NAGOYA - Paris Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi took women's javelin silver Sunday at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games following a record-breaking performance by China's Yan Ziyi.
The 18-year-old Yan opened with an Asian Games record throw of 70.46 meters at a drizzly Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium, while Kitaguchi started slowly before securing the silver medal with her sixth and final throw of 62.70.
Japan's Sae Takemoto joined her compatriot on the podium, earning bronze with her season-best final throw of 62.15.
Kitaguchi, who threw a Japanese record 68.92 to win at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest earlier this month, expressed frustration at being unable to come near that mark in front of her home crowd.
"I was confident I could have thrown further," the 28-year-old said. "It's frustrating, especially since I had such high expectations for myself. I want to work hard so I can deliver results again next year and the year after."
Japan earlier won gold and silver in the women's 100-meter hurdles with Mako Fukube narrowly beating compatriot Hitomi Nakajima.
Paris Olympian Fukube clinched the hurdles gold in a time of 12.74 seconds, with Nakajima just 0.04 behind on the rain-dampened track. China's Wu Yanni clocked 13.12 for bronze.
Both Japanese athletes had advanced from the heats with identical 12.85 times the previous day.
The 30-year-old Fukube said she executed her plan to get out of the blocks quickly and was thrilled to share the podium with Nakajima.
"My strength is to charge off really strongly at the start and to keep on going and hold on to the end, so it was exactly according to my plans," she said. "I think it's wonderful that we have a 1-2 at home in our country, so it's a great result for us."
Local favorite Rachid Muratake earlier took silver in the men's 110 hurdles behind China's Chen Yuanjiang.
Muratake, who placed fifth at the 2024 Paris Games, ran 13.29 seconds to finish 0.14 behind the 20-year-old Chen. The Philippines' John Tolentino secured bronze in 13.48.
Thailand's Puripol Boonson won the men's 200 meters with a meet-record time of 19.88 seconds, while Japan's Yuma Maruyama won the decathlon with a score of 8,123 points.
