Dai Tamesue of Japan celebrates winning bronze in the 400m Hurdles (© Getty Images)
Osaka, JapanThe Japanese national championships, which doubles as the national trials for the upcoming 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Osaka, Japan (25 Aug – 2 Sep) take place over the next three days (Fri 29 June to Sun 1 July) in Nagai stadium, which will be the venue for the World Championships.
Selection
The criteria for making the Japanese team for the World Championships are quite complicated. Of course, if athletes with the ‘A’ standard win at the nationals, they will be selected for the team. yet subjective judgment also plays some role. For example, if athlete(s) with the ‘A’ standard finish near the top in the nationals and the selectors feel the athlete(s) concerned have a good chance to medal or make the World Champs final then they may still be selected to the World Championships squad.
Tamesue over the barriers against Narisako
The men’s 400m Hurdles will be a showdown between Dai Tamesue and Kenji Narisako, and is one of the most anticipated events on the programme. Tamesue, two-time World Championships medallist, having won bronze in both the 2001 and 2005 World Championships, has been working on his speed since last year. His personal bests are: 100m (10.49) and 200m (20.97).
Having gained more speed, Tamesue is modifying his stride pattern and will attempt, for the first time in a competitive setting, to run with 14 strides between hurdles number 7 and 8 and 8 and 9, the period in which he was running with 15 strides previously.
In the Osaka GP in May, Tamesue finished third behind World champion Bershawn Jackson and World silver medallist James Carter, but ahead of Narisako, the 2006 Asian Games champion, who hit the 7th hurdle and finished fourth.
10,000m duel
Another anticipated showdown should be in the women’s 10,000m between the reigning champion Kayoko Fukushi and the young pretenders Megumi Kinukawa and Akane Wakita.
Fukushi has been training in Ethiopia, and the national championships is the first test of her fitness gained through high altitude training. Fukushi has been completely dominant at both 5000m and 10,000m in recent years, having won both distances in the last three nationals.
However, for the first time in several years two rising stars, Kinukawa and Wakita, may give Fukushi some trouble. In their 10,000m debuts, Kinukawa recorded 31:35.27, while Wakita recorded 31:39.32 despite falling late in the race. Kinukawa is only a high school student, while Wakita is in her first year out of high school. Their second 10,000m is awaited with much anticipation.
Murofushi opens
Koji Murofushi, who is now Dr. Koji Murofushi, having completed his Ph. D. thesis on the biomechanics of Hammer Throw, will attempt to win that event for the record 13th time. The nationals will be the Olympic champion’s first competition of the season, and thus it will be a good indicator where he stands in his training. Last year, he tied his father’s record of 12 national championships. This Saturday (30), Koji is expected to surpass his father.
The long and the short of it
The national Long Jump rivalry between Kumiko Ikeda, the 2006 Asian Games champion, and Maho Hanaoka has become legendary. In the 2005 nationals not only were their best jumps the same, but their second best jumps were also the same too. To differentiate between them, the officials had to go to their third best jumps. But more recently, it has been Ikeda who has been dominating the event in Japan.
However, Hitomi Nakano, a high school sensation, recently jumped 6.44m, breaking the national junior record previously held by Ikeda. It may be too early to call their match-up a showdown, but many fans are eagerly awaiting the jumps by Nakano.
Fast track
The new track at Nagai stadium is known to be very fast as attested to by USA’s World and Olympic 400m champion Jeremy Wariner who competed at the Osaka GP in May, thus the sprint events are eagerly awaited by the fans.
The events where national record holders are expected to compete are the women’s 400m, where Asami Tanno will be running, and the women’s 400m Hurdles, where Satomi Kubokura is the standout entrant.
Shingo Suetsugu will be running only the men’s 200m, for he now realises that 200m is a distance better suited to him. The fans have been waiting for a sub-20 seconds 200m from Suetsugu for along time. In the women’s 200m, Sakie Nobuoka may also challenge her national record. She has run a windy (2.8m/s) 23.12, faster than her own national record.
Other athletes attracting much attention are Daichi Sawano in the men’s Pole Vault, Naoyuki Daigo in the men’s High Jump, and Yuriko Kobayashi in the women’s 1500m.
Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
