Hiroki Sasase of Japan (© Rikujyou Kyogi Magazine)
Japan fields a twenty men and seven women team for the upcoming IAAF World Junior Championships. Among them Hiroki Sasase and Asuka Terada stand out. They set records and won titles, and were selected as the MVP in the national inter-high school championships last August.
Hiroki Sasase is a pole vaulter, who broke Daichi Sawano’s high school record by jumping 5.41m in last year’s national inter-high school championships. It was the second straight title for Sasase, who was second in his freshman year. Before that Sasase won two straight titles in the national junior high school championships.
Sasase also won the national junior championships last year. In May of this year, as a college freshman, Sasase won the PV in the Kanto district inter-collegiate championships. In the process, he defeated a former collegiate record holder Takafumi Suzuki. In the national championships late last month, Sasase finished third behind Sawano and Suzuki.
Asuka Terada won a rare triple crown in last year’s national inter-high school championships. She won the 100m, 100m Hurdles and ran the second leg of the 4x100m relay. Her best event is the 100m Hurdles. In fact, it was her third straight title at the event. Also last year, she set a national high school record of 13.39, which was also a national junior record. She also won the national junior championships. This year, Terada moved up to another level. In last month’s national championships, she won the 100m Hurdles against older and more experienced athletes with 13.51 against a head wind of 1.5m/s.
Other high school champions on the junior team are Yuichi Kobayashi who won both 100m and 200m, Jin Nakamura who won 110m Hurdles and Tomoharu Kino who won 400m Hurdles. Kobayashi also won the national junior championships at 200m.
Four athletes who were on the World Youth team are on this year’s World Junior team. They are Hane at 200m (seventh), Urano at 400m, Murasawa at 3000m (13th) and Ohara in the women’s 1500m (ninth).
Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
Team Roster
Men
100m - Genki Kawai, Yuichi Kobayashi
200m - Masanori Kaji, Seiya Hane
400m - Akihiro Urano, Hideyuki Hirose, Junpei Hamano
5000m - Akinobu Murasawa
10,000m - Ryuji Kashiwabara, Yusuke Mita
10,000m Race Walk - Hiroki Nagaiwa
110mH - Jin Nakamura, Wataru Yazawa
400mH - Tomoharu Kino, Kohei Tamemoto
HJ - Naoto Tobe
PV - Hiroki Sasase, Yuya Ariake
LJ - Soshi Arita
JT - Makoto Yamazaki
Women
100m/100mH - Asuka Terada
800m - Ruriko Kubo
3000m - Michi Numata, Rei Ohara
5000m - Nanako Hayashi, Kasumi Nishihara
10,000m Race Walk - Kumiko Okada
