by Brett Larner
Six days after completing a rare quadruple with an 800 m meet record at the Kanto Regional University Track and Field Championships, fourth year Daniel Gitau (Nihon Univ.) took down Japanese 1500 m national record holder Fumikazu Kobayashi (Team NTN) with a PB and meet record 3:37.96 in the men's 1500 m at the May 30 Golden Games in Nobeoka. Heavy rain throughout the meet dashed hopes for a new Japanese national record-level performance, but although he missed his own record mark of 3:37.40 Kobayashi's time of 3:38.80 was one of his best since setting the record in 2004.
Other noteworthy marks came in the ten heats of the men's 5000 m. The fastest times came in the E-heat, where Micah Njeru (Team Toyota Boshoku) ran 13:22.20, a PB by 0.07 over his time from last year's Golden Games, to take down John Thuo (Team Toyota) for the win by just over a second. Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) continued his return to form after a year of serious illness in 2008, runn…
Six days after completing a rare quadruple with an 800 m meet record at the Kanto Regional University Track and Field Championships, fourth year Daniel Gitau (Nihon Univ.) took down Japanese 1500 m national record holder Fumikazu Kobayashi (Team NTN) with a PB and meet record 3:37.96 in the men's 1500 m at the May 30 Golden Games in Nobeoka. Heavy rain throughout the meet dashed hopes for a new Japanese national record-level performance, but although he missed his own record mark of 3:37.40 Kobayashi's time of 3:38.80 was one of his best since setting the record in 2004.
Other noteworthy marks came in the ten heats of the men's 5000 m. The fastest times came in the E-heat, where Micah Njeru (Team Toyota Boshoku) ran 13:22.20, a PB by 0.07 over his time from last year's Golden Games, to take down John Thuo (Team Toyota) for the win by just over a second. Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) continued his return to form after a year of serious illness in 2008, runn…