The Tokyo World Athletics Championships have come and gone, and Japan pretty much performed as expected from an organizational standpoint. Things were smooth, efficient and polite, the Tokyo Olympics stadium was packed at every session, and things like all the teams being housed in one hotel and the warmup track being driving distance from the main stadium that would have caused major logistical problems most other places went without many hitches. Even where cost-cutting measures were evident, like the absence of the light shows for walk-ons in the premier track events, nobody really seemed to care. The atmosphere might not have been as much fun as Budapest two years ago, but it was still miles ahead of other recent World Championships.
Budapest was a record-setting team performance for Japanese athletes, with one gold medal, one bronze, and a total of 11 top-8 placings. Although there was a lot of disappointment for the home crowd this time, the actual team results in Tokyo were almost equal to Budapest: two bronze medals and 11 top-8 placings.
Bronze
Men's 35 km Race Walk - Hayato Katsuki - 2:29:16
Women's 20 km Race Walk - Nanako Fujii - 1:26.18
5th
Men's 110 mH - Rachid Muratake - 13.18 (-0.3)
6th
Women's 10000 m - Ririka Hironaka - 31:09.62
Men's 400 m - Yuki Joseph Nakajima - 44.62
Men's 4x100 m Relay - 38.35
7th
Women's Marathon - Kana Kobayashi - 2:28:50
Men's 20 km Race Walk - Kento Yoshikawa - 1:19:46
8th
Mixed 4x400 m Relay - 3:17.53
Men's 3000 mSC - Ryuji Miura - 8:35.90
Men's High Jump - Ryoichi Akamatsu - 2.24 m
From that point of view, Budapest having been Japan's best-ever World Championships, this wasn't bad. No progress, but almost treading water. The medals were both in race walks, but all 11 top-8 placings were in different events, and there were multiple national records:
Mixed 4x400 m Relay - 3:12.08 (5th, Heat 1)
Men's 400 m - Yuki Joseph Nakajima - 44.44 (2nd, Heat 2)
Women's 3000 mSC - Miu Saito - 9:24.72 (6th, Heat 3)
Women's 20 km Race Walk - Nanako Fujii - 1:26:18
Nanako Fujii deserves a lot of credit for medaling by breaking the NR, all the other performances having come in first-round heats. Yuki Joseph Nakajima was really the top performer on the team this time around, with his 44.44 NR in the heats, a 44.53 for 2nd in his semifinal, and a 44.62 for 6th in the final, all better than the 44.84 PB he ran when he broke 45 for the first time in August. Miu Saito also deserves a lot of credit even though she didn't make the final, taking almost 10 seconds off the nearly 20-year-old NR.
Abigail Fuuka Ido also deserves recognition in the women's 200 m. One of the bottom-ranked women in the field and only making the Worlds team through Japan's status as host country, Ido unexpectedly made the semifinals with a 22.98 (0.0) in Heat 5. And that after having been drafted into running the mixed 4x400 m relay heats and final. Nagiya Mori in the men's 5000 m heats and Nozomi Tanaka in the women's 5000 m final were just about the only Japanese athletes in track distance events who showed any sense of tactics, even if they were missing the gear to execute the plan successfully.
In most of the distance events Japanese athletes did the most predictable thing, front-running early and fading. It only really worked in the women's 5000 m heats, where Tanaka made the final, and the women's marathon, where newcomer Kana Kobayashi ended up 7th after taking an early lead. It's kind of understandable given the options, but until there's significant change to middle distance training in Japan it's not likely to change. Every women's and men's distance event from 800 m up had European and/or South or North American medalists. Japan should be there too.
Budapest and Paris Olympics gold medalist Haruka Kitaguchi not making the women's javelin throw final was the biggest national heartbreak, even if it wasn't surprising as everyone knew she was recovering from injury and wasn't at her best. Despite full women's and men's squads, not a single Japanese athlete making either javelin final added to the disappointment. We were pretty optimistic that men's marathoner Yuya Yoshida was a medal contender even though he's been mostly out of sight since his 2:05:16 CR win in Fukuoka last December, but it was clear from the start that he wasn't fit either.
The men's 4x100 m also had issues with people coming off injuries and not being 100% ready. The team that ended up running, Yuki Koike, Hiroki Yanagita, Yoshihide Kiryu and Towa Uzawa, wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly the A-team either. 5th in the final was probably the best they could have hoped for, so 6th was only a minor underperformance. It made up for the DNF on the same track in the final at the Tokyo Olympics 4 years ago, and they handled the extra pressure of the emperor being in attendance watching well.
The most frustrating moment of the Tokyo World Championships for the Japanese team, though, was the men's 20 km race walk. Toshikazu Yamanishi, the 2019 and 2022 gold medalist, 2021 Olympic bronze medalist, and fastest man in the field, went to the front at 16 km with one red card to his name and made a break for it. He immediately got another red card, but even though he had the lead he kept pushing, and seconds later he got a third red card that earned him a 2-minute penalty. There was a lot of pressure to bring home Japan's first and only gold and the crowds along the course were loud and almost Hakone-sized, so it's understandable if he got excited. But Yamanishi is a veteran at the top of his event and didn't get there without supreme self-control. Losing it here meant he ultimately lost to himself.
The Asian Games are next year in Nagoya. They're a big deal in Asia, and hopefully it'll see a few more young athletes make a breakthrough ahead of the 2027 Beijing World Championships. But a lot has to change if there's going to be any progress past the level this time and the modest high-water mark from Budapest.
photo © 2025 Mika Tokairin, all rights reserved
text © 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Comments
It was too bad Kitaguchi had her injury issues as a medal at home would have been awesome.
Nakajima had a massive NR and ran well, kudos to the race walks men and women for their medals, unforgivable mistakes by Yamanishi at that point of the race, that's the medal that likely stings the most.
I'll add Miura to the athletes that had a very good world championship, ran a perfect strategy in the final and when even injured you are fighting with El Bakkali, Beamish, Girma, Serem till the last hurdle you have done your job. The only Ekiden guy that looks like he belongs on an international field in track events.
Tanaka is always reliable, too bad she'll never have a gear to fight for a medal.
Mori is always generous but his usual "struggling/desperately hanging on" running style looks ok in Japan, on an international field it only enhances the difference between him and the others.
I agree with your point, if Japan wants to compete in middle distance events they have to change drastically their approach.
Until they start developing 800m, 1500m runners at an international level they will not produce 5000/10000 meters guys who can hang in there at international events.
The 10000 men was the glaring exemple: despite a super slow final Suzuki and Kasai managed to be left 40 seconds behind on a 29 minutes final. (by the way, congrats to the 26 minutes guys who accepted the slow rhythm and lost gold)
The marathon was disappointing other than Kondo but it just reflects the flawed selection process.
I won't debate about the 100 meter guys otherwise you'd have to question how they managed to run 10.00 at the last minute in japan to only run 10.20-30 less than a month later at the Worlds.
The 4x100 to me was a product of wrong strategy and line up, poor form/injury issues and uncertainty on some of the runners.
They ran much slower than at the World Relays in May where they had a very different line up and some of the runners who did very well there were swapped or put in other sections.
I think overall Japan needs a change of philosophy in some areas (short-middle distance running) and better selection process in other events. They have a great work ethic to build on, need to open up to different approach a little bit...and I'm aware this could be a very very slow process.
Was a fun world championship though overall!
Credit as always in Japan is due within the live-event commentary, especially in the field, where the knowledge of some of the commentary team enhanced the broadcasts in ways that some countries' TV channels do less well.
However, the main studio fronted by Yuji Oda's ego became a painful viewing exercise in tolerance and trying to blank out the mid-event insert boxes of his and other dumb-dumbs' inane expressions. And track events disappearing mid-race (for example both 5000m finals) for commercial breaks. Hmmm. Overfocus on a few home athletes leading to non-broadcast of fundamental developments in esp. but not only field events. More hmmm. Mistranslation (sometimes make-up-a-translation or just ignore the final answer completely) at post-event interviews....
Yes, TBS (and indeed WC as a whole) needs the endorsements and advertisements, the TV presentation needs to be entertaining for casual viewers and Yuji Oda has (again!?) been praised in the media for a "job well done".
But at the same time, with a host of other domestic road, ekiden and T+F meeting, especially at Hakone, the broadcast channel(s) manage to create a healthy (円) balance of commercialism and ex-athlete/coach focused presentation without the need to morph the programmes into the fringes of Japanese Variety TV.
Is there scope for TBS to do something similar next time?