16-Year-Old Nduta 8:59.03, 20-Year-Old Yoshida Joins Sub-28 Club at Nittai

The track at Yokohama's Nittai University is on fire right now, with big results coming almost every week in the Nittai University Time Trials series. Saturday's 302nd edition was a special one-day version with only a few men's 5000 m heats. 16-year-old Lucy Nduta (Aomori Yamada H.S.) kicked it off with a 8:59.03 win in the fast heat of the women's 3000 m, beating national champion Meijo University's Yuma Yamamoto, 9:01.18, and 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka, 9:05.15. Sub-9 at 16, and that wasn't even a PB for Nduta.

Corporate leaguer Hellen Ekarare (Toyota Jidoshokki) took the 5000 m A-heat in 15:16.80, the most notable results there being a 15:36.02 PB from national champ Shiseido's Wakana Kabasawa for 2nd and a very decent 15:48.35 by Aoi Yamaguchi of Fukui's Sabae H.S.

The biggest results were in the men's 10000 m, again. Between the four heats a total of 42 men were sub-29, that on top of the 199 who did it at Nittai and elsewhere last weekend, and up front four went sub-28, all of them age 24 or younger and three for the first time. National champ Honda's Shoya Kawase led the way in 27:55.97, followed by Ayumu Kobayashi (NTT Nishi Nihon) in 27:57.99. In 4th, Josphat Ledama Kisaisa (Kao) in 27:59.32, the only one to have done it before with a 27:30.45 PB last month at Nittai.

But it was 3rd-placer Reishi Yoshida who generated the most buzz. A 20-year-old 2nd-year at Chuo Gakuin University, Yoshida dropped a 24-second PB to run 27:58.60 for 3rd. That made him only the 4th currently active Japanese collegiate runner to go sub-28. It's even more amazing considering that Chuo Gakuin didn't qualify for next month's Hakone Ekiden, and that Yoshida didn't make Hakone's Select Team of top-placing runners from non-qualifying schools at October's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai half marathon. There are more good athletes in the Japanese collegiate system right now, but with this run Yoshida really stood out from the crowd and positioned himself in the top tier.

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