Skip to main content

Former 10000 m and 3000 mSC NR holder Nunogami Passes Away

A spokesperson has confirmed that former 10000 m and 3000 mSC national record holder Masayuki Nunogami passed away on June 25 after an illness. He was 89.

A native of Kumamoto, Nunogami ran the Hakone Ekiden three times starting his 2nd year at Chuo University. At the 31st edition in 1955 he won the Seventh Stage, and the following year he was fastest on the Tenth Stage as well, breaking the finish line tape to give Chuo the overall victory.

After graduation Nunogami joined the Riccar corporate team. At the 1956 National Championships he beat nine-time 3000 mSC champion Susumu Takahashi to take the national title for the first time. The same year he ran a then-national record 9:04.2 in the steeplechase. At the following year's Tokyo Championships he ran 33:22.0, breaking the pre-war era NR of 33:25.0 set by Kohei Murakoso in 1936.

In 1958 Nunogami won both the 3000 mSC and 5000 m national titles and took silver in the Tokyo Asian Games 3000 mSC. He was also a member of two New Year Ekiden winning teams at the national event's second and fifth runnings.

After retiring in 1962 Nunogami became a coach, serving first at Riccar and then at Marui Imai. From 1992 to 2003 he was head coach of the Hokuren women's team, and he continued to serve as an advisor to the Chuo University long distance program.

source article:

Comments

Most-Read This Week

On the Loss of the ARRS Database

At some point in the last few months I discovered that both versions of the ARRS database, the static one and the searchable version , are gone. Last week David Monti posted a link to the ARRS history of an event he covered in Race Results Weekly, I guess copying and pasting a link from last year without looking at it, and that reminded me to write something about the loss of the database. The Association of Road Racing Statisticians was basically a one-man show operated from the remote Northern California shores by Ken Young . When the site existed its intro read: The Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyses and publishes results and statistics regarding elite distance running at distances 3000m and longer...The data of ARRS is stored in the ARRS database, which has more than 1.3 million performances from more than 240,000 races by more than 95,000 elite and sub-elite distance runners worldwide...This website ...

Multiple National Records This Weekend

Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest. U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back. Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3...

Japan's Team Lineup in Copenhagen

Re-upping an earlier post on Japan's team lineup for this weekend's  Copenhagen World Road Running Championships . The JAAF chose not to name any women to the team in the mile. Women 5 km Kana Mizumoto (Edion) - 15:06.98 Rina Kusu (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:10.91 Half Marathon Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon) - 1:09:14 Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:09:20 Rina Shimizu (Noritz) - 1:09:22 Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:09:23 Men Mile Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.) - 3:37.53 (1500 m) Tomoki Nakano (Toenec) - 3:37.92 (1500 m) 5 km Yota Mashiko (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.35 Rui Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.64 Half Marathon Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 1:00:22 Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:26 Neo Namiki (Subaru) - 1:00:29 Daisuke Sato (Chuo Univ.) - 1:00:40 © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved