japan running news

by Brett Larner After a DNS in the final at last year's Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, 2014 D1 men's 100 m champ Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) was back on top with another title to add to his frosh year success.  With a slow start and relaxed finish Kiryu led the semifinals in 10.27 into a -0.2 m/s headwind.  The wind built to -1.4 m/s for the final, slowing to Kiryu to 10.35, but he was still in another class from the rest of the field as he easily took the win.  His dream of Japan's first sub-10 remains ahead of him. The day's other big star was heptathlon national high school record holder Meg Hemphill (Chuo Univ.).  After competing in two events yesterday Hemphill won the women's 100 mH final in 13.53 with a -0.4 m/s headwind.  Hemphill gets into her main event on Saturday with the first half of the heptathlon. The lone distance running final, the women's 10000 m, saw the Kanto Region's #1-ranked woman so far this year, thi...

by Brett Larner videos by 陸上競技動画集 click here for day one report An intense thunderstorm hit the second day of the 2014 Japanese National University Track and Field Championships , impacting events across the board increasingly heavily before causing the postponement of both the men's and women's 5000 m races until the next day.  Of the events that did go down, the performance of the day came in the women's hammer throw, where Hitomi Katsuyama (Tsukuba Univ.) threw 60.70 m for the win, missing the championships record by just 8 cm but beating her own best by over a meter. Sprints led the day's other highlights, with 100 m London Olympian Ryota Yamagata (Keio Univ.) ran 10.20 into a -0.4 m/s headwind for the win in the absence of rival Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.), who led the 200 m qualifying heats in 20.60 (-1.0) but expressed dissatisfaction with his ability to cope with the rising wind. Yamagata also led Keio to a 5th-place finish in the men's 4x10...

by Brett Larner After coming out on top of the 100 m qualifying heats and anchoring their 4x100 m teams to qualify for the finals yesterday, Japan's teen sprint sensations Yoshihide Kiryu  (Toyo Univ.) and  Anna Doi  (Daito Bunka Univ.) returned for record-setting finals on the second day of the 2014 Kanto Regional University Track and Field Championships , May 17 in Kumagaya, Saitama. Kiryu, ranked #1 in the D1 100 m after a 10.36 (-0.6) opening round on Friday, started Saturday with a 10.25 (+3.6) to lead the semifinals.  Three hours later he was back in more moderate wind for the final, where he dropped a 10.05 (+1.6) meet record to tie Beijing Olympics bronze medalist Shingo Tsuetsugu 's national university record.  His time, sixth in the world so far this season, was the closest Kiryu has come to his name-making 10.01 just over a year ago, bringing him one step closer to his career goal of Japan's first sub-10 clocking. Just over three hours later h...