With Kana Kobayashi the top-placing Japanese woman in the Tokyo World Athletics Championships marathon yesterday at 7th, hopes were high that the men would come through with a medal in the event they care the most about. But alas. Yuya Yoshida was clearly nowhere near his Fukuoka CR-breaking form and was off the back of the lead pack by halfway, ultimately finishing 34th in 2:16:58. Paris Olympics marathon trials winner Naoki Koyama lasted longer but could still only manage a 2:13:42 for 23rd. The surprise was debut marathon NR holder Ryota Kondo, who ran 2:10:53 for 11th in only the second marathon of his career.
It's back to the drawing board, but with the JAAF having revised the qualifying standards for the L.A. Olympics marathon trials to prioritize time even more over competitive performance ability, there's not much reason to be optimistic that Japanese marathoners are going to be relevant in championship races anytime in the foreseeable future. Anyway, Tanzanian Alphonce Felix Simbu snagged the win from Germany's Amanal Petros at the last second, both clocking 2:09:48, with Italy's Iliass Aouani taking bronze in 2:09:53.
In the men's hammer throw, Shota Fukuda threw 72.71 m for 15th in qualification group B and didn't move on to the final. Likewise for Misaki Morota in the women's pole vault, where she cleared 4.25 m for 14th in group B and did not advance.
Miu Saito didn't make the women's 3000 m SC final, but she still turned in an historic performance in Heat 3, clocking a 9:24.72 NR over 9 seconds under the old record set way back in 2008 by Minori Hayakari. No shame there, and with at least one shaky jump it looked like she still has headroom to take the record further.
In what's traditionally been one of Japanese strong events, all 3 men in the 400 m hurdles heats found their World Championships over after just one run. Shunta Inoue was 8th in Heat 1 in 49.73, Daiki Ogawa 6th in Heat 2 in 50.08, and Ken Toyoda 8th in Heat 5 in 51.80.
No luck either in the men's long jump, where none of the 3 Japanese men made it out of the qualifying round. Riku Ito was 16th in group A at 7.68 m (+0.7), Yuki Hashioka 7th in group B at 7.95 m (+0.4), and Hibiki Tsuha last in group B at 7.42 m (+0.1) for 17th.
The men's 110 m hurdles heats went better, with NR holder Rachid Muratake 2nd in Heat 5 in 13.22 (-0.3) and Shusei Nomoto 4th in Heat 3 in 13.29 (-0.6). Shunsuke Izumiya could only manage a 13.52 (-0.6) for 5th in Heat 1 and didn't join Muratake and Nomoto in the semifinals.
In the women's 100 m hurdles semifinals, both Mako Fukube and Hitomi Nakajima placed 7th in their heats and were eliminated, Fukube in 13.06 (-0.5) in SF1 and Nakajima in 13.02 (-0.2) in SF2.
Hopes were high that the night would end with another Japanese medal, this one from men's 3000 m steeplechase NR holder Ryuji Miura. With the entire stadium on its feet Miura went into the last corner in bronze medal position, but like the rest of the field he fell victim to the devastating closing speed of New Zealand's Geordie Beamish, gold medalist in 8:33.88 by 0.07 over Moroccan Soufiane El Bakkali and Kenyan's Edmund Serem taking bronze in 8:34.56. Miura seemed to lack his usual extra gear and dropped to 8th over the last 100 m, finishing in 8:35.90.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Comments
The marathon was disappointing as expected except for Kondo who had a very good showing in my opinion, this being his second marathon. Koyama had the kind of performance I was expecting while big disappointment for Yoshida. Like we mentioned multiple times, they should self evaluate the selection process cause this way it doesn't work, a guy like Akasaki showed in Paris how it should be done.
The 3000SC had an amazing last lap, it was very emotional hearing the crowd roar when Miura attacked.
I nailed that the podium would be Beamish, El Bakkali and Serem , I thought Miura had a perfect race: I learned after the race that he didn't skip the DL final to rest, he got injured at his ankle in August and couldn't train and after the qualifying round he couldn't run becuase of the pain.
It was noticeable both in qualiyfying round and the final, he is usually very good at jumping the last water hurdle and gets faster from there, while both in the heat and the final this time you could see he struggled with the water hurdle landing and his footing wasn't the usual and couldn't be because of fatigue with the race being very slow, it was clear he had trouble with his ankle and it's too bad cause I think he had a real shot at bronze (Beamish was too fast, El Bakkali maybe, he could have beat Serem).
I think this will be a big regret for him as a slow race that had him in sight of medals at the last turn...had he been 100% fit those last 80 meters could have been very diifferent.
Kudos to him though one of the few japanese athletes at these world championship that showed he doesn't fold once he hits international fields.