japan running news

Entry lists are out for next week's National Track and Field Championships in Nagoya, the main selection event for Japan's teams for September's Nagoya Asian Games and Copenhagen World Road Running Championships. Top entries in each event with best time in 2025-26. Asterisks indicate 2025 national champions. Men Men's 100 m *Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) - 9.99 Sorato Shimizu (Seiryu H.S.) - 10.00 Yuhi Mori (Watanabe Pipe) - 10.00 Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.06 Fukuto Komuro (Chuo Univ.) - 10.08 Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) - 10.08 Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.10 Ryota Suzuki (Suzuki) - 10.11 Naoki Inoue (Osaka Gas) - 10.12 Rikuto Higuchi (Suzuki) - 10.12 Men's 200 m Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) - 20.45 Aoto Suzuki (Sumitomo Denko) - 20.49 Kota Uematsu (Chuo Univ.) - 20.50 Yuji Michael Orisa (GK Line) - 20.51 Soshi Mizukubo (Miyazaki T&F) - 20.51 Mitsuhiro Numata (Legalis) - 20.58 Seisho Sasaki (Iwate Univ.) - 20.60 Sota Miwa (Koizumi) - 20.61 Naoki Uemoto (Lega...

The National University Track and Field Championships wrapped up Sunday with another collegiate record. Following Mao Shimano 's 100 mH hurdle record Saturday , the Toyo University men dominated in the 4x400 m relay final. Running with a completely different lineup from when it set the 3:04.08 meet record 2 years ago, the Toyo team of Rui Yamasaki , Kira Hirakawa , Kentaro Shirahata and Katsuo Tsujiura ran 3:03.64 for the win, 0.07 under the old collegiate record set by Nihon University in 2000 before any of them had been born. The women's 4x400 m final wasn't quite up to collegiate record level, but the top 2 teams still both broke the meet record. Sonoda Gakuen University scored the win in 3:35.41 with a lineup that included Hinata Tochio and Yuzuki Nakao from its 2023 MR-setting lineup with the addition of 2nd-year twins Ayu Yoshii and Mayu Yoshii . Ritsumeikan University was 2nd in 3:36.28, but that was good enough to break SGU's old record of 3:36.71. Af...

Day 6 of athletics at the Paris Olympics saw almost every Japanese athlete eliminated, with only one moving on thanks to a successful appeal. After missing out on making the 5000 m final, Nozomi Tanaka had a lucky break in the first women's 1500 m heat when she collided with another runner with 200 m to go. Although Tanaka finished 11th in 4:04.28, she was advanced to the semifinals on appeal. Yume Goto ran a PB of 4:09.41 for 13th in Heat 2 and will run the repechage round. In the men's javelin throw, Roderick Genki Dean threw a season best 82.48 m in the first qualification group, unluckily coming in at 13th and missing a place in the field of 12 for the final. With no repechage round to help him out Dean's first Olympics since London 2012 comes to an end. Women's long jump NR holder Sumire Hata jumped 6.31 m (+0.4) for 26th in the qualifying round and likewise missed out on a place in the final. Two of the three Japanese men in the 110 mH made the semifinals, bu...

Monday a relatively busy day in Paris Olympics athletics for the Japanese national team. Things started off slowly with all three men in the 400 mH heats finishing near the bottom of the field of 39 starters, Daiki Ogawa running 50.21 for 33rd, Kaito Tsutsue 50.50 for 35th and the high potential Ken Toyoda last among the 37 finishers in 53.62 after a mid-race injury. All three head to the repechage round, but in Toyoda's case he'll likely be a DNS. All three Japanese men in the 400 m repechage round, Joseph Nakajima , Fuga Sato and Kentaro Sato , gave it a miss in order to focus on the 4x400 m relay where their chances of making the final are higher. In the men's 3000 mSC heats, national record holder Ryuji Miura made it through to the final, running close to his season best with an 8:12.41 for 4th in Heat 2. Ryoma Aoki was one of the casualties of the slow pace in Heat 3, finishing 8th in 8:29.03 and missing out on advancing. In the men's 200 m heats 21-year-old...

Getting stuck in the shinkansen cancelation headaches yesterday means we're a day late getting to the weekend's track roundup, but better late than never. At the top of the list, women's 100 mH national record holder Mako Fukube (NKK) took 0.04 off her own record to win in 12.69 (+1.2) at the All-Star Night Games in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa in her last race before the Paris Olympics. Other Paris team members won their races too: 4x400 m squad member Takuho Yoshizu (GK Line) took the win in the men's 400 m in 45.89. Men's 400 m hurdler Daiki Ogawa (Toyo Univ.) set a meet record 49.09 for the win. Sumire Hata (Sumitomo Denko) set a women's long jump MR of 6.61 m (+0.8). Marina Saito (Suzuki) and Momone Ueda (Zenrin) both threw over the old MR held by world champion and Paris teammate Haruka Kitaguchi , Saito getting the win with a final attempt of 58.45 m, Ueda next at 57.93 m and 3rd-placer Yuki Yamamoto (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) also going over the old MR at 57...

The 2023 National University Track and Field Championships wrapped with two meet records, one as old as one of the women who broke it, in its final two events. Ai Watanabe of Sonoda Gakuen Joshi University started her afternoon with a win in the 800 m final at 12:30 in 2:07.89, over half a second up on 2nd-placer Mahiro Hasegawa (Kyoto Kyoiku Univ.). Two hours later she was back to run 2nd for Sonoda in the 4x400 m. Yuzuki Nakao put them into the lead, and Watanabe, Hinata Tochio and anchor Marin Adachi carried the momentum all the way to a 3:36.71 MR, breaking Fukushima University 's 2004-era 3:37.30 record. 2nd-placer Fukuoka University just missed joining them under the record too at 3:37.41, with Waseda University close behind in 3:37.65 for 3rd. Immediately following that, after its first three runners built a solid lead the Waseda men looked to be in range of not just the meet record but the collegiate 4x400 m record of 3:03.71 from 2000. Just behind them, Budapest Wo...

Mariko Morimoto (Uchida Kensetsu) brought the performance of the day in the women's triple jump on the third day of the 107th National Track and Field Championships and 39th U20 National Championships Saturday at Osaka's Yanmar Nagai Stadium. On her fifth attempt Morimoto jumped 14.16 m +0.7 m/s, a massive PB that broke the 1999-era national record by 12 cm. It was enough to move her up to 10th in the world this year, a welcome surprise to fans and federation officials in the lead-up to August's Budapest World Championships. The women's 100 mH final was the race of the day, a four-way photo finish between NR holder Mako Fukube (NKK), WC quota occupants Masumi Aoki (77 Ginko) and Yumi Tanaka (Fujitsu), and previous NR holder Asuka Terada (Japan Create Group), non-ranked as she makes another comeback this season. Terada and Aoki both clocked 12.95, Tanaka 12.96 and Fukube 12.99, and after a long review Terada was named the winner. In a way it was the most complicate...

16-year-old Yuya Sawada continued her climb through the ranks of Japanese women's middle distance, building on her 4:15.29 PB in the 1500 m heats with a 4:12.87 PB for 6th in the final on the last day of the Cali 22 World U20 Championships . With Ethiopian Birke Haylom setting a championships record 4:04.27 and Kenyans Brenda Chebet and Purity Chepkirui both under 4:08 Sawada was still far off the medals, but having come to Cali with a best of 4:17.75 she bridged half the gap.  Her time was just 0.02 off the U18 NR held by Yuriko Kobayashi and moved her up behind Kobayashi to all-time #2 on the Japanese U20 and high school lists. And having done it with two big performances in high-pressure races Sawada is now one of the highest-potential young athletes Japan has. Strangely enough, though, none of the others were entered in the 5000 m, mirroring Japanese women's absence from the 3000 m. The two men in the 3000 m steeplechase final couldn't match Sawada's performanc...

No Japanese athlete made it to any of the five finals on day three of the Cali 22 World U20 Championships , but qualifying rounds did see most of the athletes in action advance to their next rounds on upcoming days. In the men's 3000 m, both H.S NR holder Keita Sato and #3 Hiroto Yoshioka placed 5th in their heats to take auto-qualifying spots, Sato in Heat 2 with an 8:00.17 SB and Yoshioka in Heat 1 in 8:15.95. Both men in the 3000 m steeplechase also qualified for the final, Ryotaro Onuma taking an auto-qualifying place at 3rd in Heat 2 in 9:00.02 and Asahi Kuroda getting through on time in the fastest Heat 3 with an 8:51.04 for 5th. Likewise in the men's 400 m hurdles heats, Sojiro Moritaka 2nd in Heat 3 in 51.04 for a semi-final auto-qualifying spot and Daiki Ogawa through on time in 51.52 for 4th in Heat 4. In the women's hammer throw, Raika Murakami was a surprise, throwing a 61.28 m SB for 10th of the twelve qualifiers. Moe Matsuoka narrowly missed the women...