Toyoki Takeda won back-to-back men's 500-meter races and Tomomi Okazaki defied the odds to capture the women's second 500-meter event Thursday as they made Japan's Olympic speedskating team after the two-day national sprint championships.
Takeda, who ended the four-year reign of Olympic gold-medalist Hiroyasu Shimizu, and Aki Tonoike claimed their first national sprint titles with meet-record points totals at the M-Wave indoor oval in Nagano.
Overnight leader Takeda coasted to his second 500-meter win in as many days in 35.53 seconds and then sealed his crown with a third-place finish in the 1,000, which gave him a winning total of 142.235 points over four races.
Veteran Manabu Horii took second on 142.940 after finishing runnerup in all four races while Yusuke Imai, winner of Thursday's 1,000, was third with 143.135. Shimizu had to settle for fourth overall after a pair of fourth-place showings Thursday.
In the women's field, Tonoike skated to her second straight 1,000-meter victory in 1:17.61 on her way to a winning total of 155.585 points as she buried Eriko Sammiya's hopes of claiming her fourth consecutive crown.
Sammiya, already assured of a place in the Salt Lake City Olympics in February along with Shimizu before the sprint championships, failed to win any of the races but her consistency earned her second place with 155.995 points.
National 500-meter record-holder Sayuri Osuga was third on 156.455, ahead of fourth-place Okazaki. Nagano Olympic 500-meter bronze-medalist Okazaki looked on the verge of missing a place in Salt Lake after being kept off the podium Wednesday but turned the tables with a surprise victory in Thursday's 500 in 38.84, edging Osuga by just 0.01.