japan running news

by Brett Larner The fourth day of competition at the 2014 World Junior Championships brought Japan its first gold medal of the week as Daisuke Matsunaga set a championships record 39.27.19 in the men's 10000 m race walk.  Silver and bronze medalists Diego Garcia (Spain) and Paulo Yurivilca (Peru) both set new national junior records to get on the podium, but Matsunaga was in another class as he beat Garcia by almost 30 seconds.  Yuga Yamashita (Japan) came up just short of the medals at 4th in 40:15.27. Likewise just out of the medals, sprinter Yuki Koike ran 20.34 (+2.3) for 4th in the men's 200 m final, just 0.4 s from claiming bronze.  Teammate Masaharu Mori took 6th in 20.84, the first time a world-level championships has seen two Japanese athletes make a 200 m final.  Both ran the final less than 90 minutes after helping the Japanese men's 4x100 m team make the final by winning Heat 2 in a junior world-leading time of 39.23 just ahead of hosts U.S.A. ...

by Brett Larner Despite several close calls, Japan went empty-handed for the first three days of the 2013 IAAF World Youth Championships in Donetsk, Ukraine.  Not until the July 13 race walks did its fortunes turn around.  In the women's 5000 m race walk, far behind Russian winner Olga Shargina 's world-leading 22:13.91,  Momoko Mizota  narrowly held off Noemi Stella  (Italy) for silver in a PB 22:42.77. Less than an hour later, Toshikazu Yamanishi  turned in Japan's only gold medal of the championships with a PB 41:53.80 in the men's 10000 m race walk, ten seconds ahead of silver medalist Maksim Krasnov  (Russia) and bronze medalist  Diego Garcia  (Spain).  Just behind in 4th, Yuga Yamashita  clocked a PB 42:07.94 but could not match Krasnov and Garcia on the final lap. On the final day of competition, both the women's and men's medley relay teams picked up bronze, the women behind the U.S.A. and, by a step, British Virgin Is...