japan running news

A veteran and a first-timer made the headlines from the opposite ends of the spectrum at Sunday's Hokkaido Marathon in Sapporo, Hokkaido, the first race in the second season of qualifying for the MGC Race, Japan's new 2020 Olympic trials race to be held in September next year. A passing typhoon brought cooler than usual weather to Hokkaido and a better-than-usual chance of hitting the sub-2:13 and sub-2:30 qualifying marks most Olympic aspirants would have to clear.

The men's race was simply a race of attrition, with no dramatic changes in pace or sudden moves, just a large pack of motivated people going out mid-2:11 pace in a race where only two men have ever cleared 2:12, neither of them Japanese. In the pack, 59:47 Kenyan Paul Kuira (Konica Minolta), the promising young Shohei Otsuka (Kyedenko), championships marathoner extraordinaire Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki),2016 Sydney Marathon winner Tomohiro Tanigawa (Konica Minolta), luckless veteran Naoki Okamoto (Chugok…

Marathon season kicks off this weekend with three races featuring elite-level Japanese marathoners.

Saturday morning the athletics segment of the Jakarta Asian Games gets rolling with the men's marathon. With a 2:06:54 best from February's Tokyo Marathon Japan's Hiroto Inoue is the heavy favorite if he can handle the heat. His nearest competition, Ethiopian Bahraini Abdi Abdo, ran 2:08:32 in Rome this year, and Inoue's teammate Hayato Sonoda is the only other man in the field to have broken 2:10. With Bahrain's second man, the Moroccan El Hassan El Abbassi, ranked 4th at 2:10:57 it's pretty much a Japan-Bahrain dual on the men's side. Should Inoue succeed he'll be the first Japanese man to win Asian Games gold since Takeyuki Nakayama set the still-standing championships record of 2:08:21 at the 1986 Seoul Games. It's unusual to see an A-lister like Inoue run the Asian Games, but considering the weather conditions he'll face if he makes the Toky…

Last year the Hokkaido Marathon saw the first pair of Japanese athletes qualify for the new MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials event, with winners Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) and Akinobu Murasawa (Nissin Shokuhin) winning under the time standards they needed for MGC qualification. Since then the numbers have grown to 13 men and 6 women on the qualifier list with another 16 women and 34 men halfway there thanks to an option for qualifying via a two-race average time standard. As an August event Hokkaido is always on the hot side, but success there might predict success in Tokyo 2020 and easier time standards than any of the other domestic options for MGC qualification there's no shortage of top-level Japanese talent lining up to give it a go this year.

The winning Japanese woman in Hokkaido will qualify for the MGC race if under 2:32:00, with up to 5 more qualifying if under 2:30:00. London World Championships team member Mao Kiyota (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) leads the women's list w…

The withdrawal of Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki), Japan's best championship marathoner of the modern era, from the Boston Marathon field with a stress fracture is a blow to what would have been the best Japanese contingent in Boston in decades.

Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) leads the way, arriving in Boston off wins in his last four marathons:
2:10:03, Hofu Yomiuri Marathon, 12/17/172:18:59 CR, Marshfield New Year's Day Marathon, 1/1/182:11:46 CR, Kitakyushu Marathon, 2/18/182:14:12, Wan Jin Shi Marathon, 3/18/18 Kawauchi hopes to at least equal Suguru Osako's top 3 placing in last year's Boston, his optimism growing as the weather forecast gets worse.
Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) runs for what was once Japan's most successful corporate team in the marathon, his best of 2:12:31 coming 6 years ago at Lake Biwa and his fastest recent time a 2:13:33 in Tokyo last year. Okamoto earned a place in Boston by winning February's tough and hilly Ome 30 km …

It's been a month since the 94th Hakone Ekiden wrapped up. Every university is busy piecing together its new team. After making the seeded top ten for the first time in four years, Takushoku University, alma mater of Olympic marathoners Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki) and Arata Fujiwara (Arata Project) has named third-year Derese Workneh its team captain for the 2018-19 season. Under the leadership of this exceptional foreign student athlete the team aims to beat its best-ever Hakone placing, 7th. The clock is already ticking to the 95th running.

Veteran head coach Masahiro Okada, 72, is confident in his choice of captain. "The only one who can lead the new Takushoku is Derese," said Okada. He informed the team of his decision at its first meeting on Jan. 4, a day after Takushoku returned to the seeded bracket with an 8th place finish at this year's Hakone.

【箱根への道】異例！新主将は留学生　拓大・デレセ、言葉より「ハートで引っ張る」 https://t.co/swq5EpuPID#スポーツ新聞pic.twitter.com/GmCqADGqLX — スポーツ報知 (@…

Held alongside the Osaka International Women's Marathon, the Osaka Half Marathon has continued to grow at the elite level into one of the post-ekiden season's top-tier Japanese half marathons. On the women's side, Maki Ashi (Kyudenko) was just off her best as she won in 1:11:26, opening a lead of over 20 seconds in the first 5 km and going the rest of the way alone. Ayaka Yokose (Yamada Denki) was the only other woman to crack 1:12, 2nd in 1:11:58. Taiwanese national record holder Chien-ho Hsieh spent most of the race in 3rd, but despite getting caught by Madoka Nakano (Noritz) with just over 5 km to go Hsieh pushed on to take almost three minutes off her own national record, landing 4th in 1:12:19.

The men's race saw a deep pack go through halfway on sub-1:02 pace, things slowing slightly before 15 km but no real carnage happening until the final stages. With seven still in contention with just over a kilometer to go it came down to a sprint finish on the track, the …

Sunday's Osaka International Women's Marathon leads the way in Japanese road action this weekend. With qualification spots in the MGC Race 2020 Olympic Trials at stake for the home field there are three main questions:

Can straight-arm specialist Yuka Ando (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) duplicate her 2:21:36 debut in Nagoya last year after running badly at the London World Championships?Can Honami Maeda (Tenmaya), the only Japanese woman to have qualified for the MGC Race so far, run a fast marathon for real after conquering the heat to win August's Hokkaido Marathon in 2:28:48?What can last year's 10000 m national champion Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) do in her debut?Eunice Jeptoo (Kenya) tops the international list with a 2:26:13 in Eindhoven last year, with the debuting Gotytom Gebreslase (Ethiopia) the wildcard, her best mark at distance a 49:56 at last year's Utica Boilermaker 15 km. 
Osaka will be broadcast live Sunday by Fuji TV starting at noon local time. A free live …

Japan's Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) and Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki) will run the 2018 Boston Marathon as part of the John Hancock Elite Athlete Team. Kawauchi holds world records for everything from most career sub-2:12 marathons to most sub-2:20, while Nakamoto is Japan's best championships marathoner of modern times with four top 10 finishes at the Olympics and World Championships.

Longtime rivals, their duel at the 2013 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon was one of the classics of Japanese marathoning, both running sub-2:09 PBs as Kawauchi set a still-standing course record of 2:08:15. The pair has a 3-3 record in the marathon so far, their most recent meeting coming at last summer's London World Championships where Kawauchi ran Nakamoto down in the last kilometer to take 9th. Boston will be their 7th and likely final face-off.

Our 2018 #BostonMarathon International Elite Field includes 46 of the world’s best marathoners from 13 countries. Watch to see the …

2017 saw Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) saw him extending his range at both ends of his spectrum with two sub-2:10s, breaking Ethiopian great Abebe Mekonnen's world record for most career sub-2:12 marathons, and, in his final race of the year, tying American Doug Kurtis' sub-2:20 world record. Along the way he set at least 10 course records, won 5 marathons, and took the top Japanese spot at 9th in the London World Championships, altogether making for one of the better years he's had so far.

Based on the assumption that his performance at the 2016 Fukuoka Marathon, the "Miracle in Fukuoka," was going to be enough to get him on the London team Kawauchi spent the New Year running on the London course and in preparation for August's World Championshps planned to run one overseas marathon a month starting in April. He tuned up at February's amateur-level Ehime Marathon, where an unexpectedly aggressive debut by local boy Yohei Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) …

After a slow start to the year Yuta Shitara (Honda) exploded with one of the most memorable debut marathons in Japanese history, building momentum that carried him all the way to a half marathon national record and the top of JRN’s 2017 men’s rankings.



After a mediocre New Year Ekiden and a decent run at the Marugame Half, Shitara turned heads with a fearless 1:01:55 first half in his debut at February’s Tokyo Marathon. Shitara died a thousand deaths over the second half but still lasted to a 2:09:27, a promise of more to come. Track season was unremarkable, but entering the fall he planned to tune up for the Berlin Marathon with a 10 km and half marathon in the Czech Republic. After a 28:56 in Prague, Shitara shocked the country with a 1:00:17 national record at the Usti nad Labem Half, a seemingly suicidal move a week out from Berlin.

There he vowed to go out with top group Eliud Kipchoge, Wilson Kipsang and Kenenisa Bekele no matter what, and Shitara did his best to live up to t…

In a year that saw him deliver one of the most memorable debut marathons in history, a half marathon national record, 10000 m and marathon PBs and more, Yuta Shitara (Honda) ended 2017 on a high note, beating three-time defending champion Jeremiah Thuku Karemi (Toyota Kyushu) to win the 42nd Kumamoto Kosa 10-Miler. Shitara, Karemi, London World Championships marathoner Hiroto Inoue (MHPS), Ethiopian Abayneh Degu (Yasukawa Denki) and track ace Shuho Dairokuno (Asahi Kasei) ran together in a lead group through the early going, but Shitara was just too much for the others to handle.

Shitara broke the tape in 45:58, only the fourth Japanese man to ever clear 45 minutes. Karemi was well under last year's winning time but nowhere close to catching Shitara, finishing 2nd in 46:10 and Inoue only 2 seconds behind him. With many corporate and university teams using Kosa to tune up for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden and Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden, it regularly produces the deepest 10 mile results i…

Thanks to a last-minute rush Japan walked away from the London World Championships with a passable haul. The JAAF judges performance in terms of medals and top 8 finishes. Up to Saturday, only one Japanese athlete had met either, 18-year-old sprinter Abdul Hakim Sani Brown finishing 7th in the men's 200 m final as the first Japanese man to make a 200 m final at Worlds since 2003. Three other Japanese athletes had scored top 10 placings, Yuki Kawauchi and Kentaro Nakamoto in the men's marathon and Ayuko Suzuki in the women's 10000 m, but under the JAAF's criteria these were not viewed as success.


Saturday's men's 4x100 m final brought the first Japanese medal of the Championships, with Japan following up on its Rio Olympics silver with a bronze, its first-ever Worlds medal in the discipline. Sunday morning brought Japan's best-ever showing in the men's 50 km race walk, Rio bronze medalist Hirooki Arai moving up to silver, Kai Kobayashi taking bronze wit…

The six members of Japan's men's and women's marathon teams at the ongoing London World Championships returned to Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Aug. 9. Decked out in the official team suit, Japanese team captain and at 9th the top-placing Japanese marathoner in London Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) spoke to the media.

Having declared pre-race his intention to withdraw from consideration for future Japanese National Team positions, post-race Kawauchi showed no change in that intent. With regard to his future plans, his motivation as a competitor likewise remaining unchanged, Kawauchi indicated that he will run Decmeber's Fukuoka International Marathon,where his 3rd-place overall finish last year earned him his place in London. "In Fukuoka I want to break my PB and run 2:07," he said. "There are things I want to accomplish besides being on the National Team."

Kawauchi revealed that his next marathon will be September's Oslo Marathon, whe…