japan running news

The sprints, middle distance, hurdles, jumps and throws segment of Japan's 104th National Track and Field Championships kicked off Thursday in Niigata. The best competitions of the opening day were the women's and men's javelin throws. Defending women's champ Haruka Kitaguchi (JAL) got off to a slow start, taking until her fourth throw to take over the top spot from Yuka Sato (Nikonikonori), throwing 59.30 m to Sato's opening 59.03. Only throwing 57.45 m on her fifth attempt, on her final throw Sato dropped her biggest throw of the day. When the measurement came up it was 59.32 m, Kitaguchi falling to her hands and knees when she saw it before getting up laughing to congratulation Sato on her national title. In the men's javelin throw, 2019 national champ Ryohei Arai (Suzuki) was relentless, throwing farther with each attempt except for a foul in the fourth round. Back in form this season after years of struggles and having cleared 80 m for the first t...

The thirteen events of the 74th National Sports Festival track and field competition took place Oct. 4th through 8th in Ibaraki prefecture. Representing Tokyo, Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) won the senior women's 5000 m in 15:34.38. In the race, the pace stayed slow through 3000 m. Hironaka held back around the 3rd-place and 4th-place position before surging at that point, covering the remaining 2000 m in six minutes flat. "I ran exactly the way I'd envisioned," she said with the same kind of enthusiastic smile she had in high school. Hironaka still wore the Nagasaki uniform when she was the top Japanese woman and 3rd overall in the junior women's 3000 m last year. She joined the Tokyo-based Japan Post team after graduating from Nagasaki Shogyo H.S. this spring, finishing 3rd in the National Championships 5000 m. Her assertive win here capped a successful track season. She had thought about running in the Nagasaki uniform again this time, but, she said, ...

Day two of the 2019 Japanese National Track and Field Championships saw heavy rain hit the roofless Hakatanomori Field midway through the desultory late afternoon schedule, impacting the men's javelin throw, women's pole vault and women's long jump and leaving the track slick for the evening's main events. Just before the first wave of rain struck, Haruka Kitaguchi (Nihon Univ.), the only woman in the javelin throw to have cleared the Doha World Championships standard, opened with a national championships record 62.68 m that pretty much wrapped up her win. On her fourth throw Kitaguchi extended the record to 63.68 m, her final winning mark and securing her a place in Doha. In the final round of throws Yuka Mori (Nikoniko Nori) unexpectedly bettered Kitaguchi's first-round record with a PB of 62.88 m as the first few drops began to fall. By the time the men's javelin got started it was a full on downpour, with race officials desperately trying to push a ...

Thursday saw the first day of the 87th National University Track and Field Championships get underway at Kanagawa's Todoroki Stadium. The most surprising result of the day came in the first heat of the women's 4x100 m relay qualifying round, where both Ritsumeikan University and Aoyama Gakuin University broke the meet record. Ritsumeikan was just 0.02 off the national collegiate record in 44.82 with AGU right behind in 44.89. No other team broke 45 seconds, promising a head-to-head race for the collegiate record and national title in tomorrow's final. In the men's 4x100 m qualifying round national collegiate record holder Chuo University was the only team to break 39 seconds, marking itself as the heavy favorite in the final with a time of 38.90. In early finals action, Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) and Josphat Ledama Kisaisa (Obirin Univ.) won the women's and men's 10000 m, Kaseda in 33:29.20 and Kisaisa in 28:28.48. Mayu Nasu (Sonoda Gakuen Joshi U...