Skip to main content

Tokyo World Athletics Championships Day 2 Japanese Results


No new medals for the host country on the 2nd day of the Tokyo World Athletics Championships, but there still some good performances across the day including a massive NR in the men's 400 m.

The least experienced member of the women's marathon squad, Kana Kobayashi took the early lead in the women's marathon, dropping as far back as 12th mid-race but clawing her way back into the top 8 on the hills at the end with a 2:28:50 for 7th. Sayaka Sato was off the back from the start but eventually ran down Yuka Ando for 2nd Japanese in 2:31:15 for 13th. Ando was 28th in 2:35:37. Peres Jepchirhir took gold in a track sprint against Tigist Assefa, 2:24:43 to 2:24:45, with Uruguay's Julia Paternain a distant 3rd in 2:27:23.

Next up, Asian champion Kazuto Iizawa didn't make it out of the first round heats in the men's 1500 m, taking 13th in Heat 1 in 3:41.76.

In the women's 100 m hurdles heats 2 of the 3 Japanese woman advanced to the semifinals on time, Mako Fukube 4th in Heat 5 in 12.92 and Hitomi Nakajima 5th in Heat 6 in 12.88. Yumi Tanaka was 6th in Heat 3 in 13.05 and didn't join Fukube and Nakajima in the next round.

In the men's 400 m heats, Fuga Sato ran a season best 45.10 but didn't move on. In the next heat Joseph Yuki Nakajima blasted a 44.44 NR for 2nd, moving on to the semis with room to spare. Nakajima broke 45 for the first time in August with a 44.84, so the step up in quality he showed here was pretty impressive.

In the men's high jump, arguable the toughest Japanese squad to make this time outside road events, both Ryoichi Akamatsu and Yuto Seko cleared 2.25 m to go on to the final. Struggling this season, Tomohiro Shinno cleared only 2.21 m and didn't go on.

In the women's 400 m heats, Nanako Matsumoto ran 52.41 for 7th in Heat 5 and did not make the next round.

A bit predictably, Mebuki Suzuki and Jun Kasai took an early lead in the men's 10000 m only to fade once it really got going. In a race with only 23 finishers Suzuki ended up 20th in 29:33.60 and Kasai 22nd in 29:41.84. Up front it was wild, with France's Jimmy Gressier taking gold in 28:55.77, Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha silver in 28:55.83 and Sweden's Andreas Almgren bronze in 28:56.02.

© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Hakone Champ AGU Hits 50 km a Day in Spring Break Training Camp

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...

Ochiai, Kawamura, Usuki and Mishima Set NR - Golden Week Track Roundup

There was a lot of action on the track over Japan's Golden Week holidays. Highlights: Shizuoka International Meet - Fukuroi, 3 May Men's 800 m NR holder Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) broke his own record with a 1:43.90 win. Daigo Usuki (18 Ginko) and Gakuto Mishima (Nippatsu) both broke the NR in the T20 men's 400 m, Usuki getting the win in 49.08 and Mishima 2nd in 49.15. Lauren Bruce (New Zealand) threw a meet record 67.44 m on her final attempt in the women's hammer throw, but even her shortest throw of 64.31 m was over 3 m better than the rest of the field. Kazuki Kurokawa (Sumitomo Denko) got the men's 400 mH meet record with a 48.50 for the win. Women's 3000 mSC NR holder Miu Saito (Panasonic) won the steeple in 9:31.83, the 2nd-best time in her career so far, despite falling. 2nd through 4th all broke 10 minutes. National University Men's Ekiden Kanto Region Qualifier - Hiratsuka, 4 May The top 8 teams at November's National University Men...

70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden

The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube. There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km ...