japan running news

by Brett Larner



After record-setting races at the Izumo Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden Qualifier earlier this month, university men’s ekiden season keeps rolling with the weekend’s biggest race, the second of the Big Three University Ekidens, Sunday’s National University Men’s Ekiden Championships. Defending champion Komazawa University returns with four-straight titles and twelve wins in the last seventeen years behind it, but even Komazawa head coach Hiroaki Oyagi admits that this is Aoyama Gakuin University’s year.

Aoyama Gakuin ended last season with a course record-breaking win at the Hakone Ekiden and has only gotten stronger since then, all in line with head coach Susumu Hara’s long-term development plan for Aoyama Gakuin to become the best in Japan this season with the full maturing of his core group of seniors. At the Oct. 12 Izumo Ekiden Aoyama Gakuin ran six seconds faster than Komazawa’s course record despite a 600 m longer course, effectively two minutes faster minus the ex…

by Brett Larner
video by naoki620

全日本予選会 関東は中央学院大がトップ通過。 最終組では潰滝が28:31！ pic.twitter.com/mkfy7SpL1i — EKIDEN_MANIA (@ekiden_mania) June 20, 2015Saturday saw the first event on the university men's ekiden circuit with regional qualifier action for November's National University Men's Ekiden.  Universities across the country that finished outside the seeded top six at last November's Nationals competed on the track in their regions, eight runners from each school split into four heats and their team score determined by the combined times of all eight.

The biggest event, needless to say, was in the Tokyo-area Kanto Region, home of the Hakone Ekiden, where twenty schools competed for nine places at Nationals.  Led by senior Hironori Tsuetaki, the double 5000 m and 10000 m D2 champ at last month's Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, Chiba's Chuo Gakuin University came out on top as the only school to clear 3:59, its eight runners totalling 3:58.58…

by Brett Larner
videos by Ekiden News



Two months after his 3rd-place finish on the Hakone Ekiden's most competitive stage helped put Aoyama Gakuin University in position for the overall win and a month after running a 1:02:09 PB at the Marugame Half, 20-year-old AGU second-year Tadashi Isshiki scored his first national title with a 1:02:11 win at the 18th National University Men's Half Marathon Championships in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park.  After record-setting depth last year when a world record 207 men broke 1:06:00 the National University Half blew minds again this year, the top 12 all breaking 1:02:30 and 27 collegiate men going under 1:03:00.  With perfect conditions today the field excelled, completely rewriting the record books as 265 men went under 1:06:00.

With places on the Japanese team for this summer's World University Games half marathon for the top three finishers and a bigger dream hovering in the distance 5 1/2 years away the massive pack went out fast an…

http://www.sankei.com/sports/news/141111/spo1411110022-n1.html

translated by Brett Larner

On Nov. 11 the Japanese Federation released the rosters for the thirteen combined men's and women's teams from eleven countries for the Nov. 24 International Chiba Ekiden.  The six-stage, 42.195 km race uniquely features alternating men's and women's stages.  At the forefront of the Japanese National Team are the leaders of the university athletics world, identical twins KentaMurayama (Komazawa Univ.) and Kota Murayama (Josai Univ.).  Joining them in hopes of generating Japan's first Chiba win in five years are Incheon Asian Games 10000 m bronze medalist Ayumi Hagiwara (Team Uniqlo) and other young stars.

The Japanese University Team features a solid lineup of current young collegiate talent including 2014 National University Track and Field Championships 10000 m runner-up Kentaro Hirai (Kyoto Univ.) and last year's Chiba Fourth Stage winner Natsuki Omori (Ritsumeikan Univ.…

by Brett Larner

update: Alternates have been confirmed for the final start list.  As expected, Komazawa's Kenta Murayama will be on First Stage and Toyo's Yuma Hattori on Second (see below).

The weekend's biggest race next to the TCS New York City Marathon is Sunday's National University Men's Ekiden, an 8-stage, 106.8 race from Nagoya to Ise pitting the 14 best universities in the Kanto Region against the 12 best from the rest of the country in the second stop on the Big Three University Ekiden tour that leads to Japan's biggest sporting event, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden.  With the first of the Big Three, October's Izumo Ekiden, having been cancelled this season thanks to a major typhoon and big performances at the Yosenkai 20 km Hakone qualifier, where the field set new world records for depth and Josai University senior Kota Murayama ran the fastest-ever time there by a Japanese athlete, 58:26, it's safe to say that the millions of college distance r…

by Brett Larner
videos by komazawaOB and 陸上競技動画集
click here for day two report

It's an idiosyncrasy of the Japanese racing calendar that both the National University Track and Field Championships and National Corporate Track and Field Championships take place in the fall well over three months after the more competitive regional meets and just after heavy summer mileage training.  That didn't seem to matter on the first day of the National University meet.



Continuing his return from the stress fracture that knocked both him and Yamanashi Gakuin University out of this year's Hakone Ekiden, 2014 Kanto Region double 1500 m and 5000 m champion Enock Omwamba and Kanto 10000 m champion Kota Murayama (Josai Univ.), the identical twin brother of #1-ranked Japanese collegiate Kenta Murayama (Komazawa Univ.), stole the show in the 1500 m with a brilliant head-to-head battle to the line far out in front of the rest of the field.  Coming off the last corner it looked like the strong-kic…

http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/sports/201407/0007125999.shtml

translated by Brett Larner

The biggest attraction in Kansai university athletics long distance these days is without a doubt Kyoto University junior Kentaro Hirai.  A graduate of Hotoku Gakuen H.S., Hirai won this spring's Kansai University Track and Field Championships 10000 m and finished 2nd in both the 5000 m and half marathon.  Running as Kyoto's best runner at last month's National University Ekiden Championships Kansai Region Qualifier, he finished 1st overall to lead Kyoto University to qualify for Nationals for the first time in 41 years, showing the strong and inspiring impact he is having on his teammates.  Hirai envisions a place for himself on a Japanese national team in the marathon.  We talked to this 21-year-old about his current situation and about his vision for the future.

You had a very strong first half of this season.

The Kansai Regionals meet lists people who score 20 or more points as indiv…

http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASG693FG1G69PTQP003.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

At the June 8 Kansai Region National University Men's Ekiden Championships Qualifier at Kyoto's Nishi Kyogo Sogo Sports Park Field, academic powerhouse Kyoto University finished 5th to qualify for the National Championship race for the first time since its fourth running in January, 1973 and only the second time in school history.  Ritsumeikan University won the regional qualifier for the Nov. 2 National Championships, to be run on a 106.8 km course between Atsuta Shrine in Aichi prefecture and Ise Shrine in Mie prefecture.

With a grab-bag team ranging from its star first-year recruit, 2013 World Youth Championships 10000 m racewalk gold medalist Toshikazu Yamanishi, to graduate student runners, the Kyoto team's efforts   just barely paid off.  Over four heats of 10000 m with two runners from each school per heat it came down to Kansai Regional Track and Field Championships 10000 m …