Both heats of the women's 5000 m saw the expected sight of Japanese athletes trying to fronton their way to the final. In Heat 1 both Yuma Yamamoto and Nozomi Tanaka went out hot on sub-15 pace. Yamamoto eventually faded to 18th of 20 finishers in 15:36.29, but NR holder Tanaka managed to ride the momentum to 5th in 14:47.14 to make the cut of 8 qualifiers. After a good run in the 10000 m Ririka Hironaka tried to frontrun Heat 2 solo on sub-15 pace, but while she a lead of 7 seconds at 2000 m and all 8 qualifiers ran between 14:56 and 14:57 Hironaka dropped to 13th in 15:10.68.
1.88 m was what it took to make the women's high jump final, but even though Nagisa Takahashi hit that mark her missed attempts ranked her 11th in qualification group A and 22nd overall, not enough to make the list of 16 qualifiers.
The NR holder while still in high school and the only Japanese woman to have broken 2 minutes, Rin Kubo took 7th in Heat 3 of the 800 m in 2:02.84 in her first major international championships.
Towa Uzawa was the only Japanese man to make the 200 m semifinals, but even though he built on his first-round performance with a 20.23 (-0.1) in SF1 that was only good enough for 6th and he did not go on to the final. Abigail Fuuka Ido was a bigger surprise to make the women's 200 m semifinals, where she ran 23.15 (-0.1) to finish 8th in SF1 and last overall. But in her case just making the semis was an unexpectedly good achievement that she can build on.
After a 44.44 NR in the first-round heats and a very strong 2nd in the semifinals, Yuki Joseph Nakajima ran 44.62 for 6th in the men's 400 m final behind medalists Busang Collen Kebinatshipi, gold in a world-leading 43.53, Jereem Richards, silver in a Trinidadian NR 43.72, and Bayapo Ndori, making it a double medal for Botswana alongside Kebinatshipi with a 44.20 for bronze. Considering that Nakajima broke 45 for the first time in August with a 44.84, all 3 of his performances at the World Championships coming in at 44.62 or better makes him one of the top performers on the Japanese team so far at this Worlds.
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