japan running news

Kenji Yamamotoage: 29
sponsor: Mazda
graduated from: Yugakkan H.S., Toyo University

best time inside MGC window:
2:08:42, 7th, 2019 Lake Biwa Marathon

PB: 2:08:42, 7th, 2019 Lake Biwa Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 13:55.42 (2013) 10000 m: 28:26.35 (2015) half marathon: 1:01:47 (2014)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
7th, 2019 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:08:42 – PB
9th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon, 2:08:48

other major results:
4th, 2019 San Diego Half Marathon, 1:02:01
20th, 2019 National Corporate Half Marathon, 1:02:34
3rd, New Year Ekiden Fourth Stage (22.4 km), 1:05:30
1st, 2018 Chugoku Corporate Ekiden Third Stage (11.6 km), 35:43
4th, 2018 San Diego Half Marathon, 1:02:45
4th, 2017 San Diego Half Marathon, 1:03:14
10th, 2017 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:15:19
2nd, 2012 Hakone Ekiden Third Stage (21.5 km), 1:02:43
1st, 2011 Hakone Ekiden Tenth Stage (23.1 km), 1:09:36

Another of the five Toyo University graduates in the MGC Race men’s field, Yamamoto was part of Toyo’s 2012 Hakone-wi…

Ryo Hashimotoage: 25
sponsor: GMO
graduated from: Oita Nishi H.S., Aoyama Gakuin University

best time inside MGC window:
2:09:29, 5th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon

PB: 2:09:29, 5th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 13:57.91 (2016) 10000 m: 28:35.37 (2019) half marathon: 1:02:55 (2019)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
5th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon, 2:09:29 – PB
9th, 2018 Fukuoka International Marathon, 2:11:40

other major results:
7th, 2019 HDC Fukagawa Meet 10000 m B-Race, 28:35.37 – PB
4th, 2019 Sendai International Half Marathon, 1:02:55 – PB
4th, 2018 Year-End Half Marathon, 1:03:31
4th, 2017 Gold Coast Marathon, 2:10:19
20th, 2017 Tokyo Marathon, 2:13:29
1st, 2016 Hofu Marathon, 2:11:20
23rd, 2016 Tokyo Marathon, 2:14:38

Hashimoto is totally unique in the MGC men’s field, someone who went to a Hakone Ekiden champion university but never made its starting roster for Japan’s biggest race. A benchwarmer for four-time Hakone winner Aoyama Gakuin University, …

Daiji Kawaiage: 27
sponsor: Toenec
graduated from: Seki Shogyo H.S., Reitaku University

best time inside MGC window:
2:10:50, 11th, 2019 Lake Biwa Marathon

PB: 2:10:50, 11th, 2019 Lake Biwa Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 13:45.91 (2018) 10000 m: 28:08.52 (2018) half marathon: 1:02:45 (2019)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
11th, 2019 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:10:50
60th, 2018 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:28:25
42nd, 2018 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:23:13

other major results:
5th, 2019 National Championships 10000 m, 28:43.46
3rd, 2019 Oda Memorial Meet 5000 m, 13:51.56
31st, 2019 Marugame Half Marathon, 1:02:45 – PB
8th, 2019 New Year Ekiden Fourth Stage (22.4 km), 1:05:48
3rd, 2018 Kumamoto Kosa 10-Mile Road Race, 46:15
1st, 2016 Inuyama Half Marathon, 1:03:21

Kawai is a rarity in the MGC men’s field, one of the only men who went to university in the Tokyo-centric Kanto Region but didn’t run the Hakone Ekiden. After graduating from Reitaku University he was supported by 2012 London Oly…

Former marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (27, Honda) returned to Narita Airport on July 8 a day after scoring his first-ever marathon win at Australia's Gold Coast Marathon. Shitara won in an excellent course record time of 2:07:50, lending momentum to his buildup for the MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials just over two months away.

During the race Shitara suffered a mishap, bleeding from both nipples early on. "It rained right before the start," he said, "and once I started running it started chafing. I was a little worried about it, but if you want to compete at the top of the game then there are no excuses." Shrugging it off, even as his uniform soaked up the blood Shitara kept up his fast pace. "My training paid off in this result," he said with obvious satisfaction. "Winning gives me confidence, and I want to make good use of that after this."

Up to now Shitara has followed his own training program, never running longer t…

On Jan. 2 Kohei Arai ran the Hakone Ekiden's 21.3 km First Stage for the final time before his graduation from Daito Bunka University. Right after the start he sprained his left ankle and fell, but somehow still managed to complete the stage and hand off his team's tasuki. Now recovered from the injury, Arai is running again. Exactly five months on from that nightmare moment, he returned to racing in the 5000 m at the June 2 Nittai University Time Trials meet. In an interview with Sports Hochi he talked about that day and his desire to make a full comeback.

It was the final Hakone Ekiden of the Heisei Era. As Daito Bunka's star runner Arai was taking on the First Stage for the third time. "I was in good shape and feeling like I'd be able to do something in the race," he said. "I was a senior and had run that stage twice before, so I wanted to put the team into good position by placing near the top on the stage."

But.  Disaster struck just 29 second…

At the May 12 Sendai International Half Marathon, Akito Terui (25, ND Software) finished 6th overall in 1:03:01. As a member of the Kanto Student Alliance team Terui ran the fastest time on the anchor stage at the 2017 Hakone Ekiden. Running for the Nanyo, Yamagata-based ND Software team, Terui embraces the slogan 'From the Northeast to the World.' In Sendai he beat a number of athletes who have qualified for September's MGC Race, the new trials event that will determine the marathon team for the Tokyo Olympics, marking him as a potential contender for future Olympic teams.

In one of the nation's leading half marathons Terui made his presence felt among the elite competitors. Starting off in the third group, mid-race he began to move up through the field to finish as the 4th Japanese man. Three runners he beat in the final stages, 7th-place Daichi Kamino (New Balance), 8th-place Yoshiki Takenouchi (NTT Nishi Nihon) and 10th-place Masato Imai (Toyota Kyushu), were MGC …

Entry lists for the 98th Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, Japan's most competitive collegiate meet, were released May 14. The meet begins May 23rd at Kanagawa's Sagamihara Gion Stadium.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary as a D1 program, Yamanashi Gakuin University will field its new Kenyan first-year Boniface Murua in the 10000 m on the 23rd and in the final day's 5000 m on the 26th. At 181 cm Murua has a long and dynamic stride that was in full evidence when he ran 14:06.27 at the Setagaya Time Trials meet immediately after his arrival in Japan in April, and in his 28:17.36 follow-up at the Nittai University Time Trials later that month. Asked about his Kanto Regionals debut, the Japanese Murua has learned was just enough for him to answer, "I'll do my best!"

3rd in the 800 m last year, third-year Daichi Setoguchi is also entered for the third year in a row. "I've been 5th and 3rd, so this year I want to deliver the win," …

The Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto (KGRR), organizers of the Hakone Ekiden, announced on Apr. 1 that they will suspend the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships point scoring shortcut to Hakone qualification that was used for this year's 95th running.

The point scoring scheme granted a place at Hakone to the university that earned the most points at the Kanto Regionals meet in the five years from 2014 to 2018. Nihon University was the beneficiary, making the 95th Hakone without having to run the qualifying race but finishing only 14th. From 2002 to 2012 an earlier version of the scheme gave schools running October's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race a time handicap based on their points at Kanto Regionals.

A KGRR spokesperson commented, "The Kanto Regionals point qualification system was adopted to encourage schools to develop their overall track and field programs, not just their ekiden teams. In our view this goal has been sufficiently ac…

Japan has sent a roster of 22 athletes to this weekend's World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, full squads for both junior races and the senior men's race, a team of only four for the senior women's race, and giving the mixed relay a miss.

The Senior Men's team is young but one of the better in recent years, led by towering national champion Yuta Bando (Hosei Univ.). Yohei Komatsu played a key role in Tokai University's first-ever Hakone Ekiden win in January, breaking the decades-old Eighth Stage course record to put Tokai into the lead. Yuhi Nakaya (Waseda University) was the star 1st-year on the Hakone circuit this year, Waseda head coach Yutaka Sagara saying that he think Nakaya has the potential to be better than multi-national record holder and Waseda alumnus Suguru Osako. Following Hakone Nakaya spent time training for World XC in Kenya.

The Senior Women's lineup is thin. Six of the top eight placers at Nationals were already on the Japa…

Team captain Haruki Minatoya, Second Stage runner Shun Yuzawa and other 4th--years who helped lead Tokai University to its first-ever win at the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden graduated from Tokai at a ceremony at the university's Shonan Campus in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa on Mar. 25. "My greatest memory of these four years was, of course, winning the Hakone Ekiden this year," said Minatoya as Yuzawa smiled widely in agreement.
Tokai beat four-time defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University by a margin of 3:41to take Japan's biggest win for the first time. The pair capped their four years pursuing Hakone dreams with the grandest of finales, but for both Minatoya and Yuzawa there were tough times along the way. "After I was named captain I couldn't run at all," said Minatoya. "It was really hard, and I was very sorry for what it meant for everyone else." At November's National University Ekiden Championships Minatoya started the Seventh Stage in the le…

Around 200 athletes who had been recruited by Toyo University's famed scout Hisashi Sato, 65, gathered at a hotel in Kawagoe, Saitama on Mar. 23 to celebrate Sato's retirement from his position as assistant coach at Toyo at the end of this month. Of the 30 men to have qualified for the Sept. 15 MGC Race 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon trials, 4 are Toyo alumni, more than any other university.   Hiroyuki Yamamoto (32, Konica Minolta), who qualified for the MGC race at the Mar. 10 Lake Biwa Marathon, and former marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (27, Honda), were among the attendees.

Since it first won the Hakone Ekiden in 2009 to this year's 3rd-place finish Toyo has shown extraordinary consistency, finishing in the top 3 at Hakone all 11 years. Sato worked alongside head coach Toshiyuki Sakai, 42, to help develop that kind of stability. Where he showed exceptional ability in his 25 years with the team was in scouting. Sato famously discovered future Hakone uphill F…

On Mar. 19 it was learned that 2008 Beijing Olympian Kensuke Takezawa, 32, has been named head coach of the Osaka Keizai University track and field team. Previous head coach Kunihiro Tsurutani had led Hotoku Gakuen H.S. to six National High School Ekiden titles before taking over at Osaka Keizai. He passed away last year.

Takezawa was coached by Tsurutani at Hotoku Gakuen H.S. A native of Hyogo prefecture, Takezawa went on to Waseda University where he ran the Hakone Ekiden all four years. As a student athlete he ran the 10000 m at the 2007 Osaka World Championships. A year later he ran the 5000 m and 10000 m at the Beijing Olympics. He retired from competition in 2017.

source article:
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20190320-00050148-yom-spo
translated by Brett Larner

Chuo University fourth-year Ken Nakayama is running Sunday's United Airlines NYC Half Marathon, the eighth year that the New York Road Runners have invited top Japanese university men from November's Ageo City Half Marathon to run their half. You might have seen his training partner Kensuke Horio finish 5th in the Tokyo Marathon in his debut a couple of weeks ago. Nakayama is one of the very top graduating seniors in Japan this year, but his route to that level has been one of the most unconventional.

Japanese distance running is highly systematically organized, with top high schools feeding into top universities where the best runners will run the Hakone Ekiden and get recruited to top corporate teams and then go on to become the country's top marathoners. Scouting at the university level is intense, and for the most part it's pretty clear early on in high school who the cream of the crop are going to be.

Nakayama was nobody in high school. He played soccer in junior…

On Mar. 26 it was learned that Kanto Gakuin University, which last qualified for the Hakone Ekiden in 2004, has hired female IAAF-certified coach Akari Kishikawa, 33, to join its coaching staff beginning Apr. 1. The Daiichi Seimei women's corporate team is led by head coach Sachiko Yamashita, 54, and the Ritsumeikan University and Josai University women's ekiden teams by assistant coaches Miyuki Tokura, 45, and Yukiko Akaba, 39, but it is virtually unheard of for a woman to be appointed to a university men's ekiden program staff.
Kishikawa, who is qualified as a senior psychology counselor among other things, has a proven track record with two national titles to her name in the 800 m in 2010 and 2011. She will support Kanto Gakuin head coach Yoshitaka Nakagawa, 43, and is expected to play a key role in shaping a stronger team.
At last October's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race Kanto Gakuin University finished only 23rd. Missing a qualifying spot by a wide margin…

On Jan. 29 three members of 2019 Hakone Ekiden champion team Tokai University, new captain Ryoji Tatezawa (3rd yr.), Shota Onizuka (3rd yr.) and Kiseki Shiozawa (2nd yr.), visited Shunya Takeuchi, 19, in a Chiba hospital.

Takeuchi had planned to enter Tokai as a first-year last April, but in October, 2017 the day before the Chiba Prefecture High School Ekiden he suffered a stroke that has left him hospitalized and struggling to recover ever since. Tatezawa brought Takeuchi, who would have been completing his first year right now if not for the stroke, a Tokai University uniform and the team's tasuki, the sash each member wore in the ekiden.

Takeuchi is currently undergoing rehabilitation and cannot speak full words yet, but he smiled widely when presented with the uniform and tasuki. Tatezawa, who last year broke the indoor mile national record and won his second-straight 1500 m national title, told him, "This year I'm going to break the 1500 m national record for you, T…

Daito Bunka University head coach Osamu Nara, 47, spoke with reporters about the condition of 4th-year Kohei Arai. A week ago on Jan. 2 just 200 m into the 21.3 km First Stage of the 2019 Hakone Ekiden Arai twisted his left ankle badly while falling. Arai got up to run the remaining distance of over 21 km on the injured ankle, finishing the stage 8:40 behind the leaders.

Nara told reporters that while there were no broken bones, it is expected to take half a year for Arai to return to competition. Arai is scheduled to join the Sunbelx corporate team in April following his graduation. "In consultation with the team he is joining we have to work to make sure his injury fully heals," said Nara. "We expect that to take around half a year."

At the Hakone Ekiden coaches' pursuit cars do not enter the course until around 10 km into the First Stage. As a result Nara did not see Arai's accident himself and had difficulty judging its severity as the race went on. &qu…

Part of Japan's success in the men's marathon last year was the focus on half marathon distance development in university for the HakoneEkiden, a ten-stage race over two days with distances between 20.8 km and 23.1 km. This year's race was record-breaking across the board, boding well for the next generation's chances of matching the current one's achievements in the last year. Half marathon equivalents for the winning times on each stage of this year's race and numbers of runners in the field of 23 per stage under equivalent half marathon times:

First Stage (21.3 km) - 1:02:35 = 1:01:59 half marathon
1 under 1:02:00 half marathon equivalent
15 under 1:03:00 half marathon equivalent
18 under 1:04:00 half marathon equivalent

Second Stage (23.1 km) - 1:06:18 = 1:00:33 half marathon
2 under 1:01:00 half marathon equivalent
7 under 1:02:00 half marathon equivalent
11 under 1:03:00 half marathon equivalent
17 under 1:04:00 half marathon equivalent

Third Stage (21.4 km…

For years the Hakone Ekiden has been a Day One blowout, the uphill Fifth Stage that ends it basically deciding the winner on Day Two. Last year 2014 winner Toyo University won Day One only to fall victim to the superior depth of Aoyama Gakuin University, which ran Toyo down to score a fourth-straight win at Japan's biggest race.

This year Toyo again took the Day One title, opening an almost insurmountable 5:30 lead over AGU. Bigger problems faced it, though, in the form of #1-ranked Tokai University just 1:14 behind. Tokai head coach Hayashi Morozumi was one of Japan's most successful high school coaches while at Nagano's Saku Chosei H.S., beneficiaries of his cross-country-based principles including current marathon national record holder Suguru Osako. Since arriving at Tokai it has taken him time to get his system up and running for college-aged athletes, the last few seasons exceeding AGU on paper but coming up short at the main event.

But today was Tokai's day. To…

It’s one of the sad truths of Japanese distance running that you never see them at their absolute best unless you get to see the New Year or Hakone Ekidens. That was in full effect today on Day One of the 95th Hakone Ekiden, with record-breaking runs on three of the day’s five stages and just a few seconds off a record on a fourth.

Aoyama Gakuin University came to this year’s race having transformed itself from a lovable underdog to an unbreakable four-straight champion of Japan’s most prestigious race. Last year Toyo University, the last team to win pre-AGU, gave them hell over the first day, beating them to finish on the shores of Lake Ashi only to fall victim to AGU’s superior depth on the return trip to Tokyo the next morning. This time it was all about the two of them again.

Toyo 2nd-year Kazuya Nishiyama, winner of the 21.3 km First Stage last year, took it out hard this time for a few hundred meters, just enough time for disaster. 30 seconds into the race Daito Bunka University…

For decades the New Year in Japan has been the best three days of racing n the year, with the New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships on Jan. 1 and the university men's season-capping Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2 and 3. In the last few years it's gotten even better thanks to the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden, the university women's season ender, moving to Dec. 30.

Last year Ritsumeikan University overcame a loss to Meijo University at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden to claim a fifth-straight Mount Fuji national title. This year the top three at Morinomiyako were the same as last time around, Meijo in the top spot and Daito Bunka University just edging out Ritsumeikan for 3rd with Tokyo Nogyo University, 2nd at Mount Fuji last year, just a few seconds behind Ritsumeikan in 4th. With all four teams returning we're pretty likely to see them all out front again, the main question being whether Meijo can translate its early-season success into a national ti…