japan running news

Kanto Regionals were the big domestic meet this weekend, but there were other important results here and overseas. At the Xiamen Diamond League meet: 110 mH NR holder Rachid Muratake (JAL) was 2nd in 13.13 (+0.5) behind winner Jamal Britt (U.S.A.) in 13.07. The only other Japanese athlete in Xiamen, women's javelin throw NR holder Haruka Kitaguchi (JAL) was 7th at 60.08, down from her performance last week at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix Meet in Tokyo and eclipsed by the brilliant all-time #2 71.74 m throw by China's Ziyi Yan . 4 Japanese athletes ran at the Sound Running L.A,.Track Fest meet, 3 of them graduates of Kyoto's Rakunan H.S. like Kanto Regionals D1 men's 5000 m winner Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.). The only non-Rakunan guy there, Hibiki Obara (GMO) ran only 8:33.21 for 9th in the men's 3000 mSC A-heat. Daichi Shibata (Chuo Univ.) was last in the same heat in 8:49.91. Itta Tameike (SG Holdings) had a great run in the men's 5000 m B-heat, breakin...

Alongside the National High School Girls Ekiden , the Nittai University Women's Long Distance Time Trials meet and Sanyo Ladies Road Race 10 km and half marathon made it a busy weekend for women's running in Japan. At Nittai, Momoka Kawaguchi (Uniqlo) was just off her PB in the 5000 m, winning the A-heat in 15:26.59 by almost 20 seconds over teammate Yume Goto . Nokoka Hosaka (SID Group) took the 3000 m A-heat in 9:25.42, leading the top 5 under 9:30. At Sanyo, a lead group of 4 went through 5 km in 16:09 in the 10 km before Lucy Nduta (Ehime Ginko) threw in a massive surge to win in a negative split 31:49. Janet Nyiva (Panasonic) held steady for 2nd in 32:17, with Mao Uesugi (Tokyo Metro) fading slightly but holding off the fast-closing Hikaru Kitagawa (Universal Entertainment) for 3rd 32:38 to 32:41. Part of the original lead quartet, Daisy Jerop (Josai Kokusai Univ.) blew up big time in the 2nd half, finishing 16th in 33:34. Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) just misse...

After last weekend's massive total of 53 people sub-28 for 10000 m at the Hachioji Long Distance and MARCH Taikosen meets , another 17 did it Saturday in the A-heat at the last full Nittai University Time Trials meet of the year. After multiple heats saw winning times under 28:10, Amos Bett (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) led the 16th heat with a  27:44.02 PB, just beating Emmanuel Yegon (Subaru) who was 2nd in 27:44.23. The next 3 were all in 27:45, the top Japanese finisher being Tatsuya Iyoda (Fujitsu) in 27:45.72 for 5th. A total of 9 Japanese men broke 28 minutes, with former Tokai University runner Shotaro Ishihara (SGH) making a corporate league breakthrough in 27:53.19 for 11th. Nittai's Ryuto Hirashima ran a school record 27:56.84 for 13th to add to the school records at Aoyama Gakuin University , Chuo University , Koku Gakuin University and Rikkyo University last weekend. Out of the 20 university teams set to run January's Hakone Ekiden, 13 now have at least one cu...

Between international travel and illness we've been AWOL for a while, but it's time to catch up on what's been going on. The Hokuren Distance Challenge series rolled on with two more meets in Kitami on the 16th and Chitose on the 12th . After shaving 0.05 off the South Korean men's 1500 m NR last month at the HDC Shibetsu meet , Jae Ung Lee took the NR into new territory with a 3:36.01 win in Kitami. He was pushed all the way by Nanami Arai (Honda), who moved up to all-time Japanese #3 with a 3:36.58 for 2nd. The women's 3000 m in Kitami was fast too, with an 8:41.62 win from Caroline Kariba (Japan Post) and an all-time Japanese #5 8:48.90 PB from her injury-prone teammate Ririka Hironaka for 2nd. Margaret Ekalale (Toyota Jidoshokki) led the women's 1500 m in 4:09.64, with Na Yeon Park just missing the South Korean NR by 0.07 in 4:14.25 for 2nd. Ayano Shiomi (Iwatani Sangyo) inched back toward 2-flat to win the women's 800 m in 2:02.60, one of the f...

2022 National High School Ekiden girls' champion Nagano Higashi H.S. was back in force after a 5th-place finish last year, leading start to finish to win this year's national title Sunday in Kyoto. Lead runner Airi Mashiba kicked it off with a 19:30 stage win on the 6.0 km opening leg, something that head coach Fumio Yokouchi said later that he hadn't been expecting. That ended up being Nagano Higashi's only individual stage win in the 5-leg, 21.0975 km race, but the rest of its team ran well enough to hold a lead that was never less than 11 seconds but never more than 21. Last year's 4th-placer Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. spent most of the race in 2nd, but over the second half of the race Sendai Ikuei H.S. , 2nd last year by just 1 second, came from further back to run Kunei down on the anchor stage thanks in big part to a critical stage win on the 4th leg by Tsubomi Tezuka that put anchor Aoi Hosokawa in position to catch Kunei's Mizuki Oda . Nagano Higashi ...

Corporate women had their national championship ekiden last weekend, but for everyone else the biggest races of the year are still coming up in the next month, and a lot of them were at Nittai University this weekend for one of the last big tune-ups. The men's 10000 m fast heat had a massive 18 people break 28 minutes, and this just a week after the main 10000 m of the season in Hachioji . Up front there was a thrilling photo finish, with steeplechase specialist Philemon Kiplagat going right to the line with NR holder Kazuya Shiojiri who had scratched from Hachioji, both of them clocking 27:36.37 but Kiplagat getting the win. Shiojiri's corporate team Fujitsu had 7 men break 28 including marathon NR holder Kengo Suzuki , with Asahi Kasei turning out 3 and Subaru 2, raising the stakes for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden. Speaking of steeplechase and Subaru, NR holder Ryuji Miura was nowhere near the NR attempt he'd floated pre-race but still had a decent run in the 5000 m...

  The Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon aside, a quick roundup of results from this past weekend: At the Nittai University Time Trials , aka the Nittaidai Challenge Games, Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) led a great men's 10000 m A-heat in 27:20.05, with the top six men all going under 27:28. James Mutuku (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) was the only other collegiate runner among them at 3rd in 27:23.09, with 2:06 marathoner Hidekazu Hijikata (Asahi Kasei) the top Japanese finisher at 8th in 28:23.27. Mutuku's YGU teammate Brian Kipyegon won the 5000 m A-heat in 13:30.88, James Karuri (Aomori Yamada H.S.) next in 13:33.67 and Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.) 3rd in 13:48.44. Soya Katayama (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) had the fastest 1500 m with a 3:46.19 to win the A-heat. In the women's races at Nittai, Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) was the only one to clear 16 minutes in the 5000 m A-heat, running 15:27.12 for the win. Lucy Nduta (Aomori Yamada H.S.) was likewise the only one u...

Fukuoka and Hofu were the big races of the weekend in Japan, but there was a lot of other action going on across the country. Saturday at a special one-day edition of the rebranded Nittai University Time Trials series in Yokohama, 19-year-old Sonata Nagashima (Asahi Kasei) followed up Keita Sato 's 27:28.50 U20 10000 m national record last weekend with the second-fastest time ever by a Japanese U20 man, winning the fast heat in 27:44.86. 21-year-old Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) was just back in 27:47.01 for 2nd, with 3rd through 5th all getting under 28 minutes. The 10000 m National Championships are still coming Dec. 10, but as of this race Japan has 30 men sub-28 this year. By comparison, Kenya has 58, 49 of them done in Japan, Ethiopia has 11, and the U.S.A. has 8. The winner at last month's Fst in Fukuoka road 5 km, Edwin Kisalsak (Fujisan no Meisui) took the men's 5000 m fast heat at Nittai in 13:19.97. Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima) was the top Japanese m...

Following yesterday's mishap in the opening heats , Soma Nagahara (Saku Chosei H.S.) delivered the performance of this year's National High School Track and Field Championships. Straight to the front form the guy, Nagahara broke 3000 mSC national record holder Ryuji Miura 's high school NR by over 7 seconds to win the national title in 8:32.12. Still a senior in high school, that time was also good enough to rank him at all-time #3 on the Japanese U20 lists and #3 in the world this year among U20 athletes. And it wasn't just him. The race as a whole was the best high school steeple ever, with 2nd-placer Zen Kuroda (Tamano Konan H.S.) running 8:40.71 for #4 on the high school all-time lists, 3rd-placer Taisei Endo (Saku Chosei H.S.) 8:45.47 for #6, and 4th-placer Oju Tsujimoto (Hamamatsu Kaiseizan H.S.) 8:46.85 for #8. By comparison, the American H.S. NR for the 3000 mSC is 8:47.04. Still in college, Miura really looks to have opened the door for other Japanese athl...

The track at Yokohama's Nittai University is on fire right now, with big results coming almost every week in the Nittai University Time Trials series. Saturday's 302nd edition was a special one-day version with only a few men's 5000 m heats. 16-year-old Lucy Nduta (Aomori Yamada H.S.) kicked it off with a 8:59.03 win in the fast heat of the women's 3000 m, beating national champion Meijo University 's Yuma Yamamoto , 9:01.18, and 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka , 9:05.15. Sub-9 at 16, and that wasn't even a PB for Nduta. Corporate leaguer Hellen Ekarare (Toyota Jidoshokki) took the 5000 m A-heat in 15:16.80, the most notable results there being a 15:36.02 PB from national champ Shiseido 's Wakana Kabasawa for 2nd and a very decent 15:48.35 by Aoi Yamaguchi of Fukui's Sabae H.S. The biggest results were in the men's 10000 m, again. Between the four heats a total of 42 men were sub-29, that on top of the 199 who did it at Nittai and elsewhere la...