Budapest, Hungary, August 25, 2023: Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi earned her first global women’s javelin title with a dramatic final flourish at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 on Friday, August 25.
The 25-year-old athlete from Asahikawa, Hokkaido, a world bronze medallist last year, moved up from fourth to top place with a last-round throw of 66.73m that was soon confirmed as a winning effort, sending her into a world of delight.
Flor Denis Ruiz Hurtado of Colombia won the silver medal with a throw of 65.47m and Mackenzie Little (Australia) claimed bronze with 63.38m.
The prestigious Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said Kitaguchi had secured a place in Japanese sports history as the first-ever Japanese woman to win an athletics world or Olympic gold outside of the marathon.
“I’m strong when it comes to the last throw,” Kitaguchi said she told herself before the final attempt, the Yomiuri reports.
Kitaguchi’s gold was the first by a Japanese woman at a world championship since Hiromi Suzuki won the marathon at 1997 in Athens. It was the fifth overall at a world championships or Olympics.
She also gave Japan its second medal in Budapest, after Masatora Kawano won the bronze in the men’s 35-kilometer race walk on Thursday.
Kitaguchi, who trains in the Czech Republic under a Czech coach, went into Budapest ranked No. 1 in the world, and set the Japanese record of 67.04 at a meet in Poland in July.
It has been exactly 10 years since Kitaguchi started the javelin in her first year at Asahikawa Higashi High School in Hokkaido. “I chose to do something that no one else had done,” she said. “I am very happy to have achieved a result that no one else has been able to do," the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.