japan running news

It was a pretty good year for the Japanese men, in the marathon at least. Not so much on the track and less so in the half marathon, but very decent in the marathon.


On the track, the fastest 5000 m time was only 13:29.11 by national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) and in the 10000 m 27:55.85 by all-time #2 man Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei). With the IAAF announcing 13:22.50 and 27:40.00 standards for next year's Doha World Championships after doing an about-face on its plans to base everything on world rankings it's pretty likely that, for the second World Championships in a row, there won't be a single Japanese man running either distance.


Of the 4 still-active Japanese men to have ever bettered the 5000 m standard nobody has done it in the 3 and 1/2 years since Osako and Yoroizaka did in July, 2015. Likewise in the 10000 m, where none of the 5 currently active men to have cracked 27:40 has done it since 2015. Neither distance saw any men make the all…

The Japanese men and women dominated the 2018 IAU 100 km World Championships in Sveti Martin na Muri, Crotia on Saturday, winning both team gold medals and the individual men's gold and silver and women's bronze medals.

Finishing in the inverse order they did at June's historic Lake Saroma 100 km, the men went 1-2-4-6, Lake Saroma 4th placer and defending world champion Hideaki Yamauchi winning the race outright in 6:28:05 and Lake Saroma 3rd-placer Takehiro Gyoba taking silver in 6:32:51. Two-time Comrades Marathon champ Bongmusa Mthembu of South Africa, 2nd to Yamauchi last time out, was the only non-Japanese athlete to make the men's podium, beating Lake Saroma runner-up Koji Hayasaka by just over two minutes to take bronze in 6:33:47 to Hayasaka's 6:36:05. All three scoring Japanese men broke 4:00/km to give the men's an incredible score of 19:37:01, nearly an hour faster than the silver-earning South Africa team. Germany had the distinction of taking the …

Running on the same course where Japan's Takahiro Sunada set the road 100 km world record of 6:13:33 twenty years ago, 2:17:23 marathoner Nao Kazamibested a deep and competitive field to win the Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon in a world record 6:09:14.

Part of a front group of at least five that went through the marathon split in 2:33:36, on pace for 6:04:01, Kazami lost touch with the lead as rivals Koji Hayasaka and Takehiko Gyoba surged just before halfway to open a roughly 30 second lead that lasted until nearly 75 km. But in the last quarter of the race Kazami, a graduate of Hakone Ekiden powerhouse Komazawa University, was the only one who could sustain anything close to the early pace, overtaking Hayasaka and Gyoba before pulling away to open a lead of over 11 minutes. Kazami's mark took more than 4 minutes off the world record, and he also bettered the 100 km track world record of 6:10:20 set in 1978 well before he was born by the late Don Ritchie.
Trying to stay wi…

#1-ranked Kaleab Ghilagabr became the first Eritrean winner in the Osaka Marathon's short seven-year history, leading 29,359 finishers across the line Sunday in a PB 2:12:03, while club runner Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) had to run a minute-plus PB 2:34:38 to win an exciting battle between Japan's six best amateur women by 1 second.

Ghilagabr set off accompanied by unsponsored amateur Hideyuki Ikegami, an unusual independent who got attention by beating Yuki Kawauchi in a half marathon in 2014 and went on to be mentored by 2:07:48 Olympian Arata Fujiwara. In April this year Ikegami made his marathon debut at the Hannover Marathon but finished in a disappointing 2:30:15 that didn't reflect the quality suggested by his 1:03:09 half best and 1:31:53 PB for 30 km. 
The pair ran 2:10:30 pace through 15 km, PB pace for both, before Ikegami began to slip. Ghilagabr pushed on alone, holding on to 2:10 pace until well into the second half before beginning to slow. Ikegami was caught b…

One of the world's ten biggest marathons, in its six runnings to date the Osaka Marathon has continued to avoid the addition of a world-class elite field of the same caliber as at equivalently-sized races like Tokyo, Berlin and Boston. In place of doling out cash to pros, Osaka's women's field has developed into a sort of national championship race for amateur women.

In the field this year are six, probably all six, of the amateur Japan women to have broken 2:40 in the last three years. Last year's top three, Yoshiko Sakamoto (F.O.R.), Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) and Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) lead the way at the 2:36 +/- level, with a second trio of Marie Imada (Iwatani Sangyo), Mitsuko Ino (R2 Nishin Nihon) and Chika Tawara (RxL) all around the 2:39 level.

Last year's winner Sakamoto and 3rd placer Yoshimatsu squared off in September at Germany's Volksbank Muenster Marathon, Yoshimatsu tying Sakamoto's Osaka winning time of 2:36:02 to take 3rd over …

by Brett Larner

@JRNHeadlinespic.twitter.com/uqE9UrqAYw — John O'Regan (@johnoregan777) November 29, 2016
Hideaki Yamauchi become the fourth Japanese man in the last ten years to win the IAU 100 km World Championships, coming from three minutes behind to outrun South Africa's Bongmusa Mthembu, Italian three-time world champion Giorgio Calcaterra and others to win Sunday's race in Los Alcazares, Spain by nearly six minutes.  Yamauchi's winning time of 6:18:22 was the fifth-fastest ever for the 100 km distance, making him the all-time #4 man worldwide just behind world record holder Takahiro Sunada.  Yamauchi's teammates Kaitaro Toike and Yoshiki Takada took 8th and 23rd, giving Japan the team silver medal by a slim margin behind South Africa.  The U.S.A. team took bronze on the strength of two top five finishes.

No Japanese women scored individual medals, but with a 5-6-7 finish separated by only 17 seconds the trio of Mikiko Ota, Aiko Kanematsu and Chiyuki Mochizuki …