Kitagawa's Half Marathon Gold Caps Final Day of World University Games

Osaka Geijutsu University performing arts major Hikaru Kitagawa kicked off the final day of the Chengdu World University Games with the first Japanese women's gold medal of the games in athletics, winning the half marathon in 1:13:17 by 14 seconds over Turkey's Yayla Kilic Gonen. And winning it in style. 3 seconds behind Kilic Gonen at 20 km, Kitagawa closed from there to the finish in 3:08, or 2:51/km pace, the kind of split you'd more often see in a men's race. You have to wonder if the 20 km split was accurate, but anyway Kitagawa made up 17 seconds in 1.0975 km, which is pretty good.

Fatma Karasu made it a Turkish 2-3 with a 1:14:28 for bronze. Rio Einaga of Osaka Gakuin University was 8th in 1:15:34 and national champion Meijo University's Saki Harada 14th in 1:16:36, enough to land Japan the team silver behind Turkey. China took the team bronze.

Japanese men usually dominate the World University Games half marathon given their focus on that distance for the Hakone Ekiden, especially with 1:00:11 half marathoner Kotaro Shinohara of 2023 Hakone ekiden champ Komazawa University at the helm. But for whatever reason this time, they came up empty-handed. Turkey's Sezgin Atac and Ayetullah Aslanhan went 1-2 in 1:04:36 and 1:04:37, China's Kegu Yang just back in bronze in 1:04:48. And again, the closing splits. Atac 2:50 from 20 km to the finish, 2:35/km pace. Aslanhan 1 second slower. Yang 2:48 over the last section, 2:33/km. Shinohara 3:08, the same as Kitagawa. It's hard to believe the 20 km mark could have been right, but splits further down the field in both races seemed realistic.

At any rate, Chuo Gakuin University's Reishi Yoshida finished 12 seconds out of the medal in 4th in 1:05:00. Shinohara was 6th in 1:05:39, with Hosei University's Rei Matsunaga 12th in 1:06:39. That gave the Japanese men the consolation prize of a team bronze behind Turkey and China, but the lack of an individual medal had to have hurt their pride.

Shinohara's Komazawa teammate Taiyo Yasuhara delivered Japan's last medal of the Games in the men's 5000 m final. In a tight pack race to the finish France's Simon Bedard just clipped Yasuhara at the line for gold in 14:14.10, Yasuhara taking silver in 14:14.15. Kyrgyzstan's Nursultan Keneshbekov took bronze in 14:15.33, just holding off Tokai University's top man Shotaro Ishihara, 4th in 14:16.43.

In other finals, the Japanese women's 4x100 m was 4th in a best of 44.66, missing bronze medalists South Africa by 0.30 seconds. The Japanese men ran a best of 38.92 but only finished 5th, 0.09 behind South Africa in bronze and 0.12 off gold medalists China and surprise silver medalist Thailand. Rin Suzuki of Kyushu Kyoritsu University and Yusaku Iwao of Tsukuba University placed 4th and 5th in the men's javelin throw, Suzuki throwing a PB of 78.41 m on his final attempt but coming 1 cm short of bronze medalist Topias Paine of Finland. Yuto Toriumi of Nihon University was 5th in the men's long jump final with a 7.74 m -0.8 m/s SB on his 2nd attempt. Tsukuba's Saki Katagihara was another 5th in the women's 1500 m final, running 4:18.57.

All told, Japan's medal count at the Chengdu World University Games came to 2 gold medals, 4 silvers and 5 bronzes despite a relatively small team roster.Complete day 6 results are available here.

Hakone Ekiden Qualifying Race Entry Roster Sizes Increased from 14 to 16

Hakone Ekiden organizers KGRR have announced details for the qualifying half marathon for next year's 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The Yosenkai qualifying race will be held Oct. 17 in Tachikawa, Tokyo. The combined times of the 10 fastest finishers from each participating team will be used for team scoring, with the 10 fastest teams going on the the main event next January and top-placing individuals from teams that do not qualify being names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team. One change from previous years is that the number of runners each school can enter has been increased from 14 to 16. Teams will still only be allowed to have from 10 to 12 athletes on the starting line, but the move gives coaches greater flexibility in making the final decision on their starting rosters. No changes have been made to the qualifying times of 34:00 for 10000 m or 1:13:00 for the half marathon, and the new earlier starting time of 8:30 a.m. introduced last year in an effort to mitigate ...

Japan's Team for Nagoya Asian Games

The JOC announced the full lineups for the men's and women's teams for September's Nagoya Asian Games . Being hosted in Japan the Asian Games are a pretty big deal, and it's pretty close to the maximum of 2 athletes per event. The men's and women's triple jump, the women's 400 m and the women's discus throw only have 1 athlete on the Japanese team, and it's a big FU to the shot putters apparently as nobody was named to either the men's or women's teams even though people ranked lower in the World Athletics Asian rankings than top JPN shot putters Daichi Morishita and Chiharu Saka did make the team in other events. But, let's focus on what it is, not what it isn't. Going off this week's Asian rankings 8 men and 5 women are ranked #1 in their event, with a total of 19 men and 14 women ranked in the top 3. Factor in a limit of 2 per nationality and the relays and Japan's chances of scoring a great medal haul are looking good. M...

2-Time Olympian Yuka Takashima Joins Uniqlo Women's Team

On July 21 the Uniqlo women's team announced that 2-time Olympic 10000 m runner Yuka Takashima had joined its lineup as of July 16. Born in Yamaguchi in 1998, Takashima anchored Okayama's Kojokan H.S. to its first-ever National High School Ekiden win in 2005. After graduating she joined the Denso corporate team, playing a key role in its 3-straight National Corporate Women's Ekiden titles. In 2015 she ran the 10000 m at the 2015 Beijing World Championships. In the spring of 2016 Takashima transferred to the Shiseido corporate team, where she made the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics team in the 10000 m. She played an important role for the team in its ekidens, and in 2022 anchored Shiseido to its first national title in 16 years. In 2023 she was 2nd in the 10000 m National Championships, securing her place on her 2nd Olympic team at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Takashima's PBs are 15:26.33 for 5000 m, 30:57.26 for 10000 m, and 2:26:13 for the marathon. In March this year T...

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