A few updates as we get near the bottom of the barrel for qualifying for next month's Tokyo World Athletics Championships.
The Asian Throwing Championships in Mokpo, South Korea brought some clarity down around the cusp for qualification in a few events. The biggest result from the Japanese point of view was in the men's javelin throw, where National Championships 3rd-placer Gen Naganuma, currently the 2nd Japanese man in line for a roll down spot behind Rin Suzuki, threw 78.60 m for 2nd. Based on the current Road to Tokyo rankings that was enough to move him up into 35th in the 36-deep javelin quota, bumping down Suzuki who has been in poor form the last two months and threw only 68.85 m for 11th in Mokpo. Sri Lankan Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage won at 82.05 m.
The #2 woman on the Japanese women's javelin squad, Momone Ueda threw a PB and championships record 62.20 m for the win over Sri Lankan Dilhani Lekamge, 2nd at 57.53 m. #3 Japanese woman Sae Takemoto was 4th at 57.39 m.
Currently 2nd in line for a roll down, women's discus NR holder Nanaka Kori could only manage a 54.86 m throw for 5th, and with 3 other women near the top of the roll down list, Thailand's Subenrat Insaeng and China's Yuchen Xie and Fang Wang, all placing ahead of her it pretty much eliminated her chance of making the Tokyo team. Likewise for Tatsuto Nakagawa, 1st in the men's hammer but throwing only 70.08 m, and Masateru Yugami, 4th in the men's discus at 59.47 m. Immediately after the competition Kori and Nakagawa got on a plane for Brazil for one last shot at qualifying, both scheduled to compete in the absolute last chance on the global calendar, Sunday's Grande Premio Brasil de Atletismo and Atletismo Brasil Challenger meet.
The #1 Japanese woman in the javelin is of course Olympic and world champion Haruka Kitaguchi, who was in action at the Lausanne Diamond League meet. Kitaguchi finished 10th of 10 with a best throw of only 50.93 m, her worst single competition result since 2018. Conditions were pretty tough with heavy rain, but with the top 3 all going over 58 m and winner Adriana Vilagos of Serbia throwing 63.02 m it was a bit alarming for the home crowd this late before their home ground world championships.
Since Kitaguchi is the defending world champion Japan can technically have up to 4 women in the javelin in Tokyo. For whatever reason #4-ranked Marina Saito, currently 4th in line for a roll down, wasn't one of the 4 Japanese women in the Asian Throwing Championships, instead doing the Twilight Games meet in Yokohama. She won at 56.57 m, but with the Twilight Games meet ranked at only F-class she didn't score enough points to improve her ranking and chances of making the Tokyo team. The same throw would have put her 5th at the Asian Throwing Championships, but although she would have scored an extra 20 points there it still wouldn't have been enough to help her chances.
A few other people on or close to making the Tokyo Worlds team were also at the Twilight Games on the track. Sub-10 man Yuki Koike had a shot at a last-second upset in the battle for the men's 100 m team where he would move into the 3rd spot on the team if he hit the 10.00 standard, but with a winning time of only 10.15 (-0.3) his chances are pretty much gone unless he turns up at one of Sunday's minor regional meets and drops a big one.
A lock for the men's 400 m squad after hitting the standard earlier this season, Yuki Joseph Nakajima won in 45.10. First in line for a roll down, Fuga Sato was 2nd in 45.67, not enough to bump him a bit higher in the rankings. NR holder Kentaro Sato was 3rd in 46.39, his best result since July's National Championships after struggling with injury.
Also working back from injury, Kazuki Kurokawa turned in his best performance since the 2023 Budapest World Championships, winning the men's 400 mH in 48.71. But still 0.21 short of the World Championships standard and without enough performances inside the qualification window to make the rankings, Kurokawa will miss Tokyo without a last-second miracle somewhere like Koike. Currently near the bottom of the Worlds quota but still in it, Ken Toyoda and Daiki Ogawa both had a rough day, Toyoda 4th in only 49.65 and Ogawa a DNF.
4th in line for a roll down in the women's 400 m, Nanako Matsumoto won in 52.41, 0.29 faster than her win at last week's Road to Tokyo meet in Uzbekistan but not enough to impact her ranking given the Twilight Games' low competition ranking. Likewise for Tomoka Kimura in the women's 1500 m, who won in a meet record 4:15.18 but didn't her current ranking of 49th out of 56 improve.
The most painfully close performance of the meet was in the women's 100 mH. 2 Japanese women have hit the 12.73 Worlds standard, and 34-year-old Chisato Kiyoyama currently sits well outside the quota as the #4 Japanese woman. It would take hitting the standard for Kiyoyama to bump #3 woman Yumi Tanaka off the Tokyo team, and with only a 12.96 best from 2023 it wasn't likely. But Kiyoyama got extremely close, running 12.77 (-0.1) for the win, just 0.04 short of pulling off the kind of upset that happened in the men's high jump last week.
Speaking of which, after getting knocked off the men's high jump squad when Nationals 5th-placer Yuto Seko unexpectedly hit the 2.33 m standard at the Athlete Night Games meet, Nationals 3rd-placer Naoto Hasegawa has one last shot to get his spot back when he competes at the Hokuriku Region Championships. With a 2.27 m best Hasegawa will have to duplicate Seko's feat and hit the 2.33 m standard. It's not likely, but Seko had a 2.27 m best too when he did it last week. We'll know soon enough.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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