The meet records kept coming on Day 3 of the 2025 National Sports Festival Sunday in Shiga. The biggest came in the junior women's javelin throw, where Ayaka Suzuki (Namisho H.S.) opened with a 57.11 m MR throw to win by almost 9 meters. That would have been good enough for 4th in the senior women's javelin throw, where Marina Saito (Suzuki) won over Momone Ueda (Zenrin) 59.39 m to 59.34 m, but more newsworthily put her at all-time #5 on the Japanese high school rankings, 1.79 m behind Paris Olympics champ Haruka Kitaguchi.
Both the junior women's 5000 m race walk and junior men's 5000 m race walk took the event to new levels, with the top 4 in the women's race going under the MR and the top 2 in the men's race doing the same. Hikari Osaka (Nishinomiya H.S.) took the women's race by less than a second over Yuna Uchiyama (Honjo Higashi H.S.) 22:40.75 to 22:41.50, but the men's race was clearer-cut with Daichi Yamada (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) winning by 16 seconds over Toshiya Inoue (Nagano Nichidai H.S.) 20:03.54 to 20:19.72. The fact that Inoue was still under the MR shows how good Yamada's performance was.
The MR went in the senior men's 110 m hurdles thanks to Tatsuki Abe (Juntendo Univ.), who turned in a 13.26 (+0.2) for the win. Chisato Kiyoyama (Ichigo) didn't quite get to the senior women's 100 mH MR but still turned in a dominant win in 13.07 (-0.4).
With teams made up of 3 students and one pro both the women's 4x100 m and men's 4x100 m saw new meet records. Anchored by Midori Mikase, the Hokkaido women's team set a new MR of 44.58 for the win over Yamagata. Shizuoka took the men's title with a great anchor run from Shota Iizuka, becoming the first team to break 39 at the National Sports Festival in 38.95. With Yuki Koike leading off the Hokkaido men tied the old MR in 39.13 for 2nd.
Other winners included:
- Sora Murata (Tsukuba Univ.) and Akari Osakaya (Ehime T&F Assoc.) both tied the 4.20 m MR in the senior women's pole vault, Murata getting the win.
- High school record holder Sorato Shimizu (Seiryo H.S.) tied the MR in junior men's 100 m A-final, running 10.19 (+0.2). Risa Akizawa (Tokyo Gakkan Niigata H.S.) won the junior women's 100 m A-final in 11.56 (+0.8).
- Sora Matsukawa (Naha Kokusai H.S.) took the junior women's triple jump with a 12.37 m (+0.3) last-round jump. The next 3 placers were all within 9 cm of Matsukawa.
- Natsuki Yamakawa (Team SSP) won the senior men's long jump by 1 cm over Tenju Togawa (Ueno Nakamura Shikain) 7.77 m (+0.6) to 7.76 m (-0.1).
- Akane Minamisawa (Matsumoto Doken) won the senior women's 400 mH in 56.96, Daiki Ogawa (Toyo Univ.) taking the senior men's title in 49.03.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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