Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest.
In New York, 1500 m U20 NR holder Keita Sato ran his first road race since his anchor stage CR at the Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 3, becoming the first Japanese man ever to run the New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile. In terms of placing Sato got destroyed, finishing 22nd of 27, but his time of 3:53.9 was the fastest time ever by a Japanese man on the track, indoor track, or road, bettering both Soma Nagahara's 3:57.00 road NR form June and Ryoma Aoki's indoor 3:54.84 track NR from 2024. As a point-to-point course Fifth Avenue isn't eligible for new NR, but considering that Sato is still only 5 months into transitioning back from a Hakone-centric half marathon focus to shorter distance after almost 4 years away, it's a pretty encouraging sign for 2027.
U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back.
Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3 attempts at 4.61 m without success, but as the only athlete to go higher than 4.10 m her 4.51 m NR was enough for the win.
In New York, 1500 m U20 NR holder Keita Sato ran his first road race since his anchor stage CR at the Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 3, becoming the first Japanese man ever to run the New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile. In terms of placing Sato got destroyed, finishing 22nd of 27, but his time of 3:53.9 was the fastest time ever by a Japanese man on the track, indoor track, or road, bettering both Soma Nagahara's 3:57.00 road NR form June and Ryoma Aoki's indoor 3:54.84 track NR from 2024. As a point-to-point course Fifth Avenue isn't eligible for new NR, but considering that Sato is still only 5 months into transitioning back from a Hakone-centric half marathon focus to shorter distance after almost 4 years away, it's a pretty encouraging sign for 2027.
Kitaguchi wasn't the only Japanese athlete in Budapest. NR holder Joseph Nakajima was in the men's 400 m, where he ran 45.00 in the heats but missed the cut for the final by 0.03. 110 mH NR holder Rachid Muratake and Tatsuki Abe both made the final, Abe finishing 5th in 13.24 (-0.6) but Muratake far off his best at 6th in 13.71.
Other highlights at the National Corporate Championships:
- Bruno Dede ran the 3rd-fastest wind-league performance of his career, running 10.13 (+0.8) to take the men's 100 m, then came back with his best 200 m since 2021, a 20.65 (-1.1) to take the 200 m title.
- Masaya Oda set a new men's 400 mH MR by 0.08, winning in 48.84.
- The top 4 broke the MR in the men's 5000 mRW led by Yuta Koga in 18:19.45.
- The men's 4x100 m relay team got a chance to try out its lineup of Shuhei Tada, Fukuto Komura, Yoshihide Kiryu and Akira Hayashi ahead of next week's Nagoya-Aichi Asian Games, running 38.97..
- Yusaku Iwao threw a 79.19 m SB to win the men's javelin throw, the 3rd-best by a Japanese man so far this year and 3rd-best of his career.
- Scheduled to do a 1500-5000-10000 triple next week at the Asian Games, Nozomi Tanaka ran a 2:02.18 PB to edge 800 m specialist Ayano Shiomi by 0.12 for the 800 m title, both going under the 2004-era 2:02.41 MR.
- Maoko Takashima broke the women's triple jump MR with a 13.82 m (+0.2) on her 3rd attempt, holding previous MR setter Mariko Morimoto back to 2nd in 13.61 m (+0.9).
On the roads, Yohei Ikeda had a good one at the Great North Run in Great Britain, running 1:00:40 for 3rd on the downhill, point-to-point course, faster than his legit half marathon PB and his first really good performance in over a year and a half. Kosei Matsunami and Yuki Takei also made the top 10, Matsunami 5th in 1:01:59 and Takei 10th in 1:02:50, with Taiga Hirayama 12th in 1:03:16, Ayumu Kobayashi 15th in 1:03:55 and Naoki Aiba 27th in 1:06:36. Honami Maeda had a good one in the women's race, 5 seconds out of 3rd place with a 1:09:42 for 4th. Shiori Zama was 11th in 1:14:46 and Rio Einaga 12th in 1:15:20.
A separate crew of Japanese marathoners turned up at the Porto Half Marathon in Portugal, with Kyohei Hosoya leading them in 1:03:37 for 4th. Sota Fukutani took 7th in 1:04:28, Ren Umezaki 8th in 1:04:54, and Hiroto Inoue 9th in 1:05:53. No elite-level Japanese women were in the race.
photo © 2026 Russ Stram, all rights reserved
text © 2026 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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