NAGOYA –
Japan captured the lads’s 4×400-meter relay gold medal in driving rain on September 29, clocking 3 minutes, 0.75 seconds to win the Asian Games title for the primary time in 12 years because the athletics program got here to a dramatic conclusion at Mizuho Park Athletics Stadium in Nagoya.
Fuga Sato, Shinya Hayashi, Kenki Imaizumi and Yuki Joseph Nakajima mixed to defeat Qatar, which took silver in 3:00.93, whereas India completed third in 3:01.61.
The victory was Japan’s first within the occasion because the 2014 Incheon Games and supplied an emphatic end to a seven-day athletics competitors wherein the host nation collected 10 gold medals and 32 medals general.
Japan had entered the Games holding the Asian file of two:58.33, set on the Paris Olympics in 2024.
In the September 28 heats, Japan used Sato on the opening leg, Kentaro Shirahata second, Imaizumi third and Hayashi on anchor. The quartet gained its warmth in 3:03.48 to qualify comfortably for the ultimate.
Nakajima, the Japanese 400-meter file holder who had already gained bronze within the particular person occasion, changed Shirahata for the ultimate.
Japan rearranged the order with Sato main off, Hayashi second, Imaizumi third and Nakajima operating anchor.
Heavy rain fell all through the race.
Sato accelerated aggressively on the primary leg and moved Japan into rivalry earlier than handing the baton to Hayashi in third place.
Hayashi produced the decisive early transfer, surging into the lead across the 200-meter level and giving Imaizumi the baton with Japan forward.
The third leg developed right into a tightly packed contest, however Imaizumi resisted strain from the chasing groups and maintained Japan’s slender benefit earlier than handing over to Nakajima.
Nakajima remained in entrance via the opening half of the anchor leg.
The opposition closed because the race entered its remaining bend, however Nakajima, identified for his power late within the 400 meters, discovered one other gear down the ending straight and crossed first to safe the gold.
Nakajima stated the victory helped ease a few of his disappointment at taking bronze within the particular person 400 meters.
“I couldn’t get the result I wanted individually, so I’m really happy that we were able to win the gold medal here,” he stated. “My own run wasn’t particularly good, but I think the first three runners really helped me.”
Sato stated Japan had entered the ultimate in sturdy situation after its convincing efficiency in qualification.
“We were feeling good from the heats, so it was great that we were able to finish it off and win,” he stated.
He however felt his personal opening leg might have been stronger.
“I slowed toward the end. I was closing on the teams I could see, but once I handed over I realized they had also closed on us, so I probably made the second leg work harder than I wanted.”
Hayashi stated his activity was merely to construct on Sato’s opening effort.
“I took the momentum Fuga gave me and just ran with everything I had to get the baton to Kenki,” he stated.
Imaizumi, who protected Japan’s lead on the third leg, stated sustaining first place had been central to the group’s plan.
“We wanted to take the lead and not give it away,” he stated. “I also wanted to show that this team isn’t just about Joseph. Overall, I think we created a very good flow.”
Japan’s relay squad has more and more focused medals at international championships after breaking the nationwide and Asian file in Paris.
Nakajima stated the subsequent goal can be competing for a podium place on the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing.
“We’ve been aiming for a medal in the mile relay and have been just short,” he stated. “Botswana, the United States and other very strong teams are there, so each of us has to become stronger individually, get into that fight and somehow win a medal. I want us to help bring more excitement to Japanese athletics.”
The relay victory capped a extremely profitable athletics marketing campaign for Japan.
One day earlier, Ryuji Miura and Ryoma Aoki had delivered a historic one-two within the males’s 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Miura gained in a Games file of 8:17.36, changing into the primary Japanese champion within the occasion in 28 years, whereas Aoki took silver in a personal-best 8:17.60.
Japan had additionally gained the lads’s 1,500 meters via Kazuto Iizawa, whereas Nozomi Tanaka collected silver within the girls’s 5,000 meters.
Mako Fukube gained the ladies’s 100-meter hurdles, with Hitomi Nakajima second, and Yuma Maruyama took the decathlon title.
Ichitaka Yamashita gained the lads’s marathon, Hayato Katsuki prevailed within the males’s marathon race stroll and Japan collected medals throughout hurdles, jumps, throws and relays throughout one in all its strongest latest Asian Games athletics performances.
September 29 additionally produced two main victories for Japan away from the monitor.
Kanoa Igarashi and Mirai Ikeda accomplished a Japanese sweep of the inaugural Asian Games browsing titles on the Pacific Long Beach venue in Tahara, Aichi Prefecture.
Igarashi, the Tokyo Olympic silver medalist, gained the lads’s shortboard competitors after overcoming Indonesian opposition within the remaining.
The 28-year-old scored 12.87 factors to safe gold and, with it, a person qualification place for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
The outcome provides Igarashi a possibility to compete at a 3rd consecutive Olympic Games.
His street to the ultimate included a dramatic quarterfinal in opposition to Indonesia’s extremely rated Meidy Bronsen, when Igarashi overturned the competition with round one minute remaining to advance by 2.67 factors.
Ikeda then gave Japan a second browsing gold within the girls’s occasion.
The 18-year-old defeated China’s Yang Siqi 11.64 to 7.57 within the remaining, securing her personal place at Los Angeles 2028.
The two surfers turned the primary athletes of their sport to safe qualification for the 2028 Olympics.
Surfing is making its Asian Games debut in Aichi-Nagoya, with the continental champions receiving direct Olympic qualification.
The Japanese double victory was notably worthwhile as a result of Olympic browsing locations are tied on to the successful athletes somewhat than being quota positions that may later be reassigned.
Badminton introduced Japan one other medal, though Akane Yamaguchi was unable to beat world No. 1 An Se-young within the girls’s singles remaining.
An defeated the Japanese world No. 3 21-17, 21-9 in Ichinomiya to retain her Asian Games title.
Yamaguchi started strongly and led 4-1 within the opening sport earlier than An progressively established management.
The Japanese participant recovered from 13-16 to attract stage at 16-16, however An gained the closing factors to take the primary sport.
Yamaguchi briefly led 5-4 within the second earlier than the South Korean produced eight consecutive factors and pulled away decisively.
The silver however represented Yamaguchi’s first Asian Games girls’s singles medal and added to Japan’s already substantial badminton haul.
An turned the primary lady to win consecutive Asian Games badminton singles championships.
Women’s soccer additionally produced an necessary growth as Nadeshiko Japan superior to the Asian Games remaining.
Japan confronted South Korea within the September 29 semifinal at Shizuoka Stadium Ecopa and progressed to the championship match, conserving alive its bid for an unprecedented third consecutive girls’s soccer title.
North Korea will present the opposition within the October 2 remaining after defeating China 2-0 within the different semifinal.
Japan had reached the final 4 with out conceding a objective.
It opened the event with an 8-0 victory over Thailand, adopted with one other 8-0 win in opposition to Vietnam and defeated Chinese Taipei 4-0 to complete first in its group.
Japan then beat the Philippines 4-0 within the quarterfinals, scoring all 4 targets earlier than halftime.
The remaining in opposition to North Korea will give Japan the chance to increase a interval of Asian Games dominance that features gold medals at each the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games and the 2023 Hangzhou Games.
Elsewhere, Japan’s softball group continued its unbeaten begin to the event.
The defending Olympic champion entered September 29 after beating the Philippines 10-0 in its opening match and recording consecutive 15-0 victories over Hong Kong, China, and Thailand on September 28.
Japan was scheduled to face Singapore earlier than transferring right into a harder closing sequence in opposition to South Korea, Chinese Taipei and China.
The competitors makes use of a round-robin system earlier than the medal video games, which means the matches in opposition to the area’s strongest applications will decide positioning for the October 3 remaining.
Men’s volleyball was additionally finishing its preliminary spherical.
Japan had opened with a straight-sets victory over Uzbekistan and continued its marketing campaign in opposition to Kazakhstan earlier than assembly Pakistan on September 29.
The Japanese group entered the Asian Games solely weeks after successful the Asian Men’s Volleyball Championship and securing qualification for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The Asian Games event gives one other main take a look at for a nationwide program that has returned to the higher tier of worldwide males’s volleyball.
Track biking started its medal program on September 29, together with the lads’s and girls’s group dash finals and the opening levels of the group pursuit.
Japan entered the monitor competitors with appreciable medal ambitions following its rising worldwide success in dash and endurance occasions.
The Izu Velodrome, which additionally staged Olympic competitors in 2021, is internet hosting the Asian Games monitor program.
Sports climbing additionally started on September 29, including one other historically sturdy Japanese self-discipline to the second half of the Games.
Japan has developed a few of the world’s main climbers, and the lads’s boulder qualification and girls’s velocity competitors marked the start of a program that may later embrace lead and mixed occasions.
Tennis continued after persistent rain had disrupted the schedule in the course of the earlier two days.
Matches in males’s and girls’s singles, doubles and blended doubles have been compressed right into a demanding program as organizers tried to get well from the backlog.
The poor climate additionally brought on main issues for cricket.
Both males’s quarterfinals scheduled for September 29 have been deserted as a result of the bottom remained unplayable.
Sri Lanka and Bangladesh superior to the semifinals on the premise of their increased rankings after their matches in opposition to Nepal and Malaysia have been washed out.
The cancellations adopted related issues within the earlier quarterfinals, with India and Pakistan additionally progressing with out finishing their scheduled matches.
Repeated rain has develop into one of the persistent logistical challenges of the Games.
Competitions together with tennis, browsing, equestrian occasions and cricket have all been disrupted at numerous levels, forcing organizers to revise schedules and, in some circumstances, decide development utilizing competitors rules somewhat than outcomes on the sphere.
In weightlifting, China’s Li Wenwen gained the ladies’s heaviest division with a complete of 310 kilograms, whereas Iran’s Ali Davoudi captured the lads’s super-heavyweight title after a dramatic contest wherein Iraq’s Ali Ammar set a world file within the snatch.
The performances added to China’s commanding place within the general medal standings.
Japan, nonetheless, continued to build up medals throughout an unusually big selection of sports activities.
The September 29 relay victory gave the host nation a memorable remaining second in athletics, whereas Igarashi and Ikeda’s browsing triumphs carried significance past the Asian Games as a result of in addition they secured locations on the Los Angeles Olympics.
Yamaguchi’s badminton silver and Nadeshiko Japan’s development to the ladies’s soccer remaining added additional depth to the day’s outcomes.
Japan’s focus now shifts towards the remaining group sports activities and the increasing second-week program.
The males’s soccer group performs its semifinal on September 30, whereas softball continues its round-robin marketing campaign and monitor biking, sports activities climbing, tennis, boxing, archery and different sports activities transfer deeper into their medal rounds.
With athletics now full, Japan’s medal problem will more and more rely upon sports activities scheduled in the course of the remaining 5 days of the Games.
But September 29 delivered one of many defining pictures of the house Games: Nakajima driving via the rain in Nagoya with three teammates ready past the end line as Japan reclaimed the lads’s 4×400-meter relay title after a 12-year wait.
Source: TBS