Japanese sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu (© Getsuriku)
Japanese teenager Yoshihide Kiryu has equalled the World junior 100m record* with a 10.01 (0.9m/s) clocking at the Mikio Oda Memorial in Hiroshima today (29).
His record-breaking performance – which ties Darrel Brown’s World junior record from 2003 – came in the heats, and he followed it up in the final with a wind-assisted 10.03 (2.7m/s). He was pushed all the way by Olympic semi-finalist Ryota Yamagata, who clocked 10.04 for second place, after running a wind-legal 10.17 in the heats.
Kiryu’s time makes him the fastest ever 17-year-old over 100m. It is also just 0.02 off Samuel Francis’s Asian senior record and 0.01 away from Koji Ito’s Japanese senior record.
Kiryu – who will still be a junior through to next year – exploded on to the scene last year, twice breaking the World youth 100m best; first with 10.21 in October, then with 10.19 one month later.
His 10.01 clocking in Hiroshima was his first race of 2013 and puts him at the top of this year’s senior world lists. He is due to compete at this weekend's IAAF World Challenge Meeting in Tokyo.
"Thank you for cheering me in today's race," he said on Twitter. "It was a great performance, way beyond my expectation. I won't be satisfied with this performance and I will continue to work hard for even better performance."
But Kiryu was not the only record-breaker in Hiroshima. Asian Games champion Yuki Ebihara added almost half a metre to her own Japanese Javelin record, winning by more than seven metres with 62.83m. In second place, 18-year-old Ai Yamauchi threw 55.73m to move to second place on this year's world junior lists.
On a great day for Japanese javelin throwing, 2009 World bronze medallist Yukifumi Murakami added more than two metres to his PB to win with 85.96m. It's the best mark by an Asian javelin thrower since 1992 and moves him from 10th to third on the Asian all-time list.
Australia's Hamish Peacock, the 2007 World youth silver medallist, finished exactly six metres adrift in second place with a 79.96m PB, while London Olympic finalist Genki Dean was third with 76.38m.
Elsewhere on the track, 2011 World cross-country silver medallist Paul Tanui of Kenya won the 5000m in 13:16.57, defeating Bedan Karoki, the 2012 Olympic fifth-place finisher in the 10,000m, who clocked 13:17.94. In third, 2011 World youth 3000m silver medallist Patrick Mutunga came within a whisker of his PB to post the fastest time in the world this year by a junior athlete, clocking 13:19.96.
Jamaica's Aleen Bailey, a multiple finalist at the World Championships and Olympic Games, won the 100m in a marginally wind-assisted 11.28 (2.3m/s), beating Chisato Fukushima (11.36) and Australia's Melissa Breen (11.53).
Jon Mulkeen for the IAAF
*pending the usual ratification procedures
