Seiko Golden Grand Prix in Yokohama Event by Event Preview

Reigning world champions Fred Kerley, Kelsey Lee Barber and Wang Jianan will be in the spotlight at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix in Yokohama, the fourth leg of the Continental Tour Gold.

Men’s 100 metres: 

US sprint star Fred Kerley will run his first 100 metres race of the season in Yokohama before his eagerly awaited clashes against Marcell Jacobs in Rabat and Florence. 

Kerley won his first three races of the 2023 season in the 200m in Melbourne with 20.32, in the 400 metres in Sydney with 44.65 and in the Diamond League meeting in Doha in 19.92 in the 200 metres.

Kerley won the Olympic silver medal in the 100 metres in 9.84 and the world title in 9.86 one year later in Eugene. 

Kerley is one of the three sprinters alongside Michael Norman and Wayde Van Niekerk to run sub-10 seconds in the 100 metres, sub-20 seconds in the 200 metres and sub-44 seconds in the 400 metres. 

The line-up also features Japanese sprinters Yoshihide Kiryu, world bronze medallist in 37.43 and Olympic silver medallist in 37.60 in the 4×100 relay, and Yuki Koike, who set a PB of 9.98 in the London Diamond League meeting in 2019, three-time Australian champion Rohan Browing (PB 10.02) and his compatriot Jack Doran. 

The men’s 100m heats are scheduled to start at 3:00pm local time (GMT +9), while the final will be run at 4:45pm.

Men’s long jump: 

China’s Wang Jianan leads the line-up in the men’s long jump. The Chinese athlete won the world title with 8.36m beating Miltiadis Tentoglou and Simon Ehammer. Wang also won the bronze medal a the World Championships in Beijing 2015 and finished fifth at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro 2016. The Chinese jumper will compete for the first time outside of China since the World Championships in Eugene. He jumped 8.01m in Chengdu and 8.09m in Tianjin in his only indoor competitions last winter. 

Wang will take on Japanese jumpers Yuki Hashioka and Shoutarou Shiryama. Hashioka won the world under 20 gold medal in Tampere 2018 and finished sixth at the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021 and eighth at the World Championships in Doha 2019. Shiroyama set the Japanese record with 8.40m and won the world under 20 bronze medal in Eugene 2014. 

The line-up also features Henry Frayne from Australia, world indoor silver medallist in Istanbul 2012 and China’s Zhang Jingqiang, who holds a PB of 8.28m. 

Women’s javelin throw: 

Australian javelin thrower Kelsey Lee Barber returns to Japan, where she won the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo with 64.56m….