japan running news

Having been named to the Kenyan men's team for this summer's Paris Olympics, Alexander Mutiso , 27, of the Nanyo, Yamagata-based ND Software corporate team, told the Yamagata Newspaper on May 13 that his goal for the Olympic marathon is "to be #1." Having lived in Yamagata for 10 years, Mutiso has strong attachment to the area and credits its environment for helping him develop, saying, "Ever since I came to Yamagata I've been running well." He left for Kenya on May 14 to join the Kenyan national team training camp, aiming to be in perfect condition when he arrives in Paris for the main event. Mutiso came to Japan in 2015, joining the ND Software team and taking up residence in Nanyo. "I don't like the cold winters in Yamagata so much, but the other seasons are nice." From that base he has grown into the athlete he is now, competing in races across Japan and around the world. Compared to the track, his strengths lie more in long road races...

Five elite Japanese athletes were at Sunday's London Marathon. In the women's race, Ai Hosoda (Edion) followed up on her 2:24:26 from Nagoya this spring with a 2:21:42 for 9th, over a minute faster than the previous best-ever by a Japanese woman in Great Britian run 20 years ago in London by the great Reiko Tosa . In Nagoya Hosoda went with the leaders at sub-2:21 pace and faded after 20 km. Here she ran steadily at 2:21 pace and survived to come home with the fastest Japanese time overseas so far this year. Reia Iwade (Adidas) dropped out after 25 km, tweeting later that she had had leg pain that forced her to stop. In the men's race, 2019 Doha World Championships team member Kohei Futaoka (Chudenko) was the top finisher at 11th in 2:14:18, just ahead of veteran Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku). Futaoka's teammate Naoki Aiba (Chudenko) went out fastest and died hardest, finishing 27th in 2:22:45, one second slower than Tosa's previous Japanese women's GBR...

Another late-career overseas win from the great Toshihiko Seko , this one at the 1986 London Marathon.

15 Japanese men and 6 Japanese women lined up at overseas marathons Sunday to try one last time to qualify for the MGC Race, Japan's new 2020 Olympic trials marathon event, ahead of its Apr. 30 deadline, or to try to get under the Olympic standard before the Sept. 15 MGC Race. For men the needed marks were 2:08:30 or two races inside the qualifying window averaging 2:11:00 or better. For women, 2:24:00 and 2:28:00. Already in, Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki) ran the Krakow Marathon in hopes of clearing the 2:11:30 men's standard. Running steadily and under control on 2:10:20 pace, Nakamoto lasted until a final move by eventual winner Cyprian Kotut (Kenya) around 37 km put him away. As Kotut took off to win in 2:09:18, Nakamoto began to fade, holding on the 2nd place but just missing the Olympic standard in 2:11:34. The Hamburg Marathon saw the largest number of Japanese athletes, with 4 women and 13 men. Among the women Yuka Takashima (Shiseido) had the easiest task,...

The worldwide elite-level marathon season wrapped up for the first half of 2018 with last Sunday's Gold Coast Marathon in Australia and Hakodate Marathon in Japan. Yes, they were technically on July 1, but it was still June 30 in much of the world so we're going to count them anyway. Which countries led the way in performance and which races were the world's best in the first six months of the year? JRN breaks down the numbers to find the answers. Click any of the tables below to enlarge them. Corrections and additions are always welcome. In terms of time, Ethiopia led the way this season with the fastest overall men's time and the fastest averages of its ten best men's and women's times. Vivian Cheruiyot 's 2:18:31 win in London was the only Kenyan performance to make a dent in the Ethiopian domination of the time lists. For both men and women it's already Ethiopia's best year on record. Ethiopian women are knocking on a top ten average und...

Last weekend's Ottawa Marathon  was the final IAAF gold label marathon of the spring season, marking a lull until July's Gold Coast Airport Marathon and August's London World Championships . Gold label events are required to recruit elite athletes of a variety of nationalities under specific time standards, currently 2:10:00 for men and 2:28:00 for women in the marathon, in order to earn that label. Nike's Breaking2 experiment aside, the Tokyo Marathon men's race was the best of the season, led by Wilson Kipsang 's year-leading 2:03:58 Japanese all-comers record. Mary Keitany 's 2:17:01 women-only world record likewise marked the London Marathon as the top women's race so far this year. But looking beyond just the fastest winning time, what were the best marathons in the first five months of 2017 by depth of quality? The races with the most gold label performances, the standard that the IAAF has decreed as the top level of the sport? Below are the ...

https://www.iaaf.org/news/report/jepchirchir-breaks-world-half-marathon-record The Ras Al-Khaimah Half was the fifth-straight win for Tokyo-based Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC), having won two track races in 24 hours at November's Nittai University Time Trials meet , the first a 10000 m in 27:07.30, a brilliant win in the most competitive January race in the world, the New Year Ekiden's 8.3 km Second Stage , and a tune-up for RAK with a win at the 10 km Discovery Cross meet in Kenya late last month.  Karoki is set to debut at April's London Marathon after a DNS there last year. photo © 2017 Dr. Helmut Winter all rights reserved

https://www.iaaf.org/competitions/iaaf-world-cross-country-championships/news/cross-country-eldoret-san-sebastian Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC) is based in Tokyo and trains on Yoyogi Park's cross-country loop almost every morning when in town.

by Brett Larner The 4th-place finish by Volha Mazuronak of Belarus at last weekend's London Marathon turned heads around the world.  Her time of 2:23:54 may become a national record pending the annulment of times run by Belarussian Alexsandra Duliba following January's announcement of Duliba's suspension on biological passport violations.  New York Road Runners professional athlete consultant David Monti was quick to point out Mazuronak's splits , a 1:13:19 first half, 1:10:35 second half and 7:08 for the final 2.195 km split from 40 km to the finish, the fastest closing split in the London women's field and on a par with or better than the 6th through 10th-place men there.  Mara Yamauchi , the second-fastest British woman ever in the marathon, wrote an analysis noting the similarity between Mazuronak's splits and those in a 2012 JRN analysis of performances by Eastern European women represented by Russian Andrey Baranov and his Spartanik agency. B...

http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/etc/20160426-OHT1T50059.html translated by Brett Larner Civil servant runner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't), age 29, returned to Tokyo's Narita Airport on April 26 after winning Sunday's Zurich Marathon in 2:12:04 in snowy conditions .  At the same time that Kawauchi was racing in Zurich, corporate league star Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) also age 29, ran the London Marathon, finishing 11th in 2:12:14.  Pre-race Kawauchi had said, "There's no way I'm going to lose to him," and having lived up to his words he was very pleased with the outcome of the 'Yuki Showdown.'  "I beat [Sato] on time, and with worse [weather] conditions in Zurich I win on racing too." Having missed the Rio Olympic team, Kawauchi's major goal now is the 2017 London World Championships, what he considers now will be his last time going for a place on a national team.  Kawauchi is focusing on December's Fukuok...

by Brett Larner Most of the running world will be focused on the London Marathon, where among others Japanese track and ekiden great Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) will be trying again to get the marathon right, but there's at least one other good race this weekend.  Last year Yoshiko Sakamoto (YWC), an unknown amateur runner and mother of three , seemed to come out of nowhere to win Switzerland's Zurich Marathon , with the popular Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) taking 2nd in what ended up being his fastest race of an injury-prone 2015.  This year both Sakamoto and Kawauchi return to Zurich for Sunday's race with support from JRN. Sakamoto faces at least two strong rivals this year.  It has been a while since Kenyan-born Swede Isabellah Andersson 's 2:23:41 PB in Dubai 2011 or even since she broke 2:30, but with a 2:30:02 in Tokyo in February she is still the best in the field.  A stroke against her: Andersson only joined the Zurich field after a DN...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/why-japans-incredible-longdistance-runners-will-never-win-the-london-marathon-10182050.html Two Japanese long distance runners have, in fact, won the London Marathon .  The coach cited in the article, Kenji Takao , is a middle and long distance track coach at Ritsumeikan University , a Kansai Region school in Kyoto that, being outside the Tokyo-centric Kanto Region, does not participate in the Hakone Ekiden.

by Brett Larner The biggest domestic road action of the weekend took place in Shizuoka at the Yaizu Minato Half Marathon where Yoshiki Koizumi  of 2013 Hakone Ekiden winner Nittai University  battled last year's winner Tomoyasu Matsui  (Meiji Univ.) from start to finish, both breaking the course record as Koizumi claimed the win in 1:03:26. 2013 National University Men's Ekiden champion Komazawa University  had the next two men across the line, both Kohei Futaoka  and Shoya Kurokawa  timed at 1:03:48.  Komazawa took the win in Yaizu's University Pair Marathon team scoring based on the combined times of its top two finishers, setting a new record of 2:07:36. Nittai was just a second behind, likewise clearing the old record in 2:07:37.  The top non-collegiate runner was Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref. Gov't), 9th overall in 1:04:19 a week after his latest marathon course record win in Saga.  Almost simultaneously, his youngest brother Ko...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20140411-1283502.html translated by Brett Larner In an April 10 interview ahead of her marathon debut at Sunday's London Marathon as an invited elite, Yuko Shimizu (Team Sekisui Kagaku) was cautiously ambitious as she said, "However it turns out, I want to have fun running it.  I want to race at a good pace I can sustain."  Last year's East Asian Games 10000 m gold medalist, Shimizu will be up against the likes of giants like 2012 London Olympics marathon gold medalist Tiki Gelana (Ethiopia) and two-time World Championships gold medalist Edna Kiplagat  (Kenya).  "How often do you get the chance to be on the starting line with the best in the world?" Shimizu said with enthusiasm.

http://lrn.london-marathon.com/mathathi-and-steel-drop-out-injuries/

by Brett Larner photo by Martin Lever Coming in fit off a 1:08:59 win at March's National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, 2011 Daegu World Championships marathon 5th-placer Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren) ran a smart, steady and strong race at the Apr. 21 London Marathon, staying near 2:24 pace as the lead group of Kenyan and Ethiopia women fluctuated, sometimes far ahead, sometimes all around her, and on at least two occasions falling behind her. Initially working with Mai Ito  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) to reach the Federation's sub-2:24 time goal for the Moscow World Championships team, Akaba slipped off track late in the race after Ito dropped behind but continued to press ahead, reeling in five of the seven Africans up front to take 3rd in 2:24:43, her third time running 2:24 in London. Ito, still hot from a 1:10:00 half marathon PB two weeks ago in Berlin, couldn't keep up with Akaba's bid for a 2:23 and landed 7th in 2:28:37.  The other three Japanese wome...

by Brett Larner There is a busy weekend ahead domestically and abroad, on the roads and on the track for Japan's distance athletes.  At Sunday's Nagano Marathon , civil servant runner Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref. Gov't) will seek to become the first Japanese man to win in Nagano's fifteen-year history in his fourth marathon of the year.  His main competition comes in the form of Kenyan Silas Sang , who set his 2:09:10 best in finishing 2nd last year.  Also of note is former national record holder Atsushi Fujita  (Team Fujitsu), running his final race before retiring.  Kenyans Beatrice Jepkemboi  and Esther Nganga  are the favorites in the women's race, with Mika Okunaga  (Yufuin Hammock AC) leading the domestic contingent. Overseas, the unfortunate withdrawal this week of the promising Bunta Kuroki  (Team Yasukawa Denki) from the London Marathon men's field means that Japan's Moscow World Championships marathon team is all but fina...

http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/news/sports/453005.html translated by Brett Larner At a Mar. 27 press conference in Sapporo the Hokuren women's distance team announced changes to its lineup for the 2013-14 season.   Tsuyoshi Takita , 49, head coach since 2010, will resign from his position to be replaced by current assistant coach Takashi Ota , 36.  Ota spoke to reporters of his ambitions for the team, saying, "I want to cultivate athletes who will make the national team." Ota is a Hokkaido native from Shiraoi, Iburi.  After graduating from Tomakomai Minami H.S. he attended Sapporo Gakuin University before going on to a pro career with the NEC team.  In 2003 he transferred to the Konica Minolta team where he had great success at the half marathon and on the ekiden circuit.  He became assistant coach at Hokuren in 2011 following his retirement from competition. Of his immediate goals for the team Ota said, "We will aim to clear the 2:20:10 qualifying standar...

by Brett Larner Course record holder Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren) ran 1:08:59 to claim her second National Corporate Half Marathon Championships  victory Mar. 17 in Yamaguchi. With the first sub-1:09 by a Japanese woman since her 1:08:11 course record in 2008 Akaba outran ekiden star Hanae Tanaka  (Team Daiichi Seimei), who made a solid debut in 1:09:18. Having faltered in recent seasons and missing the London Olympics, Akaba will run next month's London Marathon, the site of her best marathon to date, in a bid to make the Moscow World Championships team.   Riko Matsuzaki  (Team Sekisui Kagaku) won the women's 10 km in 32:48 by a margin of 7 seconds. In the men's race 22-year-old  Fumihiro Maruyama  (Team Asahi Kasei), 2nd behind Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref. Gov't) at last month's Kumanichi 30 km, won in a PB 1:01:15, outrunning Kenyans Johana Maina  (Team Fujitsu) and, in his last run in Japan,  Gideon Ngatuny  (Team Nissin ...

http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=spo_30&k=2012112800574 translated by Brett Larner The organizers of the Dec. 2 Fukuoka International Marathon announced on Nov. 28 that three-time London Marathon winner Martin Lel  (Kenya), with a best time of 2:05:15, has withdrawn from Sunday's race due to an injury to his right thigh.