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Showing posts with the label Naoko Koizumi

Denso Wins Third-Straight National Corporate Women's Ekiden Title

by Brett Larner

National championship ekiden season got off to a good start at Sunday's National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships, where two-time defending champion Team Denso led seven teams under the 2:16:12 course record it set last year on the way to its third-straight win with new records on four of the 42.195 km course's six stages.

Denso's Yuki Mitsunobu led off, missing the First Stage record by 1 second as she handed off just behind Ayumi Sakaida (Team Daihatsu).  Denso's next two runners Naoko Koizumi and Yuka Takashima scored records on their stages to give their team a lead that was never broken despite new Fourth and Fifth Stage records by rivals Sally Chepyego (Team Kyudenko) and Risa Yokoe (Team Toyota Jidoshokki).  Denso anchor Nami Hashimoto was the only stage winner not to tie or set an individual record but her 21:26 for the 6.795 km Sixth Stage was more than enough to maintain Denso's lead of almost a minute over Toyota Jidoshokki.

Toyo…
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18-Year-Old Azusa Sumi Clears Beijing 5000 m Standard in Kitami

by Brett Larner

After a superb come-from-behind 15:21.07 PB for 2nd at the National Championships two weeks ago, 18-year-old Azusa Sumi (Team Univ. Ent.) did what she needed to do to make the Beijing World Championships team, dropping a 2:59 last 1000 m to go under the 15:20.00 Beijing standard for the first time as she won the Hokuren Distance Challenge Kitami Meet women's 5000 m A-heat in 15:17.62.  Sumi ran much of the race with 19-year-old Miyuki Uehara (Team Daiichi Seimei) right on standard pace but needed to bring the kick that took her from 4th to 2nd on the last lap at Nationals into play to go under.  Uehara just missed joining her but likewise marked a big improvement to her PB with a 15:21.40.  Now #2 among juniors worldwide so far this year, Sumi should join Nationals 1st and 3rd placers Misaki Onishi (Team Sekisui Kagaku) and Ayuko Suzuki (Team Japan Post), both of whom already had the Beijing standard, on the World Championships team but must wait for pending offici…
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Denso Sets Course Record for Second-Straight National Corporate Women's Ekiden Title (updated)

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20141214-1409007.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

26 teams ran the 34th edition of the 6-stage, 42.195 km National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships in cold and windy conditions Dec. 14 in Sendai, Miyagi.  The Denso team dominated, breaking its own course record in 2:16:12 to score its second-straight win, the first time that a team has defending its national title since Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo completed a hat trick in 2005.

Denso started off slow, 29 seconds down from the lead in 12th after the First Stage.  Second Stage runner Naoko Koizumi celebrated her 22nd birthday by running the second-best time on the stage to move Denso up to 3rd.  Up against each team's best Japanese athlete on the Third Stage, Yuka Takashima, 26, ran down leaders Toyota Jidoshokki and Yamada Denki in stage record time to put Denso into the lead.  Takashima ran 34:40 for the 10.9 km stage to beat multiple national record holder Ka…
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Denso Takes Throne at National Corporate Women’s Ekiden

by Anna Novick
Note: Welcome to Novick in her first piece for JRN.

Team Denso ran for redemption from last year'’s 2nd place at today's snowy, slippery National Corporate Women's Ekiden, taking victory by over two minutes and a new record of 2:16:37 for the six-stage, 42.195 km course.  Just about everyone who is anyone in Japanese women's running toed the line today, and those women tore the frigid roads of Sendai apart.

Denso'’s runners had nothing to lose, having faced the disappointment of 2nd place, or first loser, in last year's race. They would, however, have to hold off their attack until the Second Stage as their first runner, Mai Ishibashi relinquished the lead to Team Yamada Denki’'s Yuika Mori who began gaining distance from the pack with 2 km to go in the 7 km leg.  Mori set a new course record to 22:10 before sending Maki Suzawa off on a defensive Second Stage.  Going into the 3.9 km Second Stage, Sayaka Murakami (Team Daihatsu) and Mizuki Tanim…
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Osako 13:20.80 at Nittai University Time Trials

by Brett Larner
video courtesy of Ekiden News



Among the seven major Japanese races and meets over the weekend, the Nittai University Time Trials meet featured a standout showing from 22-year-old Waseda University senior Suguru Osako.  Already in the all-time Japanese top five for 10000 m after a 27:38.31 runner-up finish at Stanford in the spring, Osako hung tough in the Nittai 5000 m A-heat against the likes of international-level Kenyans Jonathan Ndiku (Team Hitachi Butsuryu), Bidan Karoki (DeNA RC) and Leonard Barsoton (Team Nissin Shokuhin) to take seven seconds off his best with a new mark of 13:20.80, making him the all-time sixth-fastest Japanese man over 5000 m and the second-fastest Japanese collegiate ever behind only former Waseda star Kensuke Takezawa's 13:19.00.  Two-time World Junior 3000 mSC champion Ndiku took the win over Karoki in 13:14.97, with 2013 World XC Junior silver medalist Barsoton outkicking William Malel (Kenya/Team Honda) and Osako for 3rd in 13:19.04.…
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Asian Junior Athletics Championship Day Four - Japanese Results Summary

by Brett Larner

A summary of Japanese results from the final day of the Asian Junior Athletics Championship 2010 in Hanoi, Vietnam:

Seiya Kato won the gold medal in the boys' 400 m hurdles in 50.83, with teammate Yuichi Nagano scoring bronze in 51.21.Mahiro Akamatsu likewise won gold in the girls' 3000 m, running 9:36.47, while teammate Naoko Koizumi was only 5th.Ikuto Yufu and Ikki Takeuchi took silver and bronze in the boys' 5000 m, Yufu losing by less than one second to Kenyan-born Bahraini Edwin Chebii Kimurer.Manabu Aoki took the silver medal in the boys' 10000 m race walk in 45:01.73.Taishi Nakayama won bronze in the boys' 200 m in 21.05 after winning his semi-final. Winner Chimdee Suppachai of Thailand set a new Games record of 20.80. Naohiro Yokoyama was eliminated at the semi-final stage.The boys' 4x400 m relay team won silver in 3:12.14, while the boys' 4x100 m relay team won bronze in 40.64.Sho Kawamoto was 5th in the boys' 800 m in 1:52.62. As…
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Nagano Unseats Tokyo in 25th East Japan Women's Ekiden

by Brett Larner

The Nagano Prefecture team staged a coup at Sunday's 25th anniversary East Japan Women's Ekiden in Fukushima, clocking 2:18:36 for the 9-stage, 42.195 km course to beat two-time defending champion Tokyo by over a minute and take its first-ever win at the regional championships.

Nagano's Yuko Shimizu, a member of the Japanese national team for the International Chiba Ekiden later this month, got her team off to a strong start with a 2nd-place finish on the 6 km first leg, one second behind Aomori Prefecture's Miho Notagashira in 19:08. Tokyo's Chisa Fujimoto languished far behind, finishing 13th out of 17 in 19:56. While Tokyo spent the rest of the ekiden trying to claw its way back to the front, Nagano's second leg runner Yuka Hakoyama overtook Aomori's Nao Sasaki to build a lead which Nagano never relinquished.

The biggest excitement of the day came on the anchor stage where Tokyo's Azusa Nojiri, a former pro XC skier who began running pro…
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