japan running news

Every year since 2012 that there's been a United Airlines NYC Half , JRN has partnered with the NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon to bring two top-tier collegiate Japanese men to the NYC Half for what's usually been their international debuts. For years we've wanted to extend that program to include top collegiate women, but that has always faced 2 problems. For one, while the half marathon distance is the main focus for Japanese collegiate men due to the stage lengths at the Hakone Ekiden, few collegiate women run it. Those that do run the National University Women's Half Marathon in Matsue, held the same day as the NYC Half. This year, though, we're finally making it happen in a slightly different way. Amisa Murayama and Nazuki Sasaki of 2025 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national collegiate championship runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University are joining the field for the NYRR's Mastercard New York Mini 10 km on June 6. After running an 18:14 CR ...

2026 Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University held a press conference Apr. 4 at its Sagamihara campus announcing that it was adding a women's ekiden team to its track and field program. In its first year the team has only 2 members, Nodoka Ashida of Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. , and Kairi Ikeno of Suma Gakuen H.S . The team's head coach will be Susumu Hara , who coached the AGU men to their second Hakone threepeat this year and had a hand in the GMO corporate team's first-ever New Year Ekiden win. At the press conference he talked about the reasons for launching a women's team, and the harsh realities facing women's track and field. AGU is the undisputed leader in the evolution of the university men's ekiden circuit, but adding a women's team represents a new challenge. Hara cited 3 objectives in expanding the AGU program: "creating an environment where female athletes can balance competition and life events," "expanding the opportunities...

After winning the Morinomiyako Ekiden for the first time in October, Josai University pulled off the double in an anchor stage battle against Tohoku Fukushi University and Daito Bunka University with all three going for their first-ever Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national title. 2024 Morinomiyako and Mt. Fuji double champ Ritsumeikan University got off to a good start with a stage win from lead runner Yua Sato but plummeted to 9th when star 3rd-year Sayuki Ota was only 16th of 24 on the Second Stage. From there it was all Ritsumeikan could do to hang on to a place in the top 5, the same as its result in Morinomiyako this year. In its place, Josai went to the front off a CR of 20:36 for the 6.8 km Second Stage by 1st-year Kyo Honma to go with her opening leg CR at Morinomiyako. It stayed out front until the longest leg of the race, the 10.5 km Fifth Stage, where Sarah Wanjiru of perpetual runner-up DBU easily turned a 47-second deficit into a 47-second lead and Nazuki Sasaki ...

Next up in championship ekiden season is the Dec. 30 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden , the national title race for Japan's collegiate women and the start of 4 days of top-tier ekiden action over the course of 5 days. Fuji TV has the live broadcast starting at 9:55 a.m. local time on the 30th, with free streaming on TVer if you're in Japan or have a VPN. October's Morinomiyako Ekiden saw a shift in the balance of power, with the Kanto Region's Josai University and Daito Bunka University going 1-2 over Tokai region powerhouse Meijo University , the Tohoku region's Tohoku Fukushi University 4th, and 2024 national champion Ritsumeikan University from Kansai only 5th. Josai, DBU, Meijo and TFU were only 34 seconds apart over the 6-stage, 38.0 km course, so in a longer and more technical race like Mt. Fuji, 7 stages totaling 43.4 km with some serious hills punctuated by a 169 m ascent on the 8.3 km anchor stage, it's too close to call. The big question for Josai is...

Primarily known for his work in women's long distance, coach Manabu Kawagoe passed away suddenly on Aug. 22 after suffering a stroke. He was 63. A native of Kagoshima, in his days as an athlete Kawagoe ran at Kagoshima Minami H.S. and Waseda University . He was a member of 2 Hakone Ekiden champion teams at Waseda and won both the 5000 m and 10000 m at the National University Championships. After graduating from Waseda Kawagoe joined Shiseido , going on to serve as assistant coach and then head coach. He coached top female athletes like 2008 Chicago Marathon 3rd-placer Kiyoko Shimahara , 10000 m national champion Yoshiko Fujinaga and marathoners Yuri Kano and Akemi Ozaki , and in 2006 led Shiseido to its first National Corporate Women's Ekiden victory. In 2007 he left. Shiseido to form the Second Wind pro team, a new model that brought together his top pro women together with amateurs and junior athletes. In 2011 he became head coach of the Edion corporate team, and in 201...

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's university ekiden racing, Ritsumeikan University put an end to Meijo University 's 6-year streak at the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national championships with a course record-breaking win that put them back on top for the first time since 2017. Running for the National University Select Team , the talented Haruka Ogawa from Rikkyo University led early with a 12:42 CR on the 4.1 km 1st leg. Miu Saito from last year's runner-up Nittai University went to the front on the 2nd leg, but from there on out it was a close race between Nittai and 2023 3rd and 4th-placer Daito Bunka University and Ritsumeikan University . Each team took a turn leading, Ritsumeikan with back-to-back wins on the 3rd and 4th legs by 1st-year duo Momoka Moriyasu and Yumi Yamamoto , and DBU with a great stage win by collegiate 5000 m record holder Sarah Wanjiru . But Ritsumeikan was just too strong over the last two stages, 6th runner Fuka Fukunaga ...

The last big race of the year is Monday's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden , the season-ending national championship race for university women. Between Mt. Fuji and October's Morinomiyako Ekiden , up to this season Meijo University was undefeated in 13-straight championship ekiden races, with 7-straight wins at Morinomiyako and 6 at Mt. Fuji. But nothing lasts forever, and at this year's Morinomiyako the last big dynasty school before Meijo, Ritsumeikan University , winner at Morinomiyako from 2011 to 2015 and at Mt. Fuji from 2013 to 2017, outran a flailing Meijo squad to take the win for the first time in 9 years. Its runners took stage wins on 3 of the 6 legs, Yumi Yamamoto breaking the Second Stage CR, Tomo Muramatsu the Third Stage CR, and anchor Makoto Tsuchiya outrunning Meijo captain Nanase Tanimoto for the win. Meijo's big names, especially Tanimoto and Nanaka Yonezawa , have been off their best most of this season, and it showed when they were only 4th at Mori...

The Hitachi women's corporate team has announced that Maya Fukushima has retired effective the end of November. Fukushima joined Hitachi last year after graduating from Josai University and Eda H.S. In high school she ran a best of 9:24.93 for 3000 m and won her stage at the prefectural ekiden championships. At Josai she grew into one of its best runner, running a PB of 15:44.90 for 5000 m and the longest stage at both the Morinomiyako Ekiden and Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden university championships. Her 4th year she was 2nd in the 10000 m at the Kanto Region Championships and 5th on the Morinomiyako's Fourth Stage. But Fukushima was diagnosed with task-specific dystonia, a disorder that causes abnormal postures during particular motions and prevented her from racing after joining Hitachi. "As the days passed and I couldn't run like before the mental stress got worse and worse," she wrote in the Hitachi announcement. "But I'm really grateful to everyon...

Coming off a seventh-straight win at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden, five-time Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national champion Meijo University led start to finish to win it again for the sixth year in a row Saturday in Shizuoka. Meijo's first four runners, Azumi Nagira , Nanaka Yonezawa , Miyu Yamada and Asuka Ishimatsu all won their stages to give Meijo what was pretty much an unbreakable lead. Undefeated in collegiate ekiden competition up to this point in her career, Meijo 3rd-year Nanase Tanimoto lost to Daito Bunka University 1st-year Sarah Wanjiru by 24 seconds on the 10.5 km Fifth Stage but still handed off to captain Yuka Masubuchi 1:04 ahead. Masubuchi ran a CR 19:27 for her 6.0 km to hand off to anchor Saki Harada on course record pace. On the tough anchor stage, 8.3 km climbing 175 m mostly in its second half, Harada proved the weak link on the team at only 5th-fastest in the field, but while that wasn't enough for Meijo to better its own CR Harada had no ...

That's right, it's the best time of the year, championship ekiden season, five major championship ekidens across six days of competition spread over 11 days starting Sunday. We'll be focusing all of next week on the lead-up to the peak of it all, the 100th Hakone Ekiden, and won't be able to do detailed previews of the other races, but below is a quick guide to what's coming up, when, and who is broadcasting it. In pretty much all cases there's no official streaming, so if you're outside Japan you either need to get a VPN, subscribe to a service that lets you watch Japanese TV internationally, or take your chances with something like mov3.co . Sunday, Dec. 24, 10:20 a.m.: 35th National High School Girls' Ekiden The top high school girls' team from each of Japan's 47 prefectures and 11 regional champion teams head to Kyoto to race 21.0975 km divided into five stages. Last year Nagano Higashi H.S. had a surprise victory over top-tier Sendai Ikuei...

On July 28, Reiri Nakashima , 25, a member of a winning Hakone Ekiden team while in college, and 2018 1500 m national champion Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu , 23, announced on Twitter that they have gotten married. Nakashima was a member of Tokai University 's 2019 Hakone-winning team, while Takamatsu was a member of national champion teams at both the National High School Ekiden and National University Women's Ekiden. Together they form one of the power couples of Japanese athletics. The daughter of a Kenyan father and Japanese mother, Takamatsu came to Japan at age 1. At Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. she won the Second Stage at the National High School Ekiden, helping lead the team to the overall win. She was also a member of Meijo University 's undefeated team at the National University Women's Ekiden and Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden. She retired after graduating in 2022. Hailing from Himeji, Nakashima ran the downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, helping Tokai score...

The 9-stage, 42.195 km National Women's Ekiden takes place Jan. 15 in Kyoto starting and finishing at Takebishi Stadium. Absent from the stage entry list published Jan. 14 was the Gunma prefecture team's Seira Fuwa , 19, the collegiate 10000 m national record holder and a 2nd-year at Takushoku University . Her high school coach Hatsuo Kitada is serving as the Gunma team's coach this year. "We're looking toward her future," he said. "Now's not the time to overdo it." At last year's National Women's Ekiden Fuwa passed 13 people on the 4.0 km 4th leg, breaking its course record. Following that performance she sustained an Achilles tendon injury that kept her out of competition for most of 2022. In October she won her stage at the Morinomiyako Ekiden, but in order to ensure her continued recovery she did not run in December's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national championships. Wakana Kabasawa of 2022 National Corporate Women's Eki...

There was never any doubt that Meijo University was going to win a fifth-straight national title at today's Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden , but what they really showed was that they have the core of a team that is going to extend its dynasty at least another 3 or 4 years. 1st-year trio Azumi Nagira , Hikaru Kitagawa and Nanaka Yonezawa built up a 43-second lead for Meijo over the first three legs, Yonezawa taking 4 seconds off the CR for hers. 3rd-year Yuka Masubuchi added another 19 seconds to that, setting up 4th-year power duo Yuma Yamamoto and Narumi Kobayashi to deliver it to 2nd-year anchor Nanase Tanimoto to bring Meijo home up the ~170m climb of the final stage. Yamamoto made sure nobody was going to come from behind late in the race, taking Meijo's lead from 1:02 to 2:28 over the 10.5 km fifth leg. Kobayashi has had trouble performing up to her past level this year, but even though she lost 21 seconds she still managed to run the 3rd-fastest time on her stage. ...

The Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden , the year-ending national championship for university women, happens this Friday at 10:00 a.m. Japan time, kicking off four days of the year's best racing over the course of five. Fuji TV has the live broadcast starting at 9:50 a.m., TVer has the streaming, and @JRNLive will have the English coverage. When it comes to the collegiate men's ekiden circuit it's a given that Tokyo-area schools are going to win and, in most cases, fill the podium, but the college women's ekidens are more genuinely national, and in that way have a type of excitement the men's races lack. The Mt. Fuji race has 7 hilly stages totaling 43.4 km, with a mostly downhill first two stages, a rolling middle four, and an anchor stage that climbs almost 170 m. And Meijo University is going to win. Meijo is the four-time defending champ and is fresh off a sixth-straight win at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden where it won 5 of the 6 stages, 3 in CR time. The ...

Course record holder and 3-time defending champ Meijo University  was unstoppable again, leading start to finish to win the 2021 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden university women's national title Dec. 30 in Shizuoka.  1st-year Nanase Tanimoto  got things rolling with a 12:49 win on the 4.1 km opening leg to give Meijo a 7-second lead that increased to 51 seconds over the next three legs, 2nd runner Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu  holding the margin and 3rd and 4th runners  Hana Inoue  and Yuma Yamamoto running the fastest times on their stages. On the longest leg, the 10.5 km Fifth Stage, Yuna Wada  took 45 seconds off the course record to further open Meijo's lead to 1:13, and the team's last two runners Yuka Masubuchi and Narumi Kobayashi both did their parts, Masubuchi taking the lead to 1:59 and Kobayashi to 2:58 on the tough uphill anchor stage to bring Meijo in for the win in 2:22:24 for the full 43.4 km course.  But the race's main action happen...

The year's biggest races are just around the corner, with four days of championship ekiden racing in the space of five coming up this week. First up on Dec. 30 is the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden university women's national championship, 7 stages totaling 43.4 km through the foothills of Mt. Fuji. Meijo University  has won the last three years, setting the course record of 2:21:38 last year, and it's going to win again. Meijo's core quartet Narumi Kobayashi , Yuma Yamamoto , Yuna Arai  and Yuna Wada  all made the Japanese top 25 for 5000 m or 10000 m this year, more than all other universities combined, and unless Meijo has some kind of major setback there's just no way for its strongest competition, perpetual 2nd-placer Daito Bunka University , to match it.  The most exciting thing to look forward to will be seeing how Takushoku University  1st-year Seira Fuwa , 30:45.21 in her 10000 m debut earlier this month, does on a more technical course than she has raced ...

Meijo University  ran up to expectations, breaking its own course record to win a third-straight Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national title. Head coach Katsuro Yoneda  had confidently predicted a perfect win, Meijo runners taking all seven stage titles and the overall win for the hilly 43.4 km course, but on the very first stage Karin Akahori  (Nittai Univ.) shot that down, beating Meijo's Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu  by 6 seconds to win the stage. But the setback didn't last long, as second runner Yuna Wada  tied her stage's record to put Meijo out front.  From there Meijo stretched its lead out to 1:26 by the start of the 10.5 km Fifth Stage, the longest of the day. There Yuka Suzuki  (Daito Bunka Univ.), the 2019 World University Games half marathon gold medalist, gave Meijo's Rika Kaseda , the silver medalist in the same race, a scare as she cut Meijo's lead down by 42 seconds. But record-breaking runs on the last two uphill stages from Yuka Masubuchi...

Wednesday is the first day of the best five-day stretch of racing in Japan, the top women's university teams in the country racing in the foothills of Mt. Fuji at the season-ending Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national championships. After that it's a day off for New Year's Eve, then 2021 kicks off with the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships and hits its peak with the year's biggest race, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden . It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that two-time defending Mount Fuji champ Meijo University  is going to make it three in a row. In October Meijo broke its own record for the 38.1 km course to win the national-level Morinomiyako Ekiden by almost three minutes over Daito Bunka University . Since then it's only gotten stronger, with 3rd-year  Yuna Wada  running the fastest collegiate 5000 m time of the year, 15:25.14, and 4th-year  Rika Kaseda clocking both the second-fastest 5000 m time, 15:32.77, and the fas...