Skip to main content

Asian Cross Country Championships - Results

by Brett Larner

Japanese teams performed strongly at the 10th Asian Cross Country Championships in Bahrain on Mar. 1, bringing home three individual medals and team medals in three of the four team categories. Running against teams of African mercenaries masquerading as national teams belonging to Qatar and Bahrain, the Japanese senior women's team brought home the gold medal led by Aya Nagata's individual bronze medal performance, with Tomoka Inadomi and Risa Shigetomo rounding out the scoring positions in 4th and 5th.

The junior men's scorers placed identically, Shota Hattori earning a bronze medal and his teammates Yuki Oshikawa and Kyohei Nishi coming 4th and 5th, but the team received only the silver medal as they were beaten by one point by a Bahraini team made up of two Kenyans and one Ethiopian.

The junior women's team also won silver, again with a bronze medal run from Aki Odagiri followed by team scoring 4th and 5th placings by Rei Ohara and Sairi Maeda. Like the junior men, the team was narrowly beaten by the Bahrainis, whose junior women's team featured two Ethiopians and one Kenyan.

Only the senior men came up empty handed, as top finisher Satoru Kitamura finished 7th behind four Qataris and one Bahraini and the team lost the bronze by one point to India behind Qatar and Bahrain's squads. Remaining scorers Naoki Okamoto and Hideaki Date were 9th and 14th.

Many of the team members from the Asian Cross Country Championships will take part in this Saturday's Fukuoka International Cross Country Meet in a bid to make the national team for this month's World Cross Country Championships. The Fukuoka meet will be broadcast nationwide on TBS at 3:30 p.m. on Mar. 7. International viewers should be able to watch online through one of the links listed here.

Click one of the following categories for complete results for the 2009 Asian Cross Country Championships.

IndividualsSenior MenSenior WomenJunior MenJunior Women

(c) 2009 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...

Nagoya Asian Games Test Event Canceled After Insulation Falls From Venue Ceiling

A section of insulation material fell from the ceiling of Nagoya Kinjo Futo Arena, the official venue for squash competition at September's Nagoya Asian Games. There were no injuries, but the city suspended use of the arena until its safety could be guaranteed, resulting in the cancelation of the Asian Games squash test event which was scheduled to have begun on May 14. It is not yet clear whether the arena will be usable for the Asian Games as planned. According to city officials, arena staff found that the insulation material had fallen onto a work walkway 13 m above the ground on the night of May 11. The fallen material was 3.6 m long, 50 cm wide and 2.5 km thick, and was found to be waterlogged. The cause of the accident is unknown, but it is possible that it was caused by rainwater leaking in from the roof. The same insulation material is installed across the entire ceiling, and the city plans to check for the extent of the possible flooding. Asked whether the arena will be re...

Shikama and Njeri Win Sendai International Half Marathon

Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed) and Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) won the Sendai International Half Marathon Sunday in Sendai, Shikama in 1:01:31 and Njeri in 1:09:20. Mizuki Nishimura (Tenmaya) was the top Japanese woman at 2nd overall. The men's race went through 5 km in 14:34 and 10 km in 29:22. Shikama ran alongside top competition including Shoki Yamaguchi (Soka Univ.), who has been running well in half marathons this season, and Tokyo World Championships marathon team member Naoki Koyama (Honda). On a course with many small ups and downs, Shikama attacked on a downhill just after 15 km, quickly breaking free of the lead group of 7. 13 seconds up by 20 km, Shikama covered the last 1.0975 km in 3:06 to seal his first Sendai title. A graduate of Juntendo University , Shikama is in his 4th season with Logisteed. At the 2024 National Corporate Half Marathon he ran 1:00:41, and at last year's East Japan Corporate Ekiden he won the Third Stage. In his marathon d...