japan running news

There was something in the air Sunday at Yamanashi's Fujisan no Meisui Stadium as the 7th edition of the Fuji Hokuroku World Trials meet tuned into a festival of records that changed the situation for Japan's home team at next month's Tokyo World Championships. At the top of the list, Abigail Fuuka Ido (Toho Ginko) ran 22.79 (+1.0) to take 0.09 off Chisato Fukushima 's almost decade-old women's 200 m national record. Both she and 2nd-place Ami Takahashi (Tsukuba Univ.) were under the old meet record, Takahashi in 23.20. Ido still has a way to go to hit the 22.57 Tokyo standard, but having gone from a 23.59 (+0.6) PB last year to a 23.18 (+0.2) PB at Nationals last month to this 22.79 NR, it doesn't seem out of range. Injured since last year before coming back at Nationals with a 45.81 for 4th in the final, Yuki Joseph Nakajima (Fujitsu) came out of nowhere with a 44.84 PB and MR for the men's 400 m win, just clearing the 44.85 Tokyo standard. Fuga Sato...

Waseda University 1st-year Shota Fuchigami and Toyo University 1st-year Hayato Shimoda were the stars of this year's National University Track and Field Championships this weekend at Kanagawa's Todoroki Stadium. Squeezing through the men's 400 mH first round in 3rd in his heat with a time of 50.72, Shimoda watched as Fuchigami won semifinal 2 in 48.78, 0.31 under the U20 national record set way back in 1996 by two-time World Championships bronze medalist Dai Tamesue . Lining up next in SF3, Shimoda bettered Fuchigami with a 48.59 U20 NR. That was only good enough for 3rd in his semi behind Shunta Inoue (Hosei Univ.), whose 48.46 missed the 2005-era meet record by 0.11, and 2nd-placer Shu Watanabe (Nittai Univ.) who ran 48.51 but it got him to the final. There Fuchigami delivered again, going under Tamesue's old record for the second time and beating Inoue by 0.12 to win in 48.96. Shimoda couldn't deliver the same kind of performance, finishing 7th in 50.08, but...

After taking silver in the Hangzhou Asian Games 10000 m, former NR holder Ririka Hironaka was back in the 5000 m to try again for gold. And you can't say she didn't try. Hironaka immediately dictated the terms of the race, leading the first 1000 m in 3:00.43 and most of the way to 2000 m in 6:04.28 before pulling into the 2nd lane to let Ethiopian Bahraini Bontu Edao Rebitu do some of the work. The pace immediately slowed, with 3000 m and 4000 m splits of 9:14.44 and 12:24.30, until Hironaka attacked again. Over the last 1000 m she accelerated steadily and one by one cracked all three African-born athletes and India's Anita until the only one left behind her was 3000 m SC silver medalist Parul Chaudhary of India. On the back straight Hironaka managed to open some distance on Chaudhary and it looked like she might actually pull off the win, but with less than 50 m to go Chaudhary reeled her back in to take gold in 15:14.75 to Hironaka's 15:15.34, a 2:51.04 closing k...

Women's pole vault national record holder Misaki Morota kicked off the evening session on the fourth day of athletics competition at the Hangzhou Asian Games with a new NR and a silver medal. Morota cleared every height from 3.80 m to 4.40 m on her first attempt, then did it again at 4.48 m, 7 cm over her old record. China's Ling Li and Chung Niu only jumped once each, both clearing 4.30 m on their first attempts, leaving all three women to go for 4.53 m. Li made it on her first attempt, but both Morota and Niu failed, leaving Li in gold, Morota in silver and Niu in the bronze position. Li went on from there to make it over 4.63 m, breaking her own Games record by 3 cm. In the men's 200 m final, Koki Ueyama took the final in 20.60 (-0.2), beating Saudi Abdullah Akbar Mohammed by 0.03 to win Japan's first athletics gold medal in Hangzhou. Chun-Han Yang of Taiwan edged out veteran Femi Ogunode of Qatar for bronze, 20.74 to 20.75. A few minutes later Shunya Takayama...

  Afternoon thunderstorms interrupted some of the later events on the second day of the National University Track and Field Championships in Kumagaya, Saitama, but Jason Atuobeng (Fukuoka Univ.) got in before that with a meet record 18.18 m to win the men's shot put title. Atuobeng's opening 17.67 m would have been enough for the win, but on his 2nd attempt he went 12 cm over the year-old meet record with the 18.18 m throw that proved to be his best of the day. His 3rd attempt was over the old record too at 18.17 m, but Atuobeng couldn't get any closer to his pre-meet goal of Japan's first-ever throw over 19 m. In other field event results: Koki Fujihara (Toyo Univ.) led the men's long jump with a 2nd attempt of 8.05 (+1.2), but on his final attempt Yuto Toriumi (Nihon Univ.) dropped a 8.07 m (+0.8) jump to steal the win. Megumi Dainobu (Nittai Univ.) and Akari Osakaya (Sonoda Gakuen Joshi Univ.) both cleared 4.00 m in the women's pole vault, but with Dain...

Like next weekend's National Corporate Track and Field Championships, this weekend's National University Track and Field Championships in Kumagaya, Saitama, always come at an odd time on the calendar, especially for distance runners who've spent most of the summer doing ekiden season base mileage in Hokkaido. Some schools, like 2023 Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University , give it a miss entirely in favor of focusing on ekiden season. Streaming is on the Athlete Channel on Youtube from Thursday through Sunday Japan time. Live results will be here . Budapest World Championships national team members Ami Yamamoto (Ritsumeikan Univ.), Maki Saito (Tokai Univ.), Ayane Yanai (Ritsumeikan Univ.), Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.), Joseph Nakajima (Toyo Univ.), Kenki Imaizumi (Tsukuba Univ.), Kazuki Kurokawa (Hosei Univ.), Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) and Tomoya Karasawa (Nittai Univ.) all feature on the entry list, with Yamamoto and Kurokawa set to take one more for the tea...

  Shunsuke Izumiya was one of Japan's few individual medal possibilities at the Budapest World Championships , and on Day 3 of the championships he ran like that was a true statement. After a 13.33 +0.5 m/s for 2nd in his 110 m hurdles opening heat, Izumiya stepped up with a 13.16 -0.2 m/s to win his semifinal, making him Japan's first-ever Worlds 110 mH finalist and putting him at 3rd among the eight finalists. From there he needed another step up to get into the medals, but with a 13.19 +0.0 m/s he finished only 5th as Americans Grant Holloway and Daniel Roberts took gold and bronze in 12.96 and 13.09, and Jamaican Hansle Parchment silver in 13.07. In the men's 400 mH semifinals, Kazuki Kurokawa ran a PB of 48.58, the fastest time by a Japanese man in 11 years and good for #6 on the all-time Japanese list and #10 on the all-time Asian list. But it wasn't enough to get him into the final, as Kurokawa placed 4th in SF2, 0.19 short of qualifying on time. The women...

Waseda University's Atsushi Shobu added another medal to Japan's so far petite haul on day 3 of athletics competition at the Chengdu World University Games . Running the men's 3000 mSC, Shobu sat at the back of the lead pack throughout the race. In 5th at the bell, Shobu moved up into 3rd on the back straight, then was overtaken by Germany's Nick Jager heading into the curve. Both passed Czech Damian Vich and kept up their duel for 2nd until the final obstacle, where Shobu hesitated and lost ground. Jens Mergenthaler took gold in 8:38.42, Jager making it a German 1-2 with a silver in 8:40.53 to Shobu's 8:40.84 for bronze. The men's 400 m final was maybe the race of the day, with the top 6 all running new PBs and Portugal's Joao Coelho and Australian Reece Holder both going under the WUG record in a photo finish. Coelho was timed at 44.782 for gold, with Holder officially running 44.785 for silver. Romanian Mihai-Sorin Dringo took bronze in a PB of 45.2...

Josai University's Yuito Yamamoto brought Japan its first medal of the Chengdu World University Games , taking bronze in the only final with a Japanese athlete on the second day of athletics competition, the men's 10000 m. In a field of 17 starters Ugandan Dismas Yeko delivered the performance of the day, breaking 29 minutes to take gold in 28:59.25. Sezgin Atac of Turkey was relatively close behind in 29:06.62, leading Yeko and Ugandan Seth Akampa until Akampa was abruptly stopped by an official with 5 laps to go and disqualified, then losing touch over the final 1000 m. Yamamoto spent most of the race in 4th, then was suddenly bumped up to 3rd when Akampa was disqualified. He finished 16 seconds back from Atac in 29:22.95 for bronze over Kenyan Kelvin Kimtai Chepsigor . Yamamoto is scheduled to double in Sunday's half marathon. In semifinals, Hosei University's Naohiro Jinushi won the men's 400 m SF1 in 45.90, along with SF3 winner Reece Holder the only athl...

After years of pandemic-era delays, the Chengdu World University Games finally got underway July 27, with the first day of athletics competition happening Aug. 1. In the only one of the two finals featuring Japanese athletes on the 1st, athletes from China and Turkey swept the top four spots in the women's 10000 m. China's Yuyu Xia  closed with a 64-second last lap to take gold in 33:48.35, Turkey going 2-3 with Yayla Kilic Gonen scoring silver in 34:05.03 and Fatma Karasu bronze in 34:10.97. China's Xiuzhen Ma held off Risa Yamazaki of Nittai University for 4th 34:30.14 to 34:35.96, with Tomo Muramatsu of Ritsumeikan University 9th in 35:17.54. In women's qualifying rounds, Ritsumeikan's Ami Yamamoto took 3rd in Heat 2 of the 400 mH in 57.82 to advance. Aoyama Gakuin University's Yu Ishikawa was 3rd in Heat 3 of the 100 m in 12.02 -1.0 m/s and also advanced. Tsukuba University's Yuna Miura was 2nd in Heat 5 in 11.59 +0.4 m/s to join Ishikawa in the s...

Day 4 of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships was the first without a single gold medal going to Japan, but there were still enough silvers and bronzes to go around. Robyn Lauren Brown of the Philippines outclassed the rest of the women's 400 mH final field, taking gold in 57.50. Eri Utsunomiya and Ami Yamamoto made it a Japanese 2-3, Utsunomiya running 57.73 for silver and Yamamoto 57.80 for bronze. Yusaku Kodama also scored silver in the men's 400 mH, running 48.96 behind Qatari winner Bassem Hemeida 's 48.64. Yuki Yamasaki won bronze in the heptathlon with 5696 points, Uzbekistan's Ekaterina Voronina taking gold in 6098 and Swapna Barman silver in 5840. Teammate Karin Odama was 4th in 5487. Another bronze came in the mixed 4x400 m relay, with Japan running 3:15.71 behind India's 3:14.70 and Sri Lanka's 3:15.41. Naoto Hasegawa and Ryoichi Akamatsu both cleared 2.23 m in the men's high jump, Hasegawa finishing 4th overall and Akamatsu 5th. ...

We'd like to give you preview and streaming info for the Asian Athletics Championships starting tomorrow in Bangkok, Thailand, but there's not a lot to go on. Streaming should be here under the "Live" tab , but as the JAAF site notes , "There's a chance a link to streaming might be released right before the start. If one is announced, we'll let you know." 42 countries are set to compete, but no overall entry lists have been made public anywhere we've looked. The Asian Athletics Association site isn't very helpful either, its top story being the federation bureaucrats' "Gala and Awards Celebration for the 50th Anniversary of Asian Athletics Association" and almost nothing about its championships apart from a statistics PDF that starts off with a long autobiography by an AAA exec. The meet schedule is up and it has links to event start lists, but nothing has been added there yet. So, about all we can tell you right now is about...

The JAAF has announced a team of 78 for the Bangkok Asian Championships July 12-16 in Thailand, perfect parity with 39 women and 39 men. Out of the Japanese athletes to have already cleared the Budapest World Championships qualifying standard and be named to Japan's team for Worlds, only Shunya Takayama is scheduled to compete in Bangkok in the 110 m hurdles. 34 of the Asian Championships are currently in the quota for their event for Budapest. Another half dozen including Arisa Kimishima , Maki Saito , and Hikaru Ikehata are on the cusp of making the quota. For that half of the team, the chance to score area championships placing points for world rankings make the Asian Championships critical to their chances of representing Japan in Budapest. A bit surprisingly, no men's relay teams, one of Japan's areas of strength in recent history, are entered. Athletes in bold are currently in the Budapest World Championships quota for their listed event. Athletes in bold and un...

The National Track and Field Championships wrapped up Sunday in Osaka with a few more additions to the Oregon World Championships team and a few left to wait another two weeks til the qualification deadline. The most emotional performance of the day came in the men's javelin throw. Roderick Genki Dean (Mizuno) won the 2012 National Championships and then took 9th in the final at that year's London Olympics while still a student at Waseda University . Injury setbacks meant it took him until 2020 to break 80 m again, and in all those years he never won another national title. Today he threw 81.02 m on his third attempt, beating runner-up Kenji Ogura (Tochigi Sports Assoc.) by 77 cm for the win. 27th of 32 in the quota pre-Nationals, his mark and win all but guarantee that he'll be in Oregon next month. "It was a long time coming," he said in his victory interview. In the women's 400 mH, Ami Yamamoto (Ritsumeikan Univ.) broke 57 seconds for the first time to...