Japan's Hayato Katsuki made the first podium of the World Championships in Tokyo, finishing third in the men's 35km race walk
Japan celebrated the return to Tokyo of a premier global sporting event with a medal in a curtain-raising 35km race walk contested in gruelling conditions at the World Athletics Championships.
Despite the road race start times being moved 30 minutes earlier than scheduled, in anticipation of the heat over the opening weekend in the Japanese capital, temperatures still climbed to 30C over the course of the first morning session.
That was accompanied by stifling humidity above 90%. Canadian men's 35km race walk winner Evan Dunfee described the race - which for him lasted almost two and a half hours - as "absolutely brutal".
Four years after Tokyo hosted the postponed 2020 Olympics behind closed doors because of the coronavirus pandemic, home athlete Hayato Katsuki held on to a podium place to the delight of those watching the finish inside Japan's National Stadium on Saturday morning.
