Without an in-country Diamond League meet Sunday's Seiko Golden Grand Prix at the Tokyo Olympics stadium is the main event of the Japanese outdoor season. Along with the Asian Championships in South Korea in 2 weeks and July's National Championships, this is one of the best chances for Japanese athletes to score some serious world rankings points to boost their chances of making the home team for September's Tokyo World Championships. Set to be sunny in the morning, for most of the meet it looks like it'll be cloudy but hot and humid with temps peaking at 30˚ and high humidity after rain most of the day on Saturday.
TVer is streaming the first part of the meet, the women's and men's javelin throw and 3000 m, men's 100 m, women's high jump and men's long jump, here starting at 10:46 a.m. Japan time, with the rest of the meet streaming here starting at 10:51 a.m. and broadcast on TBS starting at 1:00 p.m. If you've got a VPN you should be good to go. Start lists are here, and live results here. Meet schedule and start list highlights:
Women's Triple Jump - 10:45 a.m.
Three women in the field have jumped over 14 m, Lithuania's Dovile Kilty, Ukrainian Olha Korsun, and Japan's Mariko Morimoto. That's both PB and SB order, but if they're not up to that level at this point in the season then at least 4 other women in the field could knock any of them out of the top 3. Korsun was suspended for 2 years in 2019 for a positive test for furosemide, but it's a consistent pattern that Japanese meets and races generally don't care about an athlete's past as long as they aren't currently suspended and didn't get popped at an event in Japan.
Men's Javelin Throw - 10:50 a.m.
It's been over a decade since he did it, but Ryohei Arai is the only man in the field to have thrown over 85 m. Last year he threw 83.37 m, putting him in the same current class as Poland's Cyprian Mrzyglod, the Ukraine's Artur Felfner, South Africa's Douw Smit, and Yuta Sakiyama at the 82-83 m level.
Men's High Jump - 10:55 a.m.
Ryoichi Akamatsu is in Doha for the Diamond League meet there, but all the other current top Japanese men, Tomohiro Shinno, Takashi Eto, Sota Haraguchi, Yuto Seko and Naoto Hasegawa. Paris Olympics 5th-placer Brandon Starc and Yual Reath of Australia and Taiwan's Po-Ting Yeh are the main international competition, all of them having cleared 2.30 m. Only Shinno and Eto have done that from the home crew.
Women's 3000 m - 11:30 a.m.
Looks like a head-to-head between Australian Rose Davies and Japan-based Kenyan Hellen Ekalale with pacing from NR holder Nozomi Tanaka, with the next tier of Japanese women, sub-9 runners Yuma Yamamoto, Momoka Kawaguchi and Nanami Watanabe, about 15 seconds back. The women will escape the worst of the weather forecast, but no such luck for the men later.
Men's 100 m Heats - 12:10 p.m.
The biggest names get to skip this round, with the fastest 5 from two heats joining them in the final. Main contenders to make the final include Jerome Blake of Canada and Japan's Yoshihide Kiryu, Yuki Koike, Hiroki Yanagita, Akihiro Higashida, Ryota Suzuki, Naoki Inoue and Taju Hongo.
Men's 3000 m - 12:50 p.m.
Maybe the race of the day, except for Tatsuhiko Ito with every Japanese who has broken 13:20 for 5000 m in the last 5 years, Keita Sato, Kazuya Shiojiri, Nagiya Mori, Masaya Tsurukawa, Mebuki Suzuki, Kotaro Shinohara, Hyuga Endo, and Takuma Sunaoka, on the start list, along with half marathon NR holder Tomoki Ota, sub-7:40 men Brian Fay, Emmanuel Kiplagat and Melkeneh Azize, and pacing from collegiate 5000 m record holder Richard Etir. It's probably going to be too hot and humid to sustain a really fast pace, but there's a non-zero chance Suguru Osako's 7:40.09 NR from way back in 2014 goes down.
Women's Javelin Throw - 1:05 p.m.
Olympic gold medalist Haruka Kitaguchi leads the field after finishing 4th at the Shaoxing Keqiao Diamond League meet 2 weeks ago. The 3rd-placer there, Jo-Ane Van Dyk of South Africa, is in Tokyo for a rematch, and their main competition comes form 3 other women to have thrown over 64 m, Flor Denis Ruiz Hurtado, Mackenzie Little and Rhema Otabor.
Men's Long Jump - 1:07 p.m.
With PBs of 8.47 m and 8.40 m American JuVaughn Harrison and Japan's Shotaro Shiroyama are the only men in the field to have cleared 8.40m. Next-best in the 8.30 m range are the injury-prone Yuki Hashioka and Australian duo Liam Adcock and Chris Mitrevski. 110 mH NR co-holder Shunsuke Izumiya's continued transition to the long jump is one of the most interesting things happening in Japanese athletics right now, and his 8.21 m best puts him in a decent position in the field.
Women's 1500 m - 1:10 p.m.
Tanaka is running this an hour and 20 minutes after pacing the 3000 m, and she'll be facing the only other women in the field to have broken 4 minutes, Australian's Georgia Griffith and Sarah Billings. The next tier of 4 women are all in the 4:05 to 4:09 range, so it'd be a surprise to see anyone else get onto the podium.
Men's 110 mH - 1:24 p.m.
2nd at both the Xiamen and Keqiao Diamond League meets, Japan's NR co-holder Rachid Muratake is the fastest man in the race at 13.04. He'll be going for the win here, his main competition being American Dylan Beard and Shunya Takayama, both 13.10.
Women's 100 mH - 1:34 p.m.
Japanese women have been making a lot of progress in the 100 mH hurdles the last few years, but at 12.69 NR holder Mako Fukube is still a long way off top 2 entrants Tonea Marshall, 12.36, and Alia Armstrong, 12.40. At best Fukube will probably be racing Slovakia's Viktoria Forster and possible Yumi Tanaka for 3rd.
Women's High Jump - 1:36 p.m.
Paris Olympics gold medalist Yaroslava Manuchikh is here, so hand her the win. Next-best jumper Michaela Hruba has only cleared 1.95 m vs. Manuchikh's 2.10 m best, so the competition should pretty much be between Hruba, Tatiana Gkousin, Elisabeth Pihela, and Nagisa Takahashi for the other two spots on the podium.
Men's 400 m - 1:44 p.m.
NR holder Kentaro Sato and close 2nd Fuga Sato, 44.77 and 44.88, are up against sub-45 international competition Emmanuel Bamidele, Reece Holder and Cheikh Tidiane Diouf.
Men's 400 mH - 1:55 p.m.
Ken Toyoda is just 0.10 off the NR at 47.99 last year and comes in fresh off an Asian record 34.22 at the Xiamen Diamond League meet. The only man in the field with a faster best is Oregon World Championships bronze medalist Trevor Bassitt at 47.38, with Gerald Drummond close behind at 48.11.
Men's 200 m - 2:05 p.m.
Robert Gregory and Andre de Grasse are the only ones in the race to have gone under 20 seconds, and it's pretty likely the 3rd man on the podium behind them will be Japan's Koki Ueyama or the Bahamas' Ian Kerr. It's been 15 years since Shota Iizuka rocked his legendary Chuo University 4x100 m anchor leg at Kanto Regionals, and with multiple world-level medals to his name since then he'll be looking to keep his streak of sub-20.50 clockings every year since 2012 going. Legend.
Men's 3000 mSC - 2:16 p.m.
Scheduled as a main event for TV broadcast purposes thanks to the presence of NR holder Ryuji Miura. With a best of 8:09.91 he's 10 seconds up on nearest competitor Ben Buckingham from Australia, but with a DNS at the Shaoxing Keqiao Diamond League meet 2 weeks ago with injury concerns he might be vulnerable. At any rate, Matthew Clarke, Velten Schneider and Japan's current #2 and #3 men Yutaro Niinae and Ryoma Aoki are all within 1 second of Buckingham on PB time so it should be a great race at least for 2nd.
Women's 100 m - 2:34 p.m.
Another athlete with a drug suspension in her background, in her case for marijuana use, Sha'Carri Richardson is the fastest woman on paper in the 100 m at 10.65. Twanisha Terry makes it an American 1-2 at 10.82, with 3rd place probably between Canada's Sade McCreath and Australian Bree Rizzo. Top Japanese woman Midori Mikase is another 0.14 back at 5th-ranked in 11.37.
Men's 100 m Final - 2:45 p.m.
Top 4 Christian Coleman, Christian Miller, Pjal Austin and Abdul Hakim Sani Brown all get a pass through the heats to the final, where they'll face the 5 fastest men from earlier in the day. Having been suspended for 2 years in 2020 for whereabouts failures, Coleman has only gone under 10.10 once in 3 races this season, leaving Miller as the fastest man in the field so far this year at 10.02. Assuming they make it through the heats Japan's best hopes are Hiroki Yanagita and Yuki Koike, both 10.09 this season and Yanagita fresh off a heavy-duty wind-aided 9.95 (+4.5) last week at Kanto Regionals.
JRN will be on-site at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Comments
In other conditions that men 3000 field could produce a legitimate attempt at NR, I doubt they'll crack 7.45 now but it'll surely be a race to watch, especially if the pacing is good.
Looking forward to see Izumiya, so far him doing both 110hs and long jump seems to have backfired in the former while he had a very good showing at indoor championship in the latter...only to not jumpt his last 2 attemps when he was 8 cm short of a medal (it wasn't explained what happened, if injury or just concerns).
I understand Miura is wanted by audience/broadcasters but I don't know what good running the 3000steeple domestically does for him. Would have been fun seeing him in the 3000m.
That said, it will be important to see how the guys behind him do (couple of interesting young guys) and if he hasn't lost condition after the little injury 2 weeks ago: the week before he basically ran NR again at DL, if he stays healthy the NR will be soon be beaten.
Love the 100M field, Naoki Inoue ran very well at World Relays last week and in general the 4 spots for the World Championship are an open competition among several decent candidates.
Is it Just common for Japanese meeting to be a day event (maybe so given college National/regionals)or evening events arent appealing? It would make sense also for International broadcast eventually to have it later in the day.
Lets Hope in great races but this screams missed opportunity.