Skip to main content

Weekend Track Highlights

The IAAF World Relays in Yokohama were the weekend's main track action, but the first round of regional corporate championships and a few other meets brought distance action across the country.

The women's 10000 m was the highlight at the Kansai Region Corporate Championships, with Wacoal teammates Yuka Ando and Mao Ichiyama recovering from decent runs at the London Marathon last month to go 1st and 5th, Ando the fastest in 32:43.18. Their fellow MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials qualifier Madoka Nakano (Noritz) was 2nd in 32:50.18, doubling the next day in the 5000 m where she was 5th in 16:07.24. Former Hakone Ekiden rivals and now teammates at NTT Nishi Nihon, Kenyans Patrick Wambui and Dominic Nyairo went 1-2 in the men's 10000 m in 28:41.84 and 28:43.86. Ryota Motegi (Sumitomo Denko) just missed the meet record in the men's 1500 m, winning in 3:44.12.

At the Chubu Region Corporate Championships Kenyans Rodgers Chumo Kwemoi (Aisan Kogyo) and Macharia Ndirangu (Aichi Seiko) raced to the line, Kwemoi getting the top spot in 27:55.27 to Ndirangu's 27:55.73. Ndirangu returned the next day to win the 5000 m in 13:35.00. Helen Ekarare (Toyota Jidoshokki) led the women's action with a 4:11.52 win in the women's 1500 m, taking more than 3 seconds off the foreign-born athlete meet record.

The Chugoku Region Corporate Championships only held its 5000 m this weekend, the rest of the meet scheduled for next. Jun Nobuto (Mazda) was the only man to break 14 minutes with a 13:58.71, but the bigger news was a 14:06.79  for 4th by last year's Hokkaido Marathon winner Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku), another step along the road to recovery from a fall at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon that resulted in a broken elbow. Sara Miyake (Tenmaya) was the only woman to break 16 minutes, finishing 1st of five in 15:58.83.

Not much happened at the Hokuriku Region Corporate Championships, where a 29:19.88 win in the men's 10000 m by Hiroki Suzuki (YKK) was probably the performance of the meet.

In university action, the first half of the Kansai Region University Championships went down at Kyoto's Nishi-Kyogoku Field. The men's 4x100 m saw a 39.05 region and meet record by Kinki University, a 66.44 m meet record in the men's hammer throw by Kentaro Yoshino (Osaka Taiiku Univ.), a 15.62 m men's triple jump D2 meet record from Seiji Kobayashi (Setsunan Univ.), a 60.98 m D2 men's hammer throw meet record by Keito Tamura (Meiji Kokusai Iryo Univ.), and double women's triple jump meet records of 13.03 m +1.8 and 12.70 m -0.4 by Hina Tagami (Kansai Univ.) and Karin Era (Mukogawa Joshi Univ.).  The top distance mark was in the women's 10000 m, where Natsu Hashimoto (Kyoto Sangyo Univ.) won in 33:36.85.

The weekend's other main meet was the latest edition of the Nittai University Time Trials series in Yokohama. Japan's two best candidates for the women's 5000 m at this year's Doha World Championships Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido) and Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki TC) went 1-2 in the 1500 m, Kimura in a PB of 4:12.06 and Tanaka 0.07 off hers in 4:13.75. Tabitha Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) won the lone women's 5000 m heat in 15:48.49. Top men's marks went to Kazuki Kawamura (Meiji Univ.) with a 3:44.96 in the men's 1500 m A-heat, Kenya Sonota (JR Higashi Nihon) at 13:58.50 for 5000 m, and Kento Nishi (Tsukuba Univ.) with 29:52.34 for 10000 m.

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
53 comments
Read more