– Athletics competition kicked off at the Paris Olympics with the men’s and women’s 20 km race walks. One of Japan’s best medal chances, the men’s race saw Koki Ikeda and Yuta Koga sit in the second pack through the second half of the race, ultimately finishing 7th and 8th in 1:19:41 and 1:19:50.

Ikeda was only 30 seconds back from bronze medalist Alvaro Martin of Spain and another 16 seconds from gold medalist Brian Pintado of Ecuador. Third Japanese man Ryo Hamanishi was 18th in 1:20:33. Overall it was an improvement on the team’s performance in the Budapest World Championships last summer, where Koga was 12th and Ikeda 15th.
With Kumiko Okada and Ayane Yanai withdrawing to focus on the mixed relay, the women’s 20 km race walk had only one Japanese athlete, Nanako Fujii. With China’s Jiayu Yang leading all three medalists under 1:26:00 in 1:25:54, Fujii was a distant 32nd in 1:34:26.
No Japanese athletes were in action in the morning session at the start of day two, but all three women in the 5000 m heats at the top of the evening session were eliminated. Yuma Yamamoto led much of the first heat and at one point had a lead of 50 m, but after the pack caught her and NR holder Nozomi Tanaka took over Yamamoto faded to 17th of 20 finishers in 15:43.67. Tanaka led the pack the rest of the way, but with 9 people competing for 8 qualifying spots over the last lap she was dropped by the other 8 in the home straight and took 9th in 15:00.62, the fastest non-qualifier in either heat. A late addition to the Olympic team when a roll down spot opened up, Wakana Kabasawa was 19th of 20 finishers in heat two in 15:50.86.
In the women’s triple jump qualifying round, Mariko Morimoto jumped 13.40 m (-0.6) for 14th in Group B, missing out on a place in the final by 65 cm.
In the brilliant men’s 10000 m final that saw the top 13 go under 27 minutes, 2024 national champion Jun Kasai, another late addition to the team, ran a respectable 27:53.18 but finished only 20th of 24 finishers. Runner-up at both the 2023 and 2024 national championships, Tomoki Ota never looked good and finished 24th in 29:12.48, lapped twice by medalists Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda, Berihu Aregawi of Ethiopia and Grant Fisher of the U.S.A. Kyudenko team member Benard Koech was 5th in a PB of 26:43.98.
© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Brett Larner – Japan Running News