Woo Sanghyeok at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix (© Organisers)
Woo Sanghyeok and Nozomi Tanaka are among the athletes announced for the Seiko Golden Grand Prix, this season’s fourth World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, taking place in Tokyo on 19 May.
Korea’s Woo claimed bronze in the men’s high jump at last month’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, two years on from his title-winning performance in Belgrade.
Japan’s Tanaka also competed in Glasgow, finishing eighth in the women’s 3000m. The 24-year-old – who also finished eighth in the 1500m at the Tokyo Olympics, eighth in the 5000m at the World Championships in Budapest and eighth in the mile at the World Road Running Championships in Riga – most recently competed at the World Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, where she finished seventh as part of Japan’s team in the mixed relay.
Now Woo and Tanaka are getting ready to return to Tokyo, where Woo finished fourth in the Olympics.
Among Woo’s competition will be Australia’s 2018 Commonwealth Games champion and Olympic fifth-place finisher Brandon Starc, Australian champion Joel Baden and Japan’s Tomohiro Shinno, Ryoichi Akamatsu and Naoto Hasegawa.
Tanaka returns to defend her Seiko Golden Grand Prix 1500m title after she clocked 4:11.56 to win in Yokohama last year.
Her compatriot Ririka Hironaka has been named for the women’s 5000m.
Asuka Terada and Masumi Aoki, who are tied at No.2 on the Japanese all-time list for the 100m hurdles, will go up against Yumi Tanaka. The 110m hurdles will feature joint national record-holders Shunsuke Izumiya and Rachid Muratake.
