Skip to main content

Watch the Fukuoka International XC Meet Online

by Brett Larner

The 24th Fukuoka International Cross Country Meet takes place Saturday, Feb. 27. The second of Japan's two selection races for its World Cross Country Championships team, this year's entry list promises a great matchup in the senior men's 10 km race. Three of the leaders of Japan's upcoming 18-25 generation, university 10000 m national record holder Kensuke Takezawa (Team S&B), 1500 m and 5000 m double national champion Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) and all-time Japanese #3 over 10000 m Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin), are scheduled to start. Takezawa and Ueno are current teammates, while Ueno and Sato were teammates at 2008 national champions Saku Chosei high school, the only school in Japan which includes cross country as a core part of its training. Should all three make it to the line it will be a chance to see them race head-to-head. Also in the field is last year's Tokyo Marathon runner-up and Berlin World Championships marathon team member Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko). 2005 World Championships marathon bronze medalist Tsuyoshi Ogata (Team Chugoku Denryoku) has withdrawn due to injury.

In the 6 km senior women's race, 10000 m junior national record holder Megumi Kinukawa (Team Mizuno) is slated to run her first race since her DNF at last summer's National Championships. A superbly talented runner in high school, Kinukawa has been cursed by illness and injury since graduating two years ago. With many tapping her as the next big star in Japanese women's running during her high school days, people will be watching to see whether she is on the way back. Her main competition for a spot on the World XC team will be 2007 Tokyo Marathon winner Hitomi Niiya (Team Toyota Jidoshoki) who came 2nd at the Chiba International Cross Country Meet earlier this month.

The Fukuoka Meet will be broadcast nationwide on TBS from 3:30 to 4:54 p.m on Feb. 27. Overseas viewers should be able to watch online for free using the Keyhole TV software available here. Live English commentary will be available on our Twitter feed JRNLive.

(c) 2010 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Hakone Champ AGU Hits 50 km a Day in Spring Break Training Camp

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...
1 comment
Read more

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...
3 comments
Read more

70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden

The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube. There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km ...
1 comment
Read more