Japan Dominates Half Marathon - World University Games Day 6 Japanese Results

Japan didn't quite pull off a sweep of the men's and women's half marathon at the 2025 FISU World University Games, but it was pretty close. In the men's race Waseda University's Shinsaku Kudo, the fastest man in the race with a best of 1:00:06 from Marugame this past February, led start to finish, keeping it around 62-flat pace before finishing in a WUG record 1:02:29. Turkey's Ramazan Bastug spent most of the race in a small chase pack with Ryuto Uehara (Koku Gakuin Univ.) and Kento Baba (Rikkyo Univ.) before dropping them both for silver in 1:02:35. Uehara was just behind in 1:02:39 for bronze, with Baba missing out on the medals in 1:02:44 for 4th.

In the women's race China's Xiuzhen Ma had to deal with the Japanese trio of Makoto Tsuchiya (Ritsumeikan Univ.), Mariya Noda (Daito Bunka Univ.) and Ayaka Maeda (Kansai Univ.). And she did, running a PB 1:12:48 for gold over Tsuchiya by 10 seconds. Noda scored the bronze medal in 1:13:16, with Maeda, a replacement for Aoi Takahashi (Josai Univ.), 2 seconds behind in 4th. Both the women's and men's teams took the gold medals in team scoring.

The men's 5000 m final didn't have any Japanese athletes in it, but what a wild race. France's Arthur Gervais won gold in 15:02.00, in a men's 5000 m, with 0.47 separating the medalists, 0.93 separating the top 6, and 4.37 seconds separating the top 14. If you can find video of it watch it to see the crazy last lap. There were no Japanese women in the 5000 m final either, where Julia David-Smith made it a French double with a 15:34.57 PB for the win off a 60-second last lap. Daito Bunka University's Sarah Wanjiru was 10th in 15:46.26.

Aoi Murakami (Nittai Univ.) was 4th in the women's javelin throw final, throwing 56.28 m on her 3rd attempt and coming up only 45 cm short of bronze. Turkey's Esra Turkmen came up with a 59.90 m PB on her final attempt, moving up from bronze into gold. In the men's triple jump final Yuto Adachi (Fukuoka Univ.) jumped 16.16 m (+1.3) on his opening attempt, ultimately finishing 7th. Australian Conor Murphy took gold at 16.77 m (+1.2). Tetsu Sasaki (Waseda Univ.) was also 7th in the men's 3000 mSC final in 8:41.53, 6 and a half seconds out of the medals with Luxembourg's Ruben Querinjean running a WUG record 8:18.46 for gold.

In qualifying rounds, Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) made the women's hammer throw final with a 65.89 m throw that put her at 7th among the qualifiers. In the men's 800 m semifinals, both Sota Okamura (Kanoya Taiiku Univ.) and NR holder Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) missed the final, Okamura 3rd in SF2 in 1:48.67 and Ochiai a disastrous last in SF1 in 1:51.70 after leading the first lap in 52.83, only 21st out of the 24 competitors in the semis. It's too soon to call his decision to go to the long distance-specialty Komazawa a mistake, but with results like this you have to feel like at some point he's going to start questioning that decision.

The FISU World University Games wrap Sunday.

Hassan Runs NR/CR for Osaka Win, Dibaba Hits Women's CR, Yoshida and Shuley Earn Legends

This was maybe the most entertaining marathon in years. After rocking the 2nd leg at last year's Hakone Ekiden Hibiki Yoshida (Sunbelx) ran an incredible 1:01:01 CR for the 21.9 km New Year Ekiden 2nd leg last month, equivalent to a 58:47 half marathon. That predicted a 2:03:27 marathon if he ever ran one, and when Yoshida announced he was debuting at this year's Osaka Marathon he wasted no time in saying it'd be a shot at the 2:04:55 NR. Things went out fast enough with a 14:50 split through 5 km, 2:05:11 pace, but Yoshida just couldn't hold back and took off at 8 km. He clearly DGAF about what was probably going to happen as his projected finish kept getting faster, 2:04:41, 2:04:15, 2:03:51, 2:03:40, edging closer and closer to what his New Year time predicted, but not helped along by the fact that he missed 4 out of his first 5 drink bottles. People laughed, and then cheered him on. 30 km was the first time he slowed, his finish projection dropping to 2:03:53, an...

Osaka Marathon Preview

The Osaka Marathon is Sunday, one of Japan's biggest mass-participation races and the next stop on the calendar for its elite marathoners hoping to qualify for the L.A. Olympics marathon trials in the fall of 2027. Last year it snowed mid-race, but this year is looking warmer than ideal given the season, with sunny skies, almost no wind, and temps forecast to be 11˚ at the start and rising to 19˚ by the time the winners are finishing. NHK is broadcasting Osaka with a heavy emphasis on the men's race, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it from overseas. There's also official streaming on Youtube starting at 8:30 a.m. local time, although it doesn't look like it's the same as what NHK will be showing. Given Osaka's history at the elite level as the continuation of the men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, the women's field is small relative to the men's, just enough to tick World Athletics' label requirements and with almost no do...

Nagoya Women's Marathon Elite Field

Last year's top 3 Sheila Chepkirui , Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba are back for this year's Nagoya Women's Marathon on Mar. 8, but things are being set up more for it to be a race between Chepkirui, 2:17:49 in Berlin 2023, Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda , 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024. Aynalem has the freshest sub-2:20 of the 3, with neither Chepkirui nor Maeda having done it in 2 years. Maeda's only recent result is a 1:10:07 from Houston last month, but when she ran her NR she didn't have any kind of tuneup race to indicate her fitness so it's probably best not to read too much into that. If it goes out as a 2:18 race those are the only 3 who can probably hang with it. If it turns out to be more of a 2:20 race like when Chepkirui won in 2:20:40 last year then there's a group of 7 at the 2:20-2:22 level who will be in the picture, including Chumba, Selly Chep...

japan running news

Search This Blog