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Saving the Best for Last - Day Four of Asian Athletics Championships

On a day that saw three more world-leading marks, three more championships records and nine more national records, Japan saved its best for the last day of the Doha Asian Athletics Championships, bringing home three gold medals, two silvers and four bronze.

Yuki Hashioka brought the Japanese performance of the day, winning gold in the men's long jump with a world lead-tying PB jump of 8.22 m +0.6. Gold also came in the women's 100 m hurdles along with one of the bronzes, with Ayako Kimura and Masumi Aoki going 1 and 3.

The other gold came in the show-stopping men's 4x400 m relay, where Japan led start-to-finish to win by 0.34 over India. India was later disqualified, elevating China to silver and hosts Qatar to bronze. The Japanese women's 4x400 m team led their race for almost 3/4 of the way, overtaken by India just before the last exchange and caught by Bahrain on the back corner but holding on for a surprise bronze.

Takashi Eto and favorite Naoto Tobe took silver an…

Yoshio Koide, Coach of First Woman to Ever Break 2:20 in Marathon, Dies at 80

Yoshio Koide, coach of the first woman to ever break 2:20 in the marathon and Olympic marathon gold, silver and bronze medalists Naoko Takahashi and Yuko Arimori, passed away Apr. 24. He was 80 years old. Koide had just announced his retirement from coaching at the end of March.

Koide became coach at Recruit through a teacher. Saying, "The age of our women is coming," he foresaw the rise of Japanese women's marathoning and actively made his dream of producing an Olympic gold medalist come true. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics where Takahashi won gold he produced a precise, aggressive winning strategy that seemed to go against character.

According to the Sept. 25, 2000 issue of Daily Sports covering Takahashi's gold, Takahashi's move came at 35 km near the apartment she had been at near the 32 km point on a section of road she had been running every day. Meeting with Takahashi the day before the race Koide confirmed the plan for the attack, telling her, "If there…

Ushiro Gold, Niiya Silver - Day Three of Asian Athletics Championships

Windier conditions throughout day three of the Doha Asian Athletics Championships made for a tougher day than the previous one, but there were still good performances across the board with one world-leading time, four that tied or bettered championships records, and three new national records.

The Chinese women led the way with a 42.87 in the 4x100 m relay, a new championships record and the fastest time in the world so far this year. In the absence of a Japanese team the Chinese men also took the 4x100, running it in 38.88 before being disqualified to elevate Thailand to gold. A new championships record also came in the women's 200 m, with Salwa Naser of Bahrain leading the qualifiers at 22.84 +0.6.

The other two championships record-breaking times came in the women's 10000 m. Reliving their duels at the 2012 London Olympics and 2013 Moscow World Championships, Japan's Hitomi Niiya led almost the entire way with Ethiopian-born Bahraini Shitaye Habtegebrel right on her he…

Kiryu Takes Gold - Day Two of Asian Athletics Championships

Despite sparse attendance, day two of the Doha Asian Athletics Championships saw three world-leading performances, five championships records, eight national records and Japan get onto the medal tally board in a real way after a relatively slow first day.

Qatari Abderrahman Samba turned in the performance of the day with a world-leading 47.51 championships record in the men's 400 m hurdles that left Japan's Takatoshi Abe tumbling in the turbulence. World-leaders also came in the men's 800 m via Qatari's Abubaker Haydar Abdalla with a 1:44.33 and the men's javelin with a throw of 86.72 m by Chao-Tsun Cheng of Taiwan.

After only winning a single bronze medal on the first day of the championships Japan got rolling with one gold, one silver and two bronze medals. National record holder Yoshihide Kiryu took the gold in the men's 100 m, running 10.10 +1.5. Teammate Ryota Yamagata was a DNS after winning his semifinal in a season best 10.18.

Ayaka Kora won silver in t…

Shiojiri Wins Only Japanese Medal on Day One of Asian Athletics Championships

The bronze medalist in the men's 3000 m steeplechase at last summer's Jakarta Asian Games, Kazuya Shiojiri turned in the only medal-winning performance on the opening day of the Asian Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar with another steeple bronze. Shiojiri spent most of the race comfortably in the silver medal position behind Kenyan-born eventual world-leading gold medalist John Koech (Bahrain), but on the last lap Avinash Sable (India) turned in an incredible kick to overtake Shiojiri in the home straight. Side-by-side with Sable over the last lap, Hossein Keyhani (Iran) kicked over a cone and ran a few strides inside the last corner but somehow escaped disqualification for 4th. Japan's Kosei Yamaguchi was 6th.

In both the women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m the gold and silver went to African-born Bahraini athletes with Indian runners taking bronze. In the 5000 m, Japan's 2018 World U20 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka relatively listlessly led the first …

Kibet Runs 10000 m World Lead in Kobe, a 3:44.86 High Schooler and More - Weekend Track Roundup

After giving World XC a miss, Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) got his outdoor season off to a good start with a 13:33.70 PB for 5th at California's Mt. SAC Relays. His teammate Yuki Nakamura ran only 14:34.97, while the U.S.-based Takeshi Okada (UC Berkeley) ran 9:02.75 for 12th in the 3000 mSC. Toyota Jidoshokki teammates Momoka Kawaguchi and Nao Yamamoto ran the women's 5000 m, Kawaguchi the faster of the two at 15:54.82.

Back home, Bernard Kibet (Kyudenko) ran an early season world-leading time of 27:36.24 to win the Hyogo Relay Carnival Grand Prix men's 10000 m, beating the 27:43.34 by Macharia Ndirangu (Aichi Seiko) a day earlier in Hyogo's Asics Challenge men's 10000 m, at the time also a world-leader. Kibet's teammate Shohei Otsuka was the fastest Japanese man of the weekend at 28:25.42 in the Asics Challenge race.

Women's Grand Prix 10000 m winner Rosemary Monica Wanjiru (Starts) came up short of a world-leading time but was just a few seconds off t…

Kiprop and Hunde Win Nagano Marathon

Ugandan Jackson Kiprop and Ethiopian Meskerem Hunde won Sunday's 21st edition of the Nagano Marathon. Running a steady and well-paced race that went out near 2:10:30 pace and sped up slightly to a 1:04:58 halfway split, Kiprop wore down the competition until there were only four left at 30 km. Ethiopian Deresa Geleta stayed with him until the very end, but Kiprop had the finish in him to open 3 seconds on Geleta to become Nagano's first-ever Ugandan winner in 2:10:39.

Geleta's 2:10:42 was good for a PB, with Japan's Naoya Sakuda (JR Higashi Nihon) also dropping a big PB of 2:11:21 for 3rd over Kenyan Alfred Kering. #1-ranked Asuka Tanaka (Hiramatsu Byoin) was one of the first to drop off Kiprop's early pace but rallied late in the race to take 5th in 2:14:35, his best performance since a stress fracture following his breakthrough in Tokyo last year.

Hunde pulled off an equally evenly-paced run to win the women's race, projected to run 2:33:44 after 5 km and en…