japan running news

The Tokyo Marathon kicks off the 2026 Abbott World Marathon Majors this Sunday. The forecast is looking pretty good, maybe a bit on the warm side but not like last year or even last weekend in Osaka , and with quality fields in all 4 races there's a decent chance we'll see some fast times on Tokyo's borderline record-eligible downhill course. As usual, JRN's Brett Larner will host Nippon TV's international broadcast on local affiliates in 115 countries worldwide starting at 9:00 a.m. local time Sunday. Details on where to watch the broadcast here . A live leaderboard will be posted here on race morning. In the wheelchair races Switzerland's Catherine Debrunner and Japan's Tomoki Suzuki both broke the Tokyo course records last year and are back for more this year. Debrunner could get a race out of British athlete Eden Rainbow-Cooper who she beat by just 1 second in Berlin 3 years ago, and if they go the whole way there could be another new CR. Suzuki w...

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis...

The Tokyo Marathon delivered on quality and exciting races, if not the record-breaking depth its entry lists promised. Swiss power duo Manuela Schar and Marcel Hug broke the course records in the wheelchair races, Schar soloing a 1:36:43 CR to win the women's race by more than 6 minutes over Japanese NR holder Tsubasa Kina . Hug worked together with Japanese men's NR holder Tomoki Suzuki for the first 25 km before hammering on the bridge over the Sumida River just before 30 km to put him away. Hug opened more than 3 1/2 minutes on Suzuki from there to the finish, winning in a new CR of 1:20:57. Based in Japan since 2010, first at Aomori Yamada H.S. and then at the Starts corporate team, Rosemary Wanjiru came to the Tokyo Marathon women's race ranked #2 in the field after a 2:18:00 debut for 2nd in Berlin last fall. Running a lead quartet with Ethiopians Tsehay Gemechu , Worknesh Edesa and last year's runner-up Ashete Bekere , Wanjiru was calm and relaxed until th...

Riding the wave of the massive results at last weekend’s Osaka Marathon, the Tokyo Marathon is back this Sunday with what looks set to be the deepest-ever men’s marathon and strong women’s and wheelchair races in the works. Conditions are looking ideal, with the current forecast predicting temperatures of 8˚C at the start rising to 9˚C by the finish, cloud cover, and gentle 2 m/s winds. Fuji TV’s international broadcast will be available worldwide , with leaderboard and athlete tracking here . In the men’s race, an incredible 56 men on the entry list have run sub-2:10 since 2020. The deepest-ever marathon, the 2021 Lake Biwa Marathon, produced 42 sub-2:10 performances. Given that Osaka last week had 32 recent sub-2:10 runners on its list and produced 35 sub-2:10s on a tougher course than Tokyo’s, expect things to go big. With a 2:03:36 in 2019 in Berlin, 2021 London winner Sisay Lemma is the only one in the field to have run sub-2:04. But after a sub-par year in 2022 he’s vulnerable...

The Tokyo Marathon returned to the streets of the nation's capital Sunday with both a mass participation field of 20,000 and a world-class elite race for the first time in three years. Three of the four divisions in the race had the world record holder in their respective category, and all three put in dominant performances to take the win.  Men's wheelchair marathon world record holder and double Paralympic gold medalist Marcel Hug  of Switzerland soloed a 1:22:16 to beat Japanese national record holder Tomoki Suzuki  by almost 7 minutes. Men's marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge  delivered one of the best performances of his career, taking command before all the pacers had dropped and pushing through headwinds over the final kilometers to win in 2:02:40, the 3rd-fastest record-legal time ever, fastest on Japanese soil, and fastest so far this year. And that despite a wrong turn when the police guide escort went the wrong way on a new section of course near...

Bigger things are happening in the world right now, but this Sunday the  Tokyo Marathon  returns to the streets with a full-sized elite and mass participation field for the first time since 2019. World record holders Brigid Kosgei  and Eliud Kipchoge  are there to lead it, broadcast live in 160 countries worldwide starting at 9:00 a.m. local Japan time with JRN's Brett Larner  on the commentary once again. Follow the leaderboard here , with athlete tracking here . For the second time in its history Tokyo has a significant course change this year, the addition of a new out-and-back toward Ueno just before 10 km and an equivalent cut from the final out-and-back toward Shinagawa. Not counting the triangular turnaround at Asakusa, that means Tokyo has gone from one 180˚ turn on the original course to two on the interim course to three on this course, something that will impact its overall quality and especially so for the wheelchair marathoners. The women's wheelch...

Having already eliminated its mass-participation field and over 90% of its staff and volunteers in a pre-emptive bid to stay ahead of the coronavirus situation, with just a couple of days to go the JAAF confirmed that Sunday's Tokyo Marathon would be a go. 24 hours later race director Tad Hayano kicked off the elite race press conference by talking about the difficult position the event is in but expressing optimism about the different races encapsulated in Sunday's marathon. They'll all be broadcast live in 117 countries around the world. A few words on each of them: Women's Wheelchair This was hit hardest by withdrawals, with seven of the ten women scheduled to compete pulling out including top three-ranked women Manuela Schar (Switzerland), Tatyana McFadden (U.S.A.) and Susannah Scaroni (U.S.A.). That leaves #4-ranked Tsubasa Kina (Japan) in the top spot and ready to take advantage of the wheelchair division prize money being doubled this year with addi...

Defending champions Marcel Hug (Switzerland), Yuki Kawauchi (Japan), Desiree Linden (U.S.A.) and Tatyana McFadden (U.S.A.) will return to the April 15 Boston Marathon to lead the John Hancock Elite Athlete Team.