japan running news

Day three of the National Track and Field Championships saw a few of the expected favorites prevail and a few unexpectedly fall short. In the women's 100 m hurdles 2019 Asian champion Ayako Kimura (Edion) won a very close race over Masumi Aoki (Nanajunana Ginko) and Asuka Terada (Pasona Group) in 13.14 (+0.6 m/s) to secure her spot back in Doha this fall. In the men's 400 m hurdles Takatoshi Abe (Yamada Denki) came back from a weak semi-final to win in 48.80, likewise guaranteeing himself a place on Japan's World Championships team. 2nd-place Masaki Toyoda (Hosei Univ.) was also under the Doha standard in 49.05, making himself a likely addition to the final team roster to be announced in September.

The women's 3000 m steeplechase saw an under-20 national record as Reimi Yoshimura (Daito Bunka Univ.) broke away from defending champion Yukari Ishizawa (Edion) and the rest of the lead pack after 2000 m to win in 9:50.44. In the race of the day, Ryohei Sakaguchi (Tokai Un…

Despite sparse attendance, day two of the Doha Asian Athletics Championships saw three world-leading performances, five championships records, eight national records and Japan get onto the medal tally board in a real way after a relatively slow first day.

Qatari Abderrahman Samba turned in the performance of the day with a world-leading 47.51 championships record in the men's 400 m hurdles that left Japan's Takatoshi Abe tumbling in the turbulence. World-leaders also came in the men's 800 m via Qatari's Abubaker Haydar Abdalla with a 1:44.33 and the men's javelin with a throw of 86.72 m by Chao-Tsun Cheng of Taiwan.

After only winning a single bronze medal on the first day of the championships Japan got rolling with one gold, one silver and two bronze medals. National record holder Yoshihide Kiryu took the gold in the men's 100 m, running 10.10 +1.5. Teammate Ryota Yamagata was a DNS after winning his semifinal in a season best 10.18.

Ayaka Kora won silver in t…

Following Hiroto Inoue's morning gold medal in the men's marathon, the first evening session of athletics at the Jakarta Asian Games was capped by a surprise bronze in the women's hammer throw by Hitomi Katsuyama. Katsuyama's throw of 62.95 m was 8 meters or more off the Chinese top two Na Luo and Zheng Wang and was nearly overtaken by teammate Akane Watanabe's 62.45 m but was enough for her to go home with hardware in an an event that's usually something of a weakness.

The day's only other final to feature a Japanese athlete, the women's 10000 m was out of the league of lone Japanese entrant Yuka Hori. After a series of delays involving missing numbers, an extra athlete and removal of a rear bib, Hori did much of the leading, dropped by surges twice and taking her time overtaking those ahead both times to end up 7th in  32:42.73. In an exciting race up front Darla Maslova of Kyrgyzstan outkicked Kenyan-born Bahraini Eunice Chumba and Deshun Zheng of C…