be fair to say it's been a step backward from where she was. Her race tactics and execution still need a lot of work. A year or so ago I recall Nozomi Tanaka falling at the finish line in a similar manner to how Sherry Drury fell. Her legs just gave way from the effort. Since then Tanaka has gone from strength to strength so I'm hoping in a couple of years Drury will be the same but it won't be easy. The competition is fierce and I'm not convinced Drury has that speed endurance in her legs. She has youth on her side to build this so next track season will be interesting and perhaps an Ekiden leg too.
October 17, 2024 at 3:43 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin
Post a Comment
Read more

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi
Post a Comment
Read more

Shiojiri, Kasai and Tazawa Scratch from Hachioji Long Distance, 5000 m Dropped from Program (updated)

  On Nov. 15 the East Japan Corporate Federation announced that 10000 m national champion and Paris Olympian  Jun Kasai  (Asahi Kasei) and Budapest World Championships team member  Ren Tazawa  (Toyota) have both withdrawn from the 10000 m at the Nov. 23 Hachioji Long Distance meet. This year's Hachioji Long Distance features a special heat set up to target the 27:00.00 qualifying standard for next year's Tokyo World Championships. Along with Kasai and Tazawa, national record holder Kazuya Shiojiri  (Fujitsu) and other top-level Japanese talent are scheduled to compete. After last January's New Year Ekiden , Tazawa sustained an injury that forced him to miss May's National Championships 10000 m and other races including the Paris Olympics. At the end of September he ran 13:36.99 for 5th at the Yogibo Athletics Challenge Cup meet, but, he said, "My balance felt off and the back of my left knee hurt." In Kasai's case, after winning the national title in M
Post a Comment
Read more