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Showing posts with the label Mitsunori Asaoka

Tanui and Suzuki Win Corporate 10000 m Titles

by Brett Larner
click here for Day Two results and report

The last major track meet of the year on the Japanese calendar, the National Corporate Track and Field Championships kicked off in near-secrecy on Sept. 25 at Gifu's Nagaragawa Field with the men's and women's 10000 m races.  Organizers hit back at the increasing number of fans turning up at their meets and sharing pictures and videos on social media with a ban on use of all cameras including phones unless owners registered with them in advance and paid a fee.  Most fans gave the meet a miss as a result, with relatively empty stands and lack of online chatter seeming to indicate success in organizers' attempts to prevent their work from becoming popular among the general public.

Beijing World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) outran a solid field of Japan-resident Africans to win the men's A-heat in 27:37.13 six seconds ahead of runner-up James Mwangi (Team NTN).  Bernard Kiman…

Fearless Murayama Front-Runs to Fastest-Ever Japanese Win at Yosenkai 20 km (updated)

by Brett Larner
videos by naoki620

After hammering each other to rare Japanese collegiate sub-3:40 PBs to go 1-2 in last month's National University Track & Field Championships 1500 m, defending Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km winner Enock Omwamba (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) and last year's top Japanese finisher Kota Murayama (Josai University) were back at it to turn this year's race into a two-man show.



The qualifying race for the second tier of schools trying to make it into the Hakone Ekiden, Japan's most prestigious race, the Yosenkai is the world's biggest and most competitive 20 km.  Kenyan Omwamba won last year in 57:57, with Murayama 4th overall in 59:17.  This time Omwamba took things out fast enough, leading a front group including Hironori Tsuetaki (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) and first-year Kenyans Stanley Siteki (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) and Lazarus Motanya (Obirin Univ.) through a 2:50 km as Murayama sat a stride or two back at the front of the 2nd pack.

Just befor…

World University Cross Country Championships Results - Japan Takes Team Silver and Bronze

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 who surged hard to shake o…

Inter-University Athletic Union Announces Japanese Team for World University XC

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 Baba (2nd yr., Komazawa Un…