japan running news

On Nov. 10, men's marathon national record holder Suguru Osako took to Twitter to lash out at people who suspect him of doping. Sponsored by Nike, Osako was a longtime member of the Nike Oregon Project team. The team's head coach Alberto Salazar was recently suspended by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) for four years as the result of an investigation into his misuse of restricted substances and methods. Osako posted his opinions on his Twitter account @sugurusako at 8:46 a.m. on Nov. 10, denying that he has doped. "It seems like people seem to think that what happened with the Oregon Project means that I'm already guilty of doping, but anyone who thinks that way is really, really simple-minded," he wrote. "My coach never even once told me to take drugs or get injections that I didn't understand, and I've checked every single supplement and throat lozenge that's gone in my mouth." At the Nike Oregon Project Osako was not...

A training partner of disgraced Rio Olympics gold medalist Jemima Sumgong , Tokyo Marathon course record holder and Japan all-comers' record holder Sarah Chepchirchir of Kenya has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit for use of prohibited substances or methods. Chepchirchir's suspension follows the announcement last month of an eight-year suspension for Sumgong for doping-related offenses and an attempted coverup. Both Chepchirchir and Sumgong are represented by agent Federico Rosa , whose other Kenyan clients include two-time Commonwealth Games medalist Lucy Kabuu , suspended last month for two years for doping, former Boston Marathon course record holder Rita Jeptoo , who lost her title and record with a four-year doping suspension , and former Olympic 1500 m gold medalist Asbel Kiprop , found to have tested positive for EPO . Rosa is scheduled to have athletes including 2018 Abu Dhabi Marathon winners Marius Kipserem (Kenya) and  Ababel Yes...

http://www.insidethegames.biz/index.php/articles/1050540/kenyan-team-mates-of-banned-olympic-marathon-champion-suspended-by-management-company Sarah Chepchirchir won the 2017 Tokyo Marathon in 2:19:47, the fastest time ever run on Japanese soil. Named alternate to the Kenyan team for this summer's London World Championships last week, Purity Rionoripo ran the 2014 Yokohama International Women's Marathon but DNFd. Visiline Jepkesho won the 2014 Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon, DNFd at the 2014 Nagoya Women's Marathon, and was 4th in Gifu in 2016.

by Brett Larner I don't expect that many people will take the considerable time necessary to read the full texts of all four interviews in this series .  I plan to edit the most important quotes from Samuel Wanjiru’s Japanese mentors and colleagues together into a cohesive account of his career from the Japanese point of view, but in the meantime, looking at the commonalities between the interviews and other previously-published details this story emerges, incomplete as it is: Wanjiru was discovered by the Japanese scout Shunichi Kobayashi and sent to Sendai Ikuei H.S. in 2002. At Sendai Ikuei, he was educated and developed by Takao Watanabe , who focused not only on development as an athlete but also on psychological and personal development.  Watanabe receives unanimous credit in Japan as the primary influence on Wanjiru's mental and spiritual growth.  Watanabe introduced Wanjiru to Kenyan Stephen Mayaka , a longtime resident of Japan who came to assist Wanjiru in h...

The fourth in JRN's series of in-depth, original interviews with the Japanese friends and colleagues of Samuel Wanjiru , this interview with Yasuto Kimura , a popular Tokyo-based coach of amateur runners and a former Hakone Ekiden ace with Chuo University who became close friends with Wanjiru following his departure from the Toyota Kyushu corporate team in 2008, is the most personal of them all. Click here for an introduction to this series of interviews and for links to the previous interviews with Masato Imai, Stephen Mayaka, Yu Mitsuya and Koichi Morishita. Come back tomorrow for the conclusion to the series. Yasuto Kimura interviewed by Brett Larner in Kanda, Tokyo, 7/20/11 © 2011 Brett Larner all rights reserved No part of this interview may be reproduced or quoted without express written permission. photos © 2010 Yasuto Kimura all rights reserved To start off, could you talk about the nature of your relationship with Samuel Wanjiru? People are saying that I might h...

This is part two in JRN's four-part series of interviews with the key people in Samuel Wanjiru 's life in Japan.   Click here for the introduction to the series, an explanation of how it came about, and links to the other interviews .  Check back tomorrow for part three, an interview with Wanjiru's former teammates Yu Mitsuya  and Masato Imai . Barcelona Olympics marathon silver medalist Koichi Morishita is the man who showed Samuel Wanjiru how to be a marathoner, but under his coaching Wanjiru also set all of his world records from the junior 10000 m record to his three times cracking the best-ever half-marathon mark.  Six weeks after Wanjiru's death Morishita agreed to a one-on-one interview about Wanjiru's years with the Toyota Kyushu corporate team, their coach-athlete relationship, and his post-Japan marathon career.  Morishita was candid and unexpectedly introspective in his opinions of what went wrong, including his own mistakes.  In this intervie...