Skip to main content

Always in Threes - Nakamura on World Championships Day Eight

by Brett Larner

2009 women's 5000 m national champion Yurika Nakamura may not be as talented as the top Kenyans and Ethiopians or even some of her countrywomen, but her performance in the 5000 m final at the 2009 World Championships marks her as the star of the Japanese team with only the medal hopefuls in the women's marathon and men's javelin left to outshine her efforts. In the 10000 m and the 5000 m heats Nakamura took the early lead to keep the races from going out too slowly, ran negative splits, and was rewarded with credible PBs. In the 5000 m final it was the same story. At 1000 m she was in the lead in 3:06.02. When the real racing began she was left behind, ultimately finishing 12th of 15, but she improved her PB from the heats by 8 seconds as she clocked a very decent 15:13.01. Three races in eight days, three PBs. With her stated goal for this year being to improve her track speed before taking another shot at the marathon Nakamura looks well on the way to something big.

2008 national champion and 1500 m national record holder Yuriko Kobayashi was one spot ahead of Nakamura, 11th overall in 15:12.44. Her time was far off her PB, but after a spring filled with injury it was a season best mark and showed that Kobayashi is almost back to form.

The most anticipated event of the evening for Japanese viewers was the men's 4x100 m relay. Sporting a new lineup containing only half of its Beijing Olympics bronze medal-winning squad along with two up-and-coming student runners, the Japanese team easily made the final. Up against giants like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the new Japanese team was clipped for bronze by the British team by a margin of 0.28 seconds. The Japanese team's mark of 38.30 was a season best, and while they fell short of extending the legacy of last year's first-ever Japanese men's track medal it was a hopeful sign for the country's aspirations of developing world-class sprinters. The women's 4x100 m squad featuring national record holder Chisato Fukushima was unable to follow suit, finishing 14th of 17 in the first round and failing to advance, with the women's 4x400 m squad also left behind at 14th in the heats.

Japanese national team captain Daichi Sawano made the final of the men's pole vault, but after clearing only 5.50 he finished 10th of 15.

(c) 2009 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

World Championships Medalist Racewalking Coach Mizuho Sakai Recognized With Highest Coaching Honor

The 2023 Mizuno Sports Mentor Awards recognizing excellence in coaching were held Apr. 23 in Tokyo. Toyo University assistant coach and race walking coach Mizuho Sakai was given a gold award, the program's highest honor, and expressed her thanks and joy in a speech at the award ceremony. The coach of 2023 Budapest World Championships men's 35 km race walk bronze medalist Masatora Kawano , Sakai said, "This is an incredible honor and I'm truly grateful. As a child I wanted to be in the sporting world and I've spent my life in that world. My end goal was always to play a supporting role for other athletes, so I'm honored to be recognized in this way." Sakai's husband Toshiyuki Sakai , head coach of Toyo's three-time Hakone Ekiden champion team, attended the awards gala with her and was also introduced to the audience. After bowing he took a seat in front of her and watched with warmth as she received recognition for her outstanding work. The Mizun
Post a Comment
Read more

Hirabayashi Runs PB at Shanghai Half, WR Holder Nakata Dominates Fuji Five Lakes - Weekend Road Roundup

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ivy League at the Izumo Ekiden in Review

Last week I was contacted by Will Geiken , who I'd met years ago when he was a part of the Ivy League Select Team at the Izumo Ekiden . He was looking for historical results from Izumo and lists of past team members, and I was able to put together a pretty much complete history, only missing the alternates from 1998 to 2010 and a little shaky on the reverse transliterations of some of the names from katakana back into the Western alphabet for the same years. Feel free to send corrections or additions to alternate lists. It's interesting to go back and see some names that went on to be familiar, to see the people who made an impact like Princeton's Paul Morrison , Cornell's Max King , Stanford's Brendan Gregg in one of the years the team opened up beyond the Ivy League, Cornell's Ben de Haan , Princeton's Matt McDonald , and Harvard's Hugo Milner last year, and some of the people who struggled with the format. 1998 Team: 15th of 21 overall, 2:14:10 (43
Post a Comment
Read more