japan running news

The Japanese U20 men had a near-miss on team bronze at the Belgrade World Cross Country Championships Saturday, taking 4th behind Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. Tomoya Inoue had the best individual performance of the day by a Japanese runner at 16th, with other scoring members Kaito Matsui , Sota Orita and Yamato Hamaguchi all placing in the top 22. Both the U20 and senior women's teams took 6th, Miyu Murakami leading the junior women at 19th and Miku Sakai the senior women at 22nd. The mixed relay team also make single digits, placing 7th, but the senior men were a disappointing 12th. 2:08:20 marathoner Hiroto Fujimagari led the senior men at 48th overall. More video highlights on the World Athletics Youtube channel. Detailed stories and complete results: U20 Women : Alemayo Dominates to Lead Ethiopia to Team U20 Gold in Belgrade Results : individual ・ team U20 Men : Kibathi Outsprints Sime to Secure U20 Title in Belgrade Results :  individual ・ team Mixed Relay : Kenya Runs ...

Japan's National Cross Country Championships happened Sunday on their usual course in Fukuoka, the main event the JAAF uses to choose its teams for next month's Belgrade World Cross Country Championships. Performances at last summer's Budapest World Championships come into consideration, but most of the Belgrade team will be chose from top 8 finishers in the senior races in Fukuoka and top 6 in the U20 races. In the U20 women's 6 km, last year's National High School Ekiden First Stage winner and heavy favorite Narumi Okumoto (Oita Tomei H.S.) led the entire way and ended up with the biggest margin of victory in the four races, winning by 6 seconds over Misaki Shitamori (Kitakyushu Shiritsu H.S.) in 20:16. National High School Ekiden champ Kamimura Gakuen H.S. gave the meet a miss, but boys' champ Saku Chosei H.S. came in strong in the U20 men's 8 km, with Fourth Stage runner-up Yamato Hamaguchi getting the win in 23:35 and Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu...

The 2023 National High School Ekiden champion Kamimura Gakuen H.S. girls ended their season with another win, taking 1st at the 35th Kitakyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden Sunday in Fukuoka. Running against corporate league competition like 2023 Queens Ekiden winner Sekisui Kagaku and high school Nationals 3rd and 4th placers Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. and Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. , Kamimura Gakuen got off to a slow start when leading runner Rina Kurokami was only 13th on her stage and 24 seconds off the lead. But having delivered Kamimura Gakuen the national title last month with an incredible anchor stage run, its second runner Caroline Kariba showed again that she's a budding international-level talent, chopping 18 seconds off the 3.8 km Second Stage CR, an amazing 47 seconds fastest than the previous record by a high school athlete. That was enough to put Kamimura Gakuen out front by 18 seconds over the Kyocera corporate team and 42 seconds ahead of Kunei Joshi Gakuin. Its...

The main sponsor of the Princess Ekiden , the official qualifying event for next month's Queens Ekiden national corporate women's championship race, the Iwatani Sangyo women won Sunday's 6-stage 42.195 km race for the first time. Out strong in 2nd with good runs from first two runners Kaede Kawamura and Rino Maeda , Iwatani Sangyo went into 1st on the 10.7 km Third Stage thanks to Rio Wakai and stayed there the rest of the way, ultimately winning by 45 seconds over Route Inn Hotels . 5th runner Madoka Nakano even scored a stage win, playing a big part in the team's runaway victory. With the Olympic marathon trials having happened only a week earlier, a rule was in place this time that any team that had had someone qualify for the trials only had to finish the Princess Ekiden to make Nationals regardless of whether they made the qualifying bracket of the top 16 places. That changed the dynamic of the race a bit, with historically higher-tier teams like Tenmaya and U...

  20-year-old Kaede Hagitani  (Edion) and the just-turned-19 Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) took the senior titles at the 2021 National Cross-Country Championships Saturday in Fukuoka. Hagitani ran away with it, outclassing a tight chase trio to win the Senior Women's 8 km by 26 seconds in 25:54. High schooler Miku Sakai  (Kitakyushu Municipal H.S.) was an impressive 2nd in 26:20.  Like Sakai opting for the senior race, Miura, the U20 national record holder for 3000 m steeplechase and half marathon, had a tougher race on his hands in the Senior Men's 10 km, just getting two-time 5000 m national champion Hiroki Matsueda  (Fujitsu) at the line for the win in 29:10 with the next four finishers, including past national champ Kazuki Tamura  (Sumitomo Denko), all within 10 seconds. 36-year-old Hakone Ekiden legend and 2:07:39 marathoner Masato Imai  (Toyota Kyushu) showed there's still life in his legs, a surprising 11th in 29:30. The junior races were...