japan running news

With the men really getting up to speed this year nobody really noticed that it was one of the best in history for the women too. A first-ever world-level distance gold medal on the track, all-time top 10 marks over 5000 m, 10000 m and the marathon and a top 15 mark in the half marathon, and the fastest average of its 10 best marathon performances since back in the golden years of 2005.


Rina Nabeshima (Japan Post) topped the 5000 m rankings with a 15:10.91 PB at the Prefontaine Classic in May. It's rare to see Japanese athletes in the Diamond League, but Nabeshima took multiple swings that delivered both her 5000 m time and an 8:48:21 in London, the second-fastest Japanese time ever and less than 4 seconds off the national record. Nozomi Tanaka (ND 28 AC), who won the gold medal over the summer in the World U20 Championships 3000 m, also made the all-time Japanese top 25 for 5000 m with a 15:15.80 in October, the only Japanese woman to date to have cleared the 2019 Doha World Cham…

With the 31:50.00 standard for the 2019 Doha World Championships 10000 m announced earlier this week following the IAAF's about-face on its new world rankings system, Japan wasted no time in getting its people under the mark.

In cold conditions for the mid-afternoon Corporate Women's Time Trials meet at Yamaguchi's Ishin Me-Life Stadium the women's 10000 m A-heat went out strong and steady, 15:45 through halfway before the lead group began to splinter. Just two weeks after a season-worst performance at the National Corporate Women's Ekiden the Atsushi Sato-coached Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) roared back into form with a 31:16.48 meet record for the win, outkicking Kenyan Grace Kimanzi (Starts) to land at #2 in the world so far this year and #8 on the all-time Japanese list. Yamanouchi and Kimanzi were the only two to clear 31:20, but all told six women made it under the 31:50 Doha standard, making the race the year's deepest worldwide.

Having fully recovered f…

The team rosters for the 22 teams entered in the Nov. 25 National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships were announced on Nov. 7. The field includes last year's top 8 plus the teams who placed in the top 14 at the Oct. 21 qualifying race. Among the each team's 10 entrants are some of the country's best distance runners.

Last year's national champion Panasonic features 2018 Jakarta Asian Games national team member Yuka Hori. Going for its second national title ever, 2016 winner Japan Post will field 2018 Hokkaido Marathon winner Ayuko Suzuki and 2018 Nagoya Women's Marathon 3rd-placer Hanami Sekine. In quest of its first national-level win, 2017 runner-up Daihatsu counts 2018 Osaka International Women's Marathon winner Mizuki Matsuda among its lineup.
38th National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships FieldSendai, Miyagi, 11/25/18

Panasonic
Daihatsu
Japan Post
Daiichi Seimei
Tenmaya
Yamada Denki
Shiseido
Toyota Jidoshokki
Wacoal
Kyocera
Kyudenko
Seki…

In preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the JAAF will hold a 10-day women's marathon training camp in Chitose, Hokkaido from July 27 to August 5. It is the first time for the city of Chitose to host a JAAF training camp since it was selected as the site for the Japanese national team's pre-Tokyo Olympics base. Six athletes including 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympian Mai Ito will take part, with the program scheduled to include running classes with local amateur runners.

The six athletes identified as high-level in the marathon and long distance and invited to participate in the program are Ito, Yuka Ando, Hanami Sekine, Yukari Abe, Mao Ichiyama and Miyuki Uehara. Along with them, a staff of sixteen support personnel will also take part. Conceived of as a simulation of the Tokyo Olympics, the camp takes place at the same time and for the same number of days as it will two years from now before the main event. The athletes will train at Aoba Field, on the 3.6 km Aoba Park loop, …

A Rio Olympian in the women's 5000 m, Ayuko Suzuki (26, Japan Post) is planning to run the August 26 Hokkaido Marathon. Japan Post head coach Masahiko Takahashi made the announcement on June 25. It will the first marathon for the proven track talent Suzuki, whose training partner Hanami Sekine  debuted in 2:23:07 in Nagoya this March.

Suzuki, who finished 2nd in Friday's 10000 m at the National Track and Field Championships, is aiming to make the marathon team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. At the Hokkaido Marathon her goal is to qualify for the MGC Race Olympic marathon trials event to be held in Tokyo in September, 2019. To qualify, she must win in a sub-2:32:00 time or finish inside the top six Japanese women and under 2:30:00.

source article:
https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2018062501112&g=spo
translated and edited by Brett Larner

In a race that came down to an uphill battle near 20 km, Ryo Matsumoto (Toyota) emerged on top of a lead pack of five to win the men's race at the 28th Sendai International Half Marathon. Matsumoto outkicked Rio Olympics marathon team member Satoru Sasaki (Asahi Kasei) on the track to take the win in 1:03:05, the fastest winning time by a Japanese man in Sendai history. Sasaki returned from the injury that kept him out of March's Lake Biwa Mainichi Marahton to finish 2nd in 1:03:10, holding off collegiate runners Kengo Nakamura (Toyo Univ.) and Akihiro Gunji (Tokai Univ.).

Defending champion Charles Ndirangu (JFE Steel) suffered some sort of injury in the late going, shuffling down the home straight and almost walking across the finish line to take 5th in 1:03:39. Just behind him, 2017 Gold Coast Marathon winner Takuya Noguchi (Konica Minolta) nicked 2018 Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) at the line after sitting on Kawauchi the entire race, both…

Two-time 1500 m Olympian Meskerem Assefa (Ethiopia) ran down favorite Valary Jemeli (Kenya) with 4 km to go to win the 2018 Nagoya Women's Marathon, with the home town crowd wowed by the debut of the latest next big thing, 22-year-old Hanami Sekine (Japan Post).

Supported by three pacers, a lead pack of seven including Assefa, Jemeli, Sekine, Ethiopian Bahraini Merima Mohamed, Saitama International Marathon winner Flomena Cheyech Daniel (Kenya) and top-ranked Japanese women Reia Iwade (Dome) and Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) went through halfway in a decent 1:11:32. This proved too hot for a few of the past next big things to have run well in Nagoya the last few years, as Sairi Maeda (Daihatsu), 2:22:48 in Nagoya three years ago, and Mao Kiyota (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), 2:23:47 last year, were off the back of the pack in the first 10 km.

By 25 km Cheyech, Ohara and Iwade joined them off the back, leaving only Sekine in contention with the African trio of Jemeli, Assefa and Mohammed. Sekine, a…

Japan’s domestic elite marathon season wraps up Sunday with the Nagoya Women’s Marathon, the final race in the first season of qualification for the MGC Race, Japan’s new 2020 Olympic trials marathon to be held in late 2019. In its first season the MGC Race has succeeded in unifying Japan’s disparate national team selection races into what feels like an actual series, one that fans have gotten excited about and which has, at least on the men’s side, driven performances to a higher level. As of right now, thirteen Japanese men have met the MGC Race’s strict qualification criteria, six of them at the Tokyo Marathon alone. Heading into Nagoya only three women have qualified. Will we see another rush of qualifiers this weekend?

On paper it could happen. Since its rebranding as the world’s largest women-only marathon, Nagoya has consistently produced among the best depth-at-quality in the world, its course, weather and fields conducive to seeing a lot of people running fast times. In theo…

The Nagoya Women's Marathon is the largest women-only marathon in the world, one with a long history as an elite race and adapting to the times with a mass-participation field of 20,000. The last few years it has seen a series of dynamic, high-level performances by top Japanese women, from Sairi Maeda's 2:22:48 in 2015 to the 2:23:19 to 2:23:20 sprint finish battle between Tomomi Tanaka and Rei Ohara in 2016 to Yuka Ando's stellar 2:21:36 debut and teammate Mao Kiyota's 2:23:47 breakthrough last year.

Maeda, Ohara and Kiyota all return this year to face the Kenyan trio of Lucy Kabuu, Valary Jemeli and Flomena Cheyech Daniel. Kabuu went to high school in Japan before moving on to the big leagues, but she hasn't finished a marathon since her 2:20:21 in Dubai 2015. Cheyech also used to be based in Japan as is a familiar face here, winning the last two Saitama International Marathons. Jemeli is making her Japanese debut, and with a 2:21:57 win in Prague and a 2:20:53 …

2017 London World Championships 5000 m and 10000 m runner Ayuko Suzuki (25, Japan Post) left from Narita Airport on Sept. 18 for altitude training in Boulder, Colorado.

Two days earlier at a half marathon in Czech Republic, Yuta Shitara (25, Honda), like Suzuki born in 1991, broke the 10-year-old Japanese men's half marathon national record in a time of 1:00:17. "It's a big motivation to see an athlete the same age as me doing something like that," she said. Showing her determination to be one of her generation's leaders, she added, "I'll be 28 [at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics], right in my prime mentally and physically. I want to run big too."

In the leadup to the Tokyo Olympics Suzuki has the marathon in sight along with the track. "I need to run a half marathon and marathon somewhere once to check [how well they suit me]," she said. "Coach and I will be talking about it." If everything goes according to plan, December's Sanyo …

by Brett Larner

Corporate and university meets led the way in the first of three straight weekends of regional track action.  At the Chubu Region Corporate Track and Field Championships Kenyan Rodgers Chumo Kemoi (Team Aisan Kogyo) led the top three under 28 minutes, winning in 27:54.19. Returning to the track after a quality 2:10:39 debut at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, Minato Oishi (Team Toyota) was the fastest Japanese man in the race, running 28:31.28 for 4th.

Silas Laikong (Team Aichi Seiko) won the Chubu men's 5000 m in 13:45.59, but the fastest time of the weekend came at the season's first Shizuoka Long Distance Time Trials meet, where Ethiopian teammates Abiyot Abinet and Yeneblo Biyazen (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) went 1-2 in 13:36.08 and 13:36.20. Downhill specialist Yuji Onoda led a large contingent from Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University, 3rd overall in 13:58.05.

The women's 3000 m in Shizuoka also saw teammates sweep the front end, with ne…

by Brett Larner

After outperforming their men for over a decade, Japanese women have been on a downward trend for much of the last 8 years even as depth and quality improved dramatically among the men.  In 2016 the trend reversed again, with the men's depth and quality dropping somewhat and the women's fortunes improving.  The good:

Half marathon national record holder Kayoko Fukushi breaking through with an all-time Japanese #7 mark of 2:22:17 in Osaka.
Team bronze at the World Half Marathon Championships.A 12 km national record by Risa Takenaka.An 8 km national record by Tomomi Tanaka.A course record win over solid competition at the Gold Coast Airport Marathon by Misato Horie.Confident frontrunning from Miyuki Uehara to make the 5000 m final at the Rio Olympics.First-time national titles by relatively young, innovative teams Matsuyama University and Japan Post at the National University Women's Ekiden and National Corporate Ekiden.Team gold at the 100 km World Championshi…

by Brett Larner

With the rest of the Japanese national team doing well, ranked 3rd behind the U.S.A. and China in the  medal count at the end of the first week of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, members of its athletics squad face modest expectations of one medal and five top eight finishes, the medal expected to come somewhere between the men's 4x100 m relay, the women's marathon and the men's 20 km and 50 km race walks.  No dice in the 20 km on the first day of athletics competition.  Toyo University student Daisuke Matsunaga was the best of the Japanese men at 7th in 1:20:22, 45 seconds out of the medals but, on the upside, scoring one of the JAAF's hoped-for top eight placings.

No such luck in the world record-breaking women's 10000 m.  With national champion Ayuko Suzuki a scratch it fell to her junior Japan Post teammate Hanami Sekine and Yuka Takashima (Shiseido) to try to make a dent.  Both ran the second-fastest times of their careers to date, Takashima missi…

by Brett Larner

Entry lists for track and field events at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics were publicly released yesterday on the IAAF website.  Start lists are due to be released later this week and are bound to include scratches.  Based on the current entry lists, below are Japanese long distance athletes' ranking in their events by best time within the Olympic qualifying window.  Rankings will be revised based on updated start lists.

Ranked 5th in the women's marathon field of 160, Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) looks like Japan's best chance at a distance medal, with 8th-ranked Tomomi Tanaka (Team Daiichi Seimei) an outside contender.  Ranked 9th in the women's 10000 m, Ayuko Suzuki (Team Japan Post) is the only other Japanese athlete in the top 10 in their event.  Beating her ranking would give her the best Japanese women's 10000 m Olympic placing in 20 years.  Three other athletes, Hanami Sekine (Team Japan Post) in the women's 10000 m, Mai Ito (Team Otsuka…

by Brett Larner

With the launch of the Sky Project exchange program earlier this year, Kanagawa prefecture will play host to Eritrean athletes between now and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, with Eritrea scheduled to hold its pre-Olympic and Paralympic training camps in the prefecture along Tokyo's southern side.  The Eritreans made their presences felt at the 250th edition of the Nittai University Time Trials meet in suburban Yokohama over the weekend, winning the A-heats of both the men's 5000 m and 10000 m and a number of women featuring in the 5000 m as well.

Four Eritrean women ran the single women's 5000 m heat on Saturday.  With top Japanese track runner Ayuko Suzuki and teammate Hanami Sekine (both Team Japan Post) going 1-2 in 15:26.28 and 15:28.88, Kokob Tesfagaber Solomon and Merhawit Ghide Medhin led the Eritrean contingent in 6th and 7th in 16:18.68 and 16:18.79.  Kokob Ghebru Abraha and Berhane Tesfay Berhe made more of an impact in the men's 10000 m A-heat, als…

by Brett Larner

鈴木亜由子 Ayuko Suzuki 約11分14秒点 10km #日本郵政公社 Japan Post @jaaf_official#IAAF#陸上競技#PaytonJordan 2016年5月1日 pic.twitter.com/mzB6wzeIpn — T&F Snaps here (@TaFphoto) May 3, 2016
Virtually the only bright spot on the Japanese team at last year's Beijing World Championships, Ayuko Suzuki (Team Japan Post) delivered again with the best Japanese performance of this year's Payton Jordan Invitational.  With her 15:08.29 in the Beijing 5000 m final having put her at #5 on the all-time Japanese lists, Suzuki ran a 30-second PB of 31:18.16 for 3rd at Payton Jordan, landing at #8 all-time among Japanese women.  Four other Japanese women went under the 32:15.00 Olympic standard, three of them breaking 32.  Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) was the only Japanese man to clear the 28:00.00 men's Olympic standard, easily outdistancing Japanese year leader Yuta Shitara (Team Honda) for 2nd in 27:50.27.

Last year's 5000 m national champion Misaki Onishi (Team Sekisui Kagaku)…

by Brett Larner
video highlights courtesy of broadcaster NHK

One of the only bright lights for Japanese long distance at last summer's Beijing World Championships, 2015 national corporate 10000 m champion Ayuko Suzuki delivered an incredible anchor run in Kyoto on Sunday, making up more than a minute and a half over 10 km to give Aichi its first-ever National Women's Ekiden title.  The peak of the women's ekiden season, the National Women's Ekiden features teams from each of Japan's 47 prefectures all made up of top local junior high school, high school, university, club and pro runners.

The race got off the track start and onto the roads safely without any falls, but a few km into the 6.0 km First Stage Naoko Koizumi (Niigata), a stage record setter at last month's National Corporate Women's Ekiden, tripped in the front row and went down.  The lead pack went by before Koizumi could get to her feet, but she quickly shot back to the front row in time for the …

by Brett Larner

Two different women's ekidens led the weekend's action, both in their 31st runnings but each with a highly different format. On the west coast in Fukui, corporate, university and club teams went head to head at the six-stage, 30.0 km Fukui Super Ladies Ekiden.  Just 7th last year, the Yamada Denki corporate women led start to finish bookended by stage wins from star members Shiho Takechi and Kasumi Nishihara to take the win in 1:36:48.

2nd place saw heavy turnover, with the Kyudenko team briefly moving up mid-race thanks to Kenyan Mariam Waithera before returning to overtake Canon AC Kyushu for 2nd in 1:38:03 thanks to a strong run from anchor Yuka Miyazaki.  Canon held on to 3rd by 5 seconds in 1:38:31despite anchor Chisaki Takegami struggling late in the 7.45 km stage.  Last year's winner Osaka Gakuin University was only 9th but still claimed the top university team position.

On the east coast in Fukushima the Tokyo team very nearly duplicated Yamada Denk…

by Brett Larner

Two of Japan's elite women-only ekidens founded after the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics celebrated their 30th anniversaries Sunday.  At the Fukui Super Ladies Ekiden, last year's top collegiate team Osaka Gakuin University staged a classic come-from-behind race to take its first Fukui title, covering the six-stage, 30.0 km course in 1:38:23.  Down by more than a minute behind leader Panasonic and in 15th place after the 6.55 km First Stage, each of Osaka Gakuin's next five runners moved up in both stage ranking and overall standing until Sakie Arai took the lead by four seconds over 2014 National University Women's Ekiden champion Ritsumeikan University and by six over Panasonic with a 16:10 stage best on the Fifth Stage.  Anchor Saori Noda then put both Ritsumeikan and Panasonic away with a 24:25 stage best for the 7.45 km Sixth Stage to win by nearly a minute.  Panasonic's anchor, 2014 Gold Coast Airport Marathon winner Asami Kato, overtook Ritsumeika…

by Brett Larner
click photo for video highlights via broadcaster NHK

Driven in part by a stage record by Moscow World Championships marathon 4th-placer Ryoko Kizaki, the hometown Kyoto team scored the win in a fast and competitive 32nd National Women's Ekiden under nearly perfect conditions Jan. 12 in Kyoto.  The season-ending women's national championship ekiden, the National Women's Ekiden features teams from each of Japan's 47 prefectures made up of junior high, high school, university and pro runners competing over 9 stages and 42.195 km broadcast live nationwide and commercial-free.

Osaka led with with a strong opening leg from Natsuki Omori, but on the 4.0 km Second Stage last year's Third Stage course record-setter Nozomi Musembi Takamatsu, daughter of 2001 Nagano Marathon winner Maxwell Musembi (Kenya), fumbled and dropped Osaka to 11th.  Taking over the lead spot was Azusa Sumi (Aichi), who opened a lead of 12 seconds over Akari Ota (Okayama) by stage's …