japan running news

by Brett Larner

The 2011 National Women's Interprefectural Ekiden Championships take place this Sunday, Jan. 16, in Kyoto. With each of Japan's 47 prefectures fielding a team made up of runners from the top pro, university, high school and junior high school teams the Interprefectural Ekiden is the de facto national distance running championship and offers an interesting cross-section of who is who at all domestic levels of the sport. The race is broadcast live nationwide and commercial-free on NHK beginning at 12:15 p.m. Japan time. Overseas viewers should be able to watch via Keyhole TV using the password NHK.

Host Kyoto has long been the dominant force at the Interprefectural Ekiden, winning every year from 2005-2009 and taking a total of 13 wins in the ekiden's 28-year history, more than any other prefecture. Last year Okayama dethroned Kyoto, taking its first-ever win. This year Kyoto and Okayama are again the clear-cut favorites. Okayama returns with a team made up o…

by Brett Larner

Takushoku University's fortunes under its new coach Okada continue to improve. A month after Takushoku won both the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km qualifierteam and individual titles Takushoku first-years Duncan Mozay and John Maina worked together to crack 28 minutes at the Kanto Regional University Time Trials in Tokyo's National Stadium on Nov. 27. Both runners clocked 27:53, meaning they are now the fastest university runners in the Kanto region ahead of Jobu University senior Yusuke Hasegawa and Nihon University junior Benjamin Gando. Only one of the pair will be allowed to run January's Hakone Ekiden, but with two aces to choose from Takushoku is in an excellent position to make the Hakone seeded bracket.

2010 Kanto Regional 5000 m champion Taku Fujimoto (Kokushikan Univ.), fresh from a 3rd-place finish on the competitive 1st Stage of Tuesday's International Chiba Ekiden, won another of the meet's ten heats of 10000 m, pushed to a 28:41.40 by M…

http://www.iaaf.org/WJC10/news/kind=112/newsid=57566.html

2010 World Junior Championships - Top Results
click here for complete results
Women's 5000 m
1. Genzebe Dibaba (ETH) - 15:08.06
2. Mercy Cherono (KEN) - 15:09.19
3. Alice Aprot Nawowuna (KEN) - 15:17.39 - PB
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5. Ayuko Suzuki (JPN) - 15:47.36 - PB (ranked 10th pre-race)
8. Nanaka Izawa (JPN) - 15:59.29 (ranked 6th pre-race)

In other results:
Gold medal favorite Kumiko Okada scored Japan's first medal of the games, a bronze in the women's 10000 m race walk. Okada was just off her PB, clocking 45:56.15, but was outdone by over a minute and a half by Russians Elena Lashmanova and Anna Lukyanova, both of whom were competing in their first track 10000 m. Japan's Chiaki Asada took 6th in 46:39.93, a PB by 7 seconds.Takatoshi Abe won the 4th heat of the men's 400 mH in 50.53, a season best. He was the only runner in all seven heats to go under 51.Takumi Kuki and Ryo Onabuta were eliminated in the men's 100 m semi-…

by Brett Larner

The 2010 World Junior Championships in athletics begin tomorrow, July 19, in Moncton, Canada and Japan is sending a solid team with more realistic medal chances than its senior teams typically have at the World Championships level. Japan's best chance for a gold medal may be in the women's 10000 m race walk, where Kumiko Okada's PB of 45:23.83 is well over a minute better than her closest rival Chiaki Asada. Be this as it may, the lion's share of the attention is likely to be on Japan's other legitimate gold medal contender, sprinter Shota Iizuka in the men's 200 m.

Iizuka, a first-year at Chuo University, gained international attention in May thanks to a Youtube video of his stunning anchor leg for Chuo in the men's 4 x 100 m relay at the Kanto Regional University Championships. In that world-class performance Iizuka singlehandedly gave Chuo a one-second margin of victory and the national collegiate record of 38.54. Iizuka went on to win the …

by Brett Larner

Men's 5000 m A-Heat


Steadily worsening rain and winds on the last day of the 2010 Kanto Regional University T&F Championships didn't slow things down as the men's 5000 m A-heat saw one of the best overall university men's 5000 m in Japanese history. Hakone Ekiden star Ryuji Kashiwabara (Toyo Univ.) and the relentlessly improving Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Meiji Univ.) took the pack of 29 through 1 km in 2:39, almost dead-on Japanese national record pace. Surprisingly, everyone went with them and few fell apart. Kashiwabara, Yoroizaka and 10000 m A-heat winner Benjamin Gando (Kenya/Nihon Univ.) took turns leading as the fastest man in the field, 19 year-old Akinobu Murasawa (Tokai Univ.) patiently worked his way forward. When Murasawa finally made his move, his surprise company came from Taku Fujimoto (Kokushikan Univ.), a runner with a PB of only 13:57.57. A bigger surprise came when Fujimoto blasted away over the last lap to knock nearly 20 seconds off his P…

by Brett Larner

For the first time in several years, the Japanese national team at the World Cross-Country Championships will go home empty-handed as its perennial team bronze medal-winning junior women's squad placed only 4th at this year's Championships in Poland on Mar. 28. Junior woman Nanaka Izawa's 19th place finish was the best individual placing on the entire Japanese team, admittedly in the least competitive of the four fields, but her run led the Japanese junior women to finish as the top non-African team.

The junior men were likewise the top non-African team, finishing 6th in their race ahead of a number of teams from countries with far more established cross-country traditions. As JRN predicted Tokai University first-year Akinobu Murasawa was someone to watch. In his last race as a junior Murasawa, the inspiration for JRN's comparison last fall of young American and Japanese men's performances, beat much-hyped American first-year Trevor Dunbar to finish i…

by Brett Larner

Despite cross-country playing only a minor part in the Japanese distance running calendar, Japan is sending a full squad of 24 to this Sunday's World Cross-Country Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The senior men's team is made up almost exclusively of university runners from the Kanto region, with only pro steeplechaser Hiroyoshi Umegae (Team NTN) breaking the mold. The top man on the team is Meiji University's Tetsuya Yoroizaka, winner of this year's Fukuoka International XC Meet and top Japanese finisher at the Chiba International XC Meet. A surprising absence is Saku Chosei H.S. graduate Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin), replaced in the lineup by Minato Oishi (Chuo Univ.).

Running on his 19th birthday, Fukuoka XC senior men's runner-up and Saku Chosei H.S. alumnus Akinobu Murasawa (Tokai Univ.) is in the junior men's race. Fresh from training in New Zealand and with a 59:08 road 20 km to his name since last year's World XC, Murasawa could…

by Brett Larner

University runners outdid the pros in both senior races at the 2010 Fukuoka International Cross Country Meet on Feb. 27 as Ritsumeikan University fourth-year Kazue Kojima took the women's 6 km and Meiji University second-year Tetsuya Yoroizaka won a great battle against Tokai University first-year Akinobu Murasawa in the men's 10 km. All three athletes sealed their places on the Japanese team for this year's World Cross Country Championships.

Kojima was patient during the early surges of the senior women's 6 km, letting others including Yuko Shimizu (Team Sekisui Kagaku), Megumi Seike (Team Sysmex) and Mika Yoshikawa (Team Panasonic) take turns in the lead. Not until Freya Murray (GBR) opened a considerable gap on the final 2 km lap did Kojima really go into action, dropping Niiya and her own teammate Risa Takenaka as she chased down the British runner. Kojima pulled into the lead on the hills before the final corner, but even though Murray regained some …

by Brett Larner

Together with the Fukuoka International Cross Country Meet at the end of the month, the Chiba International Cross Country Meet makes up part of the selection process for the Japanese national teams for March's World Cross Country Championships in Poland. Cross country has never been a significant part of Japanese distance running, and this year many of the biggest names on the entry lists gave the meet a miss.

In the senior men's race, high schooler Bitan Karoki (Kenya/Sera H.S.) returned to take the win over a field of university and pro runners. Defending women's champion Yuko Shimizu (Team Sekisui Kagaku) likewise returned but finished only 17th.

Below are the top finishers in each of the meet's main divisions. The top two domestic runners in each category stand a good chance of being selected for the Worlds team, while those in 3rd and below will have to wait to see what happens in Fukuoka.

2010 Chiba International Cross Country Meet - Top Finishers
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