Japanese Athletes in Action on Tokyo World Championships Day 2

Sunday marks day 2 of the Tokyo World Athletics Championships. Japanese athletes in action:

7:30 - Women's Marathon

Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) - 2:20:59 - 2nd, Nagoya 2025

Yuka Ando (Shimamura) - 2:21:18 - 1st, Nagoya 2024

Kana Kobayashi (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 2:21:19 - 2nd, Osaka Women's 2025

Prognosis: Not much chance of getting close to the medals, but any of the Japanese women here could get into the top 8. The 24-year-old Kobayashi has the most headroom, still on an improvement curve in only her 3rd year running marathons.

9:35 - Men's 1500 m Heats

Kazuto Iizawa (Sumitomo Denko) - 3:36.81 - 1st, Nationals

Prognosis: Iizawa made Worlds by winning the Asian title, and with a season best that ranks him 8th from the bottom of the field it's pretty unlikely he'll advance past the heats.

11:05 - Women's 100 m Hurdles Heats

Hitomi Nakajima (Hasegawa) - 12.71 (+0.7) - 2nd, Nationals

Mako Fukube (NKK) - 12.73 (+1.4) - 3rd, Nationals

Yumi Tanaka (Fujitsu) - 12.80 (-0.1) - 1st, Nationals

Prognosis: Nakajima and Fukube have a decent chance of advancing to the semi-finals, but Tanaka will need to be close to her best to join them.

18:35 - Men's 400 m Heats

Yuki Joseph Nakajima (Fujitsu) - 44.84 - 5th, Nationals

Fuga Sato (Mizuno) - 45.16 - 1st, Nationals

Prognosis: Nakajima seems to be back at his best, but Sato's fitness is a bit of a question after the backdoor reversal of his Nationals DQ to get him into the qualifying bracket. Nakajima may move on, but the 4x400 m will probably be their main event.

18:40 - Men's High Jump Qualification

Yuto Seko (FAAS) - 2.33 m - 5th, Nationals

Ryoichi Akamatsu (Seibu Prince) - 2.31 m - 2nd, Nationals

Tomohiro Shinno (Kyudenko) - 2.29 m - 1st, Nationals

Prognosis: Outside the road events and maybe the men's 100 m this was probably the hardest squad to make on the Japanese team. Seko miraculously hit the standard in mid-August, only the 3rd Japanese man to ever clear 2.33 m and one of only 5 in the Worlds field to hit the qualifying standard, also 2.33. Akamatsu and Shinno are 8th and 11th in the current world rankings, and while Akamatsu has not had a good season since Nationals he and Shinno are still top 8 threats. The big question is whether Seko, whose next-best jump since 2023 was only 2.25 m, can duplicate his one-off qualifying jump.

(19:12 - Women's Discus Throw Final)

Prognosis: It's not likely NR holder Nanaka Kori will make the final.

19:25 - Women's 400 m Heats

Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) - 52.14 - 4th, Nationals

Prognosis: Matsumoto was one of the athletes added to the team via Japan's host country rights, and at 4th from the bottom of the field on time this is probably as far as she goes. She'll also be running in the mixed 4x400 m heats the day before.

(20:40 - Women's Long Jump Final)

Prognosis: As with the discus, there's not much chance NR holder Sumire Hata will get to the final.

(20:45 - Men's 100 m Semi-Final)

Prognosis: Abdul Hakim Sani Brown has made three World Championships finals, but after not making it out of the heats at Nationals it all comes down to him having somehow turned around a season where he hasn't broken 10.30. Yoshihide Kiryu and Yuhi Mori both have realistic chances of making the semis, in the 21-year-old Mori's case in his first major international competition.

(21:07 - Women's 1500 m Semi-Final)

Prognosis: NR holder Nozomi Tanaka might make the semi-finals, but Tomoka Kimura probably won't be there with her.

21:30 - Men's 10000 m Final

Jun Kasai (Asahi Kasei) - 27:17.46 - 2nd, Nationals

Mebuki Suzuki (Toyota) - 27:26.67 - 1st, Nationals

Prognosis: 2024 national champ Kasai had some injury issues late spring but seems to be in good shape now. Suzuki beat him to win this year's national title, but as he is just back from training in cold rain at altitude in St. Moritz even his team staff has publicly questioned his readiness to deal with the prolonged heat and humidity in Tokyo. It would take a slow race for either of them to factor into the top 8, but they both have good kicks and could surprise.

(22:20 - Men's 100 m Final)

Prognosis: Can Sani Brown make a World Championships final for the 4th time? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Kiryu has good momentum this season but the final is a stretch.

Osaka Marathon Elite Field

With 3 weeks to go the elite fields for the Feb. 22 Osaka Marathon are out. Given Osaka's history as the elite men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon the women's field is small, with only one entrant, Sinhala Kureshi , having broken 2:21 with her 2:19:53 in Hamburg last spring. Afera Godfay , Mare Dibaba and Rose Chelimo have all run 2:21 to 2:22 in recent races, and Esther Chemtai is an interesting debut off a 1:08:09 at last fall's Cardiff Half. Kaede Kawamura is the highest-level Japanese woman in the field with a 2:25:44 in Osaka 2 years ago. Last year's men's champ and CR breaker Yihunilign Adane is back, his main competition being fellow Ethiopians Bute Gemechu , Mulugeta Asefa Uma and South Africa's Elroy Gelant . 4th last year in 2:05:58, Kyohei Hosoya leads the front of the super deep Japanese field along with Ichitaka Yamashita , Kenta Sonota , Kiyoto Hirabayashi , Yuhei Urano , Yusuke Nishiyama and Daisuke Doi . But where Osaka excels is in deb...

Matsuo Breaks High School Half Marathon Record in 1:02:47

At the 48th Kanagawa Half Marathon at Yokohama's Nissin Olio Group's Isogo Plant, Jinya Ozaki (Teikyo Univ.) outran tough competition from National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University and Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University to take 1st in the men's race in 1:02:04. AGU's Sho Fukutomi was 2nd in 1:02:07, with Komazawa's Rinta Muta 3rd in 1:02:08. High schooler Nichika Maeda (Miura Gakuen H.S.) took the women's race in 1:16:30. But it was another high schooler who made headlines. 3rd-year Koki Matsuo (Shiritsu Funabashi H.S.) ran 1:02:47, taking 28 seconds off the fastest half marathon time ever run by a Japanese-born high school student. Last summer Matsuo ran the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in November he went under 14 minutes for 5000 m, his time of 13:55.07 putting him into the top class of high school running. At last fall's Chiba Prefectural High School Ekiden Matsuo set a new CR of 2...

Hirayama Strikes Again, Kabasawa Over Fuwa in Whiteout Conditions at National Corporate Half

With heavy snow hitting most of the country the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km in Yamaguchi almost dodged a bullet. Almost. It was -2˚ and windy at the start, but with sunny skies it wasn't too bad. The men went out 15 minutes ahead of the women on sub-61 pace with a massive pack trailing early leader Daisuke Shimojo (ND Software). At times snow was in the air, but even right up to the end the sun was still breaking through. From a few km out a lead trio coalesced of last year's winner Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx), Kenyan Boniface Mulwa (ND Software) and Taiga Hirayama (Konica Minolta), CR-breaking winner at the Osaka Half Marathon 2 weeks ago. Ichiyama made a break for it with 500 m to go, but on the track at the end Muluwa reeled him back it. Entering the home straight Hirayama threw down and passed them both, bettering his Osaka time by 6 seconds to win in 1:00:44. Muluwa was next in 1:00:45, with Ichiyama, in training for the Tokyo Marathon in 3 weeks, 3rd in...

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