japan running news

http://athleticsasia.org/index.php/k2-component/69-21st-asian-athletics-championships-2015-distance-running-preview

by Brett Larner Cloudless skies, a fresh snow cap and carefully worked out camera angles that included Mt. Fuji as a backdrop in almost every shot made for spectacular viewing at the second running of the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden , the last elite race of the year on the Japanese calendar.  Formerly held in Tsukuba, Ibaraki and serving as the season-ending National University Women's Invitational Ekiden Championships, the Mt. Fuji race was once again dominated by the unstoppable Ritsumeikan University whose seven runners handled the downhill first half, flat middle and 164 m-climb 7.7 km anchor stage with equal skill, all seven making the top four out of twenty on their stages. Maya Iino (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) took a short-lived lead on the 78 m-downhill First Stage, but Ritsumeikan's Tomoka Iwai was quick to move to the front on the 25 m-descent Second Stage.  3000 mSC collegiate national record holder Chikako Mori (Daito Bunka Univ.) provided a brief challenge, but Iwa...

by Brett Larner The men's Big Three University Ekidens, the Izumo Ekiden, National University Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden, are some of Japan's most popular sports events, their live nationwide broadcasts drawing tens of millions of viewers.  By comparison, the university women's ekiden season lags behind, down at one point to just October's Morinomiyako National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai but back up to two in the 2013-14 year with the relaunch of the discontinued National University Women's Invitational Ekiden on a new course as the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden .  This season a completely new event, the one-way massively uphill Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden , brings things up to parity. In a way.  In profile the Nikko Irohazaka course is almost identical to that of Hakone's most famous stage, the Fifth Stage, with 875 m of non-stop climb over 23.4 km, the steepest section coming just after halfway before flattening out and dropping in the f...

by Brett Larner A local Ugandan newspaper as tweeted by WUCCC organizers FISU . Hosts Uganda  dominated the 19th edition of the World University Cross Country Championships Mar. 22 in Entebbe, winning both individual gold medals and the women's team gold.  The women's race, four laps of a roughly 1.5 km loop, went out as a race between Uganda and neighboring Kenya , with Kenya's Sheila Kandie leading Uganda's Winnie Nanyondo  and Dorcus Ajok through the first lap before Nanyondo moved to the front.  Uganda's third woman, Prim Twikiriza , sat a few seconds back in the chase back with Japan's Ayumi Uehara , Fuyuka Kimura  and Natsumi Ozawa . On the third lap Nanyondo surged, covering it in 4:56.24, to drop both Kandie and Ajok, and from there she ran alone all the way to the finish to claim gold by a margin of nearly 30 seconds.  Ajok also got clear of Kandie on the third lap for silver, but on the fourth lap she was nearly run down by Twikiriza wh...

http://www.iuau.jp/news/2014/19wuxc_delegate.pdf Following the selection race at last weekend's Fukuoka International Cross Country Meet, the IUAU has announced the Japanese men's and women's team lineups for the Mar. 22 World University Cross Country Championships in Entebbe, Uganda.   Hiroshi Ichida (Daito Bunka Univ.) is the only returning member of Japan's 2012 World University XC team, where Yuta Shitara  (Toyo Univ.) and Daichi Motomura  (Tokai Univ.) won silver and bronze medals respectively.  Ichida was 24th.  A week before this year's Worlds his identical twin brother Takashi Ichida  (Daito Bunka Univ.) will run the New York City Half Marathon with support from JRN. 19th World University Cross Country Championships Entebbe, Uganda, 3/22/14 Men's 10 km Masaya Kakihara (3rd yr., Kanagawa University) - 28:33.50 Hiroshi Ichida (3rd yr., Daito Bunka University) - 28:53.98 Mitsunori Asaoka (3rd yr., Tokyo Nogyo University) - 29:16.89 Shota ...