With Niiya's withdrawal the top domestic seed in Nagoya is now Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu), 2:21:55 in Berlin 3 years ago. The complete remaining Nagoya field is here.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Day 4 of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships was the first without a single gold medal going to Japan, but there were still enough silvers and bronzes to go around. Robyn Lauren Brown of the Philippines outclassed the rest of the women's 400 mH final field, taking gold in 57.50. Eri Utsunomiya and Ami Yamamoto made it a Japanese 2-3, Utsunomiya running 57.73 for silver and Yamamoto 57.80 for bronze. Yusaku Kodama also scored silver in the men's 400 mH, running 48.96 behind Qatari winner Bassem Hemeida 's 48.64. Yuki Yamasaki won bronze in the heptathlon with 5696 points, Uzbekistan's Ekaterina Voronina taking gold in 6098 and Swapna Barman silver in 5840. Teammate Karin Odama was 4th in 5487. Another bronze came in the mixed 4x400 m relay, with Japan running 3:15.71 behind India's 3:14.70 and Sri Lanka's 3:15.41. Naoto Hasegawa and Ryoichi Akamatsu both cleared 2.23 m in the men's high jump, Hasegawa finishing 4th overall and Akamatsu 5th. ...
Comments
* Rino Goshima's debut marathon performance. I have high expectations because of her previous road running exploits;
* Rika Kaseda - can she capitalize on her outstanding half marathon form;
* Sayaka Sato - in training her focus has been on building endurance for the 2nd half of the race where she has inevitably faltered in the past. Can she deliver results now?
* How will the 2 Australian athletes (Isobel Batt-Doyle and Leanne Pompeani) perform, (after Jessica Stenson's 2:22:56 PB at Tokyo last week, where she surprisingly, for me, beat all Japanese athletes.)
My big hope is that Rino Goshima has a great debut marathon. On paper, she may be the one to break Honami Maeda's national record in the future. At present, I can't see anyone breaking that record for some time unless Honami Maeda does it herself when she returns.