Skip to main content

Abe Takes Hurdles Gold - World University Games Day 4 Japanese Results


Japan scored its first gold medal in athletics at the 2025 FISU World University Games on the fourth day of competition. Strong in the qualifying rounds, Tatsuki Abe (Juntendo Univ.) ran away from the men's 110 mH field with a 13.47 (-0.3) for the win over silver and bronze medalists Angel Diaz Rodriguez of Spain and Mondray Barnard of South Africa, both timed at 13.59. Hayato Higuchi (Hosei Univ.) was off his best at 13.90 for 7th.

Koki Fujihara (Toyo Univ.) brought home another medal in the men's long jump. Opening with a solid 8.00 (-0.8) jump, Fujihara sat in 1st through the first 3 rounds until China's Heng Shu dropped a 8.07 m (-0.6) jump in the 4th round. Fujihara couldn't match that, and when Shu ended with a 8.09 m (+0.9) jump on his final attempt Fujihara was left with silver. German Luka Herden took bronze with a 7.96 m (-0.1) on his 2nd attempt.


No medals came in the men's high jump, where gold medal contender Sota Haraguchi (Juntendo Univ.) struggled to a 10th-place finish after clearing only 2.13 m. Shun Yamanaka (Kyoto Univ.) was 7th at 2.17 m, with Israeli Jonathan Kapitolnik tying Haraguchi's best at 2.27 m for the win.

In qualifying rounds, after a promising run in the heats, Genta Iki (Kyoto Sangyo Univ.) pulled up in the men's 200 m semifinals, last in his SF and overall in 23.08 (-1.0). Both Mao Shimano (Nihon Joshi Taiiku Univ.) and Rei Honda (Juntendo Univ.) made it through the first round heats of the women's 100 mH, Shimano in 13.04 (+0.5) for the top spot in Heat 3 and Honda in 13.42 (+0.6) for 4th in Heat 4. Potential Tokyo World Championships team member Rin Suzuki (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) qualified for the men's javelin throw final with a 74.01 m for 4th in the B-group, but Hiroya Kiyokawa (Tokai Univ.) didn't make it after finishing only 7th the A-group with a 69.74 m throw.

Tetsu Sasaki (Waseda Univ.) was 4th in Heat 1 of the men's 3000 mSC in 8:51.38, easily making the final. As with the 10000 m no Japanese men ran the 5000 m heats, and in the women's 5000 m heats Wakana Hashimoto (Meijo Univ.) missed the final with only a 16:17.90 for 11th in Heat 2, while her Meijo teammate Mei Hosomi was a DNS in Heat 1 after a great run in the 10000 m.

The FISU World University Games continue through Sunday.

© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...