Jul 16 (NHK) - Japan's Yamanishi Toshikazu and Ikeda Koki have won gold and silver medals, respectively, in the men's 20-kilometer race walk event at the World Athletics Championships.
Yamanishi's victory makes him the first Japanese athlete to claim consecutive world championship titles.
The track and field world championships opened in the US state of Oregon on Friday.
Yamanishi and Ikeda were neck-and-neck at the 17-kilometer mark, but Yamanishi put in a spurt to pull ahead of his teammate.
He finished with a time of 1 hour, 19 minutes and 7 seconds. Ikeda clocked 1 hour, 19 minutes and 14 seconds.