Abdul Hakim Sani Brown clocked a personal-best 9.96 seconds but fell short in his bid to become the first Japanese runner in 92 years to reach the men's Olympic 100-meter final Sunday at the Paris Games.
The 25-year-old finished 10th overall after coming fourth in his semifinal won in 9.80 by top qualifier and eventual silver medalist Kishane Thompson of Jamaica at a packed Stade de France.
Noah Lyles shaded Thompson by five-thousandths of a second in the final to clinch the first men's 100 gold for the United States since 2004.
Sani Brown burst out of the blocks strongly in his semifinal but was left behind from around the 60-meter mark by Thompson and American Fred Kerley, who went on to take bronze.
"I gave everything at the start and had momentum, but couldn't put it all together in the second half," said Sani Brown, who was 0.03 slower than the last qualifier for the eight-man final, American Kenneth Bednarek.
"I was told to just run my own race and I would be able to keep up, but I think I ended up over-striding a bit."
The last Japanese finalist in the blue-ribbon race was Takayoshi Yoshioka at the 1932 Los Angeles Games. He went on to finish sixth, the best-ever result by a Japanese sprinter at the Summer Games.
Sani Brown qualified eighth-fastest for the semis after running 10.02 in the heats, shaving 0.03 off the previous best time by a Japanese athlete at the Olympics.
"The gap with the rest of the world has narrowed, but the overall level is rising quickly, so I'm not going to catch up by only improving little by little," Sani Brown said.
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