Skip to main content

Hattori Outkicks Kenyans Wambui, Omwamba and Kitonyi for 5000 m Title - National University Track and Field Championships Day Two Results

by Brett Larner
photos by @tetsujiman


Fans and media were mostly plugged in for the first men's final of the second day of the Japanese National University Track and Field Championships Sept. 12 at Osaka's Yanmar Stadium Nagai, with sprint sensation Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) returning from injuries that kept him out of June's National Championships and August's World Championships to win the 100 m final in 10.19.  Kiryu claimed to be at only 80% fitness but had no trouble putting away his two strongest competitors, Kazuma Oseto (Hosei Univ.) and Takuya Nagata (Hosei Univ.), who were well back in 10.29 and 10.33.  Hours later Kiryu was back to run second on Toyo's 4x100 m, where he turned in another strong run to put Toyo into the lead before they ultimately fell back to 6th.



Toyo also dominated the last men's final of the day with the best performance so far at this year's Nationals.  Third-year Hazuma Hattori, younger brother of Toyo fourth-year and 30 km collegiate national record holder Yuma Hattori, ran up front in the 5000 m in a pack of five including 2013 National University Championships 5000 m winner Daniel Muiva Kitonyi (Nihon Univ.), yesterday's 10000 m winner Patrick Muthenge Wambui (Nihon Univ.), 2015 National University Half Marathon champion Tadashi Isshiki (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) and Keisuke Nakatani of 2011-2014 National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University.

Defending 5000 m champ Enock Omwamba (Yamanashi Gakuin University), skipping both the 1500 m and 10000 m to focus only on the 5000, started surprisingly slow but worked his way up into contention after 3000 m, replacing a fading Nakatani at the back of the lead quintet.  Kitonyi and Wambui, both still tired from the 10000 m a day earlier, stayed at a steady 2:44/km pace with Hattori and Isshiki, former high school teammates who were part of the controversial 2012 mass transfer of most of Sendai Ikuei H.S.' ekiden team to national champion Toyokawa H.S., locked right behind them, both on PB pace and Omwamba bringing up the rear.


At the bell all five were still together, the tension building as nobody made their final move.  Omwamba went to the outside on the back straight and looked ready to go, but to the shock and delight of the crowds it was Hattori who took off with 200 m to go, instantly going to 100% and opening a gap that neither the three Kenyans nor Isshiki could close.


Hattori covered the final 200 m in a superb 25 seconds to win in a 13:38.45 PB, the first Japanese runner to win a National University Champs distance title since 2011, Wambui and Omwamba 2nd and 3rd two seconds back.  Isshiki beat Kitonyi for 4th, also scoring a new PB of 13:40.93, a school record for 2015 Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University.  Fans were buzzing about Hattori's kick for hours afterward, exactly the kind of performance they had been expecting to see from the Nike Oregon Project's Suguru Osako at the Beijing World Championships last month.

Toyo teammates Kiryu and Hattori bracketed the day with its two highlights.  Lesser glories including London Olympian Anna Doi (Daito Bunka Univ.) taking the women's 100 m title in 11.74 by just 0.03 over Mizuki Nakamura (Osaka Seikei Univ.), a come from behind win by Chuo University in the men's 4x100 m relay, and Sakie Arai (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) stopping a bid by Natsuki Omori (Ritsumeikan Univ.) for a third-straight women's 5000 m title, biding her time as Omori kept the race painfully slow before outkicking her in the final 100 m to win by just 0.18 seconds in 15:56.21.  The National University Track and Field Championships wrap up Sunday.

84th National University Track and Field Championships Day Two
Nagai Stadium, Osaka, 9/12/15
click here for complete results

Men’s 100 m Final +0.5 m/s
1. Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) – 10.19
2. Kazuma Oseto (Hosei Univ.) – 10.29
3. Takuya Nagata (Hosei Univ.) – 10.33

Women’s 100 m Final +0.6 m/s
1. Anna Doi (Daito Bunka Univ) – 11.74
2. Mizuki Nakamura (Osaka Seikei Univ.) – 11.77
3. Yuki Miyazawa (Toyama Univ.) – 11.88

Men’s 5000 m Final
1. Hazuma Hattori (Toyo Univ.) – 13:38.45 - PB
2. Patrick Mutenge Wambui (Nihon Univ.) -13:40.22
3. Enock Omwamba (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) - 13:40.78
4. Tadashi Isshiki (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 13:40.93 - PB
5. Daniel Muiva Kitonyi (Nihon Univ.) - 13:45.51
6. Keisuke Nakatani (Komazawa Univ.) - 13:56.60
7. Hiroya Inoue (Jobu Univ.) - 14:05.26
8. Yuki Muta (Meiji Univ.) - 14:05.34
9. Toshiyuki Yanagi (Waseda Univ.) - 14:07.89
10. Kazuma Taira (Waseda Univ.) - 14:08.19

Women’s 5000 m Final
1. Sakie Arai (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) – 15:56.21
2. Natuski Omori (Ritsumeikan Univ.) – 15:56.39
3. Ami Hirose (Kansai Univ.) – 15:57.27
4. Maki Izumida (Rikkyo Univ.) – 15:59.53
5. Wakana Itsuki (Fukuoka Univ.) – 15:59.65
6. Kanna Tamaki (Meijo Univ.) – 16:00.78
7. Ai Hosoda (Nittai Univ.) – 16:01.21
8. Maho Shimizu (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) – 16:03.59
9. Kureha Seki (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 16:06.44
10. Ena Kagayama (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 16:07.35

Women’s 3000 mSC Heat 1
1. Misaki Mishima (Matsuyama Univ.) – 10:18.10
2. Soyoka Segawa (Daito Bunka Univ.) – 10:26.61
3. Emi Tsuji (Fukuoka Univ.) – 10:26.75

Women’s 3000 mSC Heat 2
1. Moeno Shimizu (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) – 10:19.35
2. Haruka Kawashima (Kyoto Sangyo Univ.) – 10:21.51
3. Mao Watanabe (Ritsumeikan Univ.) – 10:21.81

Men’s 4x100 m Relay Final
1. Chuo Univ. - 39.15
2. Hosei Univ. - 39.23
3. Waseda Univ. - 39.52

Women’s 4x100 m Relay Final
1. Ritsumeikan Univ. – 45.40
2. Konan Univ. – 45.49
3. Daito Bunka Univ. – 45.72

Men’s Long Jump
1. Daiki Oda (Nihon Univ.) – 7.75 m +1.0 m/s
2. Shunsuke Narisada (Kwansei Gakuin Univ.) – 7.72 m +0.2 m/s
3. Kodai Sakuma (Hosei Univ.) – 7.66 m +0.7 m/s

Women’s Triple Jump
1. Akina Nakagawa (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) – 12.79 m -0.6 m/s
2. Mariko Morimoto (Nihon Joshi Taiiku Univ.) – 12.58 m -0.6 m/s
3. Risa Ichimura (Denki Tsushin Univ.) – 12.46 m -0.3 m/s

Men’s Shot Put
1. Yuki Maisawa (Tokai Univ.) - 54.14 m
2. Yume Ando (Tokai Univ.) - 53.24 m
3. Kengo Anbo (Tokai Univ.) - 51.86 m

Women’s Shot Put
1. Aya Ota (Fukuoka Univ.) – 15.72 m
2. Hitomi Naganuma (Kokushikan Univ.) – 14.57 m
3. Saki Saito (Tokyo Joshi Taiiku Univ.)  – 14.29 m

Men’s Hammer Throw
1. Yushiro Hosaka (Tsukuba Univ.) – 68.50 m
2. Naoki Uematsu (Chukyo Univ.) – 67.09 m
3. Taichi Kimura (Kyoto Sangyo Univ.) – 65.38 m

Women’s Hammer Throw
1. Misaki Fukushima (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) – 59.89 m
2. Tamami Saeki (Ritsumeikan Univ.) – 59.04 m
3. Hitomi Katsuyama (Tsukuba Univ.) – 58.91 m

Men’s Decathlon
1. Tsuyoshi Shimizu (Chukyo Univ.) - 7697
2. Nozomu Ogura (International Pacific Univ.) - 7351
3. Hiroyoshi Ushiro (Kokushikan Univ.) - 7015

(c) 2015 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr