2023 OUTdoors

[LuckySpikes]

Today's Oku-Kuma Ekiden in and around Tarigi was a good one.

Run over the marathon distance with High School Boys' teams using 7 athletes and the senior Men's teams 4 athletes, it's the two 3km legs and the final two 5km-ish legs for the High School teams that can make a big difference. On those short legs a good High Schooler can take 20 to 30 seconds out of a good senior athlete who's running a 10+ km leg.

On the first 10km leg run by all the teams, Hiramatsu Hospital 'A' team sprung out to a 12s lead with Tomoya Ogikubo, a sub-28 & sub-61 athlete, but after that the format of the race suited the High School teams well.

The eventual winners were Chosei Saku High School in 2:03:24 and in the final 3km there were changes to positions 2 to 6 including Aoyama Gakuin University 'A' team overhauling Hiramatsu Hospital 'A' team by 6 seconds to finish 4th overall but first in the senior division in 2:05:44.

It should be said that Chosei Saku High School are one of the very best Boys' teams in Japan, finishing 2nd at last year's National High School Ekiden Championship as Nagano prefecture's representative.

In total 13 of the 42 High School teams broke 2:10:00 whilst 5 of the 14 University / Corporate teams did that.

At the Akita 25 Municipal Ekiden Furusato Akita Run! in Yurihonjo, last year's 4th placers Misato Town upset the odds and beat all the teams in the City division!

[LuckySpikes]

Yep, congrats to Callum Elson, World silver medalist. Crazy!

A pretty good day for the Brits with four other top 10 finishes and everyone else running up to form, except perhaps Sarah McDonald although she can be very happy overall with her comeback this year.

[Occasional Hope]

Excellent performance!

[jjimbojames]

World silver medalist! Great reward for his commitment; all the Brits have done well, so far

[Hammerklavier]

I agree. It stinks.

[Hammerklavier]

Competely agree!

[Grassmarket]

Wasn’t expecting much for Team GB from Riga but big congrats to Callum Elson with a Mile Silver in 3:56.41 PB. Took advantage of running in a big pack on a windy day & just stepped out in the last 100m. Standard has been high in all races with PBs & NRs littered all over the pkace.

[CAML]

These 3 races are the first time Puripol Boonson has competed in 2023. Born in 2006, with a 200 pb of 20.19 from last year he's one to watch in 24.

[LuckySpikes]

Catching up with action from the first 2 days at the Asian Games ...

It's a massive stadium, capacity 80,000. I'd say it's been around 60% full, perhaps two-thirds full for the evening sessions.

It was a hot and humid evening on Day 1. I'd said that Ririka Hironaka was the favourite for the Women's 10,000 but I'd completely missed the fact that the Bahranian, Motioso, with a 34 mins PB is actually Violah Jepchumba (30:24 on the roads). It was she who took the title in 31:43.73. At one point Hironaka was about 13s back but closed the gap to 7s in taking the silver. Hironaka is also due to run the 5000 here.

In today's Men's 10,000 the lead group of 8 was reduced to 5 with 3 laps to go when there was a tangling of legs and Dawit Fikadu, Shiojiri & Alamri all hit the deck. Birhanu Balew won with a big kick in 28:13.62 and the two Indians, Kartik Kumar & Gulveer Singh, both smashed their PBs by almost 40s to take silver & bronze. Japan's 22yo Ren Tazawa was 4th.

The Men's 400 final was an exciting race with new Japanese NR-holder Kentaro Sato just failing to catch Yousef Ahmed Masrahi (45.55) at the line. Masrahi regained the title he won in 2014. Japan's other sub-45 man, Fuga Sato, was a close 4th.

Adekoya, 50.66, and Naser went 1-2 in the W 400 with Shereen Vallabuoy (Malaysia) in 3rd. She's the current NCAA D2 champion and the NR-holder with 51.80 from earlier in the year.

Ge Manqi won the Women's 100 in 11.23, just ahead of Veronica Shanti Pereira. A native Bahrainian, Alkhaldi, won bronze, the same time (11.35) as Thailand's Supanich Poolkerd.

China completed the 100 double in the Men's with Xie Xhenye, 9.97 (+2.4) from Thailand's 17yo Puripol Boonson, 10.02 (10.06 PB in the semis) and Malaysia's 19yo Bin Mohd Fahmi, 10.11. Neither Yoshihide Kiryu nor Yuki Koike made it out of the semis. Their best days seem to be behind them.

Obiena won the PV with 5.90, the first Games record of this edition.

Full results at https://worldathletics.org/competiti...esults/7147637

Tomorrow's action includes the Women's 100 Hurdles final with 5 women in the 12.7's & 12.8's (in PB order - Yanni Wu, Jyothi Yarraji (IND), Yuwei Lin, Masumi Aoki & Yumi Tanaka), the Men's LJ final, rounds of the 200s, both the 1500 finals, the conclusion of the Heptathlon and Avanash Sable in the Men's Steeple final. Hopefully Asian champ Ryoma Aoki can give him a good race.

[trevorp]

Laura Weightman announces the sadly inevitable.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/66970678

[jjimbojames]

And the testing regime was very different in 2006 compared to 2021 - Ohurougo was the first big case and sparked a lot of athletes into taking it seriously…no excuses nowadays

[North8]

The difference is Ohuruogu and Naser just missed tests, Adekoya actually tested positive for a banned substance.

[philipo]

Lucky I would remind you that Ohuruogu was also banned and made world champion status. Were you posting about her being a cheat?
For heavens sake let's not join the Letsrun mob of nutters for whom all athletes are cheats probably. Naser was not found guilty of taking drugs, as I recall.

[LuckySpikes]

And her suspect team-mate Salwa Eid Naser joins her in the 400 final coming up!

[North8]

Kemi Adedoper doing well in the Asian Games I see.... *sigh*