japan running news

16-year-old Yuya Sawada continued her climb through the ranks of Japanese women's middle distance, building on her 4:15.29 PB in the 1500 m heats with a 4:12.87 PB for 6th in the final on the last day of the Cali 22 World U20 Championships . With Ethiopian Birke Haylom setting a championships record 4:04.27 and Kenyans Brenda Chebet and Purity Chepkirui both under 4:08 Sawada was still far off the medals, but having come to Cali with a best of 4:17.75 she bridged half the gap.  Her time was just 0.02 off the U18 NR held by Yuriko Kobayashi and moved her up behind Kobayashi to all-time #2 on the Japanese U20 and high school lists. And having done it with two big performances in high-pressure races Sawada is now one of the highest-potential young athletes Japan has. Strangely enough, though, none of the others were entered in the 5000 m, mirroring Japanese women's absence from the 3000 m. The two men in the 3000 m steeplechase final couldn't match Sawada's performanc...

No Japanese athlete made it to any of the five finals on day three of the Cali 22 World U20 Championships , but qualifying rounds did see most of the athletes in action advance to their next rounds on upcoming days. In the men's 3000 m, both H.S NR holder Keita Sato and #3 Hiroto Yoshioka placed 5th in their heats to take auto-qualifying spots, Sato in Heat 2 with an 8:00.17 SB and Yoshioka in Heat 1 in 8:15.95. Both men in the 3000 m steeplechase also qualified for the final, Ryotaro Onuma taking an auto-qualifying place at 3rd in Heat 2 in 9:00.02 and Asahi Kuroda getting through on time in the fastest Heat 3 with an 8:51.04 for 5th. Likewise in the men's 400 m hurdles heats, Sojiro Moritaka 2nd in Heat 3 in 51.04 for a semi-final auto-qualifying spot and Daiki Ogawa through on time in 51.52 for 4th in Heat 4. In the women's hammer throw, Raika Murakami was a surprise, throwing a 61.28 m SB for 10th of the twelve qualifiers. Moe Matsuoka narrowly missed the women...

The same day most of Japan's team from the Oregon 22 World Championships made it back home, the Cali 22 World U20 Championships team took off from Tokyo ahead of next week's meet. 9 women representing 5 universities and 3 high schools across 6 events and 25 men from 17 universities and 3 high schools across 15 events are entered . But if the numbers in Eugene were anything to go by it's likely the number of them who make it to the starting line will be smaller.  The women are surprisingly absent from the 3000 m, usually an area of strength for them, but the women's team does include Moe Matsuoka (Chuo Univ.), 4th-fastest U20 worldwide in the 400 mH this year, 10000 mRW top 2-ranked Ai Oyama (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) and Ayane Yanai (Ritsumeikan Univ.), and 2022 worldwide #5 and #6 Momoko Tsuji (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) and Aoi Murakami (Nittai Univ.) in the javelin throw. Notable names among the men's entries include Oregon 4x100 m team member and worldwide #6 jun...

Held in parallel with this weekend's senior National Championships, the U20 National Track and Field Championships happened Thursday through Sunday at Osaka's Yanmar Stadium Nagai. The timing meant most of the top U20 talent was in the senior championships, but even so there were three new meet records across disciplines. On Friday Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) bettered the 9-year-old MR in the U20 women's hammer throw by almost a meter and a half, winning with a 59.43 m opening throw even though she fouled every attempt after that. In Sunday's U20 men's long jump Nozomi Watanabe (Tsukuba Univ.) set a new MR, jumping 7.85 m (+1.6) on his fourth attempt. 2nd-placer Kosuke Tsuneizumi (Chuo Univ.) closed with a 7.66 (+2.1) jump but came short of overtaking Watanabe. Also Sunday, the top 6 all broke the old U20 men's 3000 m MR of 8:16.20 despite running at the peak of mid-afternoon heat and sunlight. Shintaro Kudo (Ichinoseki Gakuin H.S.) took the nat...