japan running news

The JAAF has announced the men's and women's marathon teams for this year's Budapest World Championships and Hangzhou Asian Games . Japan's MGC Race Paris Olympics marathon trials are scheduled for Oct. 15. With Budapest happening Aug. 19-27 everyone on the Budapest team will have to either double high-level marathon performances seven weeks apart or try to steal the 3rd spot on the Paris team by running a fast time at one of the major winter 2023-24 domestic marathons. With Hangzhou happening Sept. 23 to Oct. 5 it's not likely anyone named to that team will try to double, meaning either a shot at something ambitious next winter or giving Paris a miss. Between the two teams, the two fastest Japanese men at both the Osaka Marathon and Tokyo Marathon this year have been chosen. Heading to Budapest are Ichitaka Yamashita (Mitsubishi Juko), 2:05:51 for 7th in Tokyo, Kenya Sonota (JR Higashi Nihon), 2:05:59 for 8th in Tokyo, and Kazuya Nishiyama (Toyota), 2:06:45 fo

A late update on last weekend's main domestic Japanese road results. At the Niigata Half Marathon , Meiji University 's Shota Morishita dominated with a win by 34 seconds over teammate Hibiki Kikkawa in the men's race, clocking 1:03:26. Ayami Hirano of the Noritz corporate team had an even bigger margin of victory in the women's race, running 1:14:28 and finishing 1:14 up on 2nd-placer Mayuka Fujita from Route Inn Hotels . Complete results . The Matsue Ladies Half Marathon , which doubles as the National University Women's Half Marathon, saw one of the tightest finishes in its history after three-straight years of pandemic-era cancelations. Panasonic 's Yuki Nakamura beat top collegian Hikaru Kitagawa of Osaka Geijutsu University by 2 seconds to win in 1:10:48. A corporate leaguer also took the 10 km division, with Yuna Takahashi from the Shimamura team winning by over 6 minutes in 33:47. Surprisingly, Kitagawa's time of 1:10:50 was the fastest-ev

2023 Hakone Ekiden champion Komazawa University 's 1st and 8th runners from its winning team Kensuke Tsubura  and Yuto Akahoshi were at the United Airlines NYC Half Sunday with head coach Hiroaki Oyagi and his wife Kyoko Oyagi as part of the partnership between race organizers NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon set up by JRN in 2012. For both athletes it was the first time for them to ever go outside Japan. Akahoshi, a 3rd-year at Komazawa who ran his PB of 1:02:00 at Ageo last fall, lasted longer in the main pack, staying with the group that ended up filling 4th through 14th after the breakaway move up the East Side by world record holders Jacob Kiplimo and Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda and Moroccan Zouhair Talbi . In the last 5 km he dropped back to finish 14th in 1:03:49, just behind 2022 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Maru Teferi of Israel. "My goal was to come here and try to stay with some of the best athletes in the world, so I'm pretty disap

Last Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon was the last of the main chances for Japanese marathoners to qualify for the Oct. 15 MGC Race, the country's official marathon trials for the 2024 Paris Olympics. At the trials the top 2 finishers will be named to the Olympic team, with the 3rd finisher provisionally in and the 4th and 5th placers named provisional alternates. After that it's one last turn through the winter 2023-24 season of the big domestic races where people will have the chance to steal the 3rd spot on the team and bump the 3rd-placer at the trials down to alternate. The deadline for qualifying for the trials is May 31, and there are still a few smaller domestic races like this Sunday's Tokushima Marathon and April's Nagano Marathon, and overseas races with a World Athletics elite label or better where those who haven't qualified yet can try to make a miracle happen. But for the most part, almost all the real contenders are already in. 62 men and 29

Fresh off becoming the fastest-ever Japanese-born collegiate half marathoner with a 1:00:11 in Marugame last month, 2023 Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University 2nd-year Kotaro Shinohara won the National University Half Marathon Sunday in Tokyo's western suburb of Tachikawa. In warm conditions the dense lead group ran relatively conservatively, on track to go just under 63 minutes. But entering Tachikawa's Showa Kinen Park for a final 5 km of undulations and sharp turns Shinohara turned it on to pull away, winning easily in 1:02:16. Another of the pre-race favorites, sub-28 10000 m runner Reishi Yoshida of Hakone non-qualifier Chuo Gakuin University was 2nd in 1:02:29. Another Hakone non-qualifier, Tokyo Nogyo University 's Neo Namiki looked set to take 3rd. But in the last km Rei Matsunaga of Hosei University , famed for trying to run away with last year's Kanto Regionals 5000 m versus 3000 m SC NR holder Ryuji Miura , came up to pass Namiki, stealing 3rd in 1:0

With temps in the high teens the Nagoya Women's Marathon was warmer than ideal, but that didn't stop the expected protagonists from dominating, and in fast times. 2022 winner Ruth Chepngetich soloed the race the entire way, going ahead of the pacers in the first kilometer and splitting between 16:14 and 16:19 for five of the six 5 km splits up to 30 km. She couldn't quite hold it together enough over the last 10 km to give her 2:17:18 CR from last year a serious go, fading from 1:08:47 at halfway to a 2:18:08 for 1st. But that was still enough for her to win by over a kilometer and take home another $250,000. The main chase group of over a dozen skimmed just under 17 minutes per 5 km through a 1:11:20 half split before top-ranked Japan woman Ayuko Suzuki took off when the last pacer stopped. Deshun Zhang and Mao Uesugi initially went with her but soon lost touch, leaving Suzuki to drop an impressive 48-second negative split for a 2:21:52 PB, 10 seconds better than her

Two big races cap Sunday's road racing action in Japan. First up is the Nagoya Women's Marathon , where last year's winner Ruth Chepngetich is back saying at the pre-race press conference that she's ready to break the course record. Although she's still listed in the field on the English section of the Nagoya site, oddly she has been dropped from the Japanese section's field listing . She wasn't included in yesterday's announcement of the withdrawal of Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Molly Seidel and Germany's Katharina Steinruck , either language version, so it's possible her absence from the field listing on the Japanese site is a mistake. But it's very odd. Either way, the world's largest women-only marathon has a relatively thin elite field , even thinner with Seidel and Steinruck out. 2021 Valencia winner Nancy Jelagat is the only sub-2:20 runner in the field apart from Chepngetich, with the next tier solidly at the 2:22-2:23 and