japan running news

There's no real end to track season in Japan, and at Osaka's Yanmar Stadium Nagai this weekend the corporate leagues plowed ahead with their 65th National Corporate Track and Field Championships.

Having broken the men's discus throw national record this summer, Yuji Tsutsumi (Alsok) did it again with a new record of 60.74 m on his second attempt. Kaede Miyasaka (Nippatsu) jumped 13.40 m (+0.9 m/s) to break the women's triple jump meet record. London World Championships men's 10000 m bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Kyudenko) prevailed in a tough 10000 m, running 27:35.38 to lead ten men under 28 minutes, his eighth-straight national corporate 10000 m title and extending his career sub-28 world record to 35 times. Tanui was effusive in his thanks post-race.

昨日のポールタヌイ選手のラストスパート🏃
全日本実業団選手権10000m優勝 27分35秒38
9850m付近(ラスト150m)#10000m#全日本実業団陸上pic.twitter.com/FGriXaxzui — Kota Shinjo (@7vodka26) September 24, 2017
But the biggest newsmaker was the men's 100 m final. Hot on…

by Brett Larner

Most of the country's corporate leagues held their regional track and field championships this weekend, but superseding them all was the Golden Grand Prix Kawasaki meet.

With a shortage of candidates for the London World Championships men's 5000 m the JAAF doctored in a sub-7:55.00 qualifying standard for men to get into next month's National Track and Field Championships, adding a 3000 m to the normally sprint, middle distance and field event GGP.  In the midst of his best season in years, Yuichiro Ueno (Team DeNA) took it out close to national record pace through the first half before abruptly slowing and dropping off the back. Rio Olympics 10000 m silver medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) took over, with only Evans Keitany Kiptum (Team Toyota Boshoku), Hiroki Matsueda (Team Fujitsu), Hayato Seki (Tokai Univ.) and Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei).

Never do this.
Kiptum looked set for the win with a strong kick over the last 200 m, but Tanui came back…

by Brett Larner

It's a busy weekend ahead both at home and abroad. The main road action happens overseas, with London Olympian and 2:07:48 marathoner Arata Fujiwara in Mongolia to run the Ulanbaatar Marathon where a victory will earn him a horse. A group of five Japanese men and women led by 1:01:37 runner Ken Yokote and 2017 National Corporate Half Marathon champion Ami Utsunomiya is in Sweden on a corporate league junket to the Göteborgsvarvet Half Marathon to gain valuable experience running and going to laundromats internationally.

Back home, many of their corporate league brethren and sistren will instead be lining up at one of four regional corporate league track championships. Up north in Akita, the East Japan Region meet features top-level Japan-based Africans Jonathan Ndiku, William Malel and Wesley Ledama, with Yuta Shitara, Masato Kikuchi and Azusa Sumi leading the Japanese crowd. The Kansai Region meet happens at the same time in Osaka, with the Chugoku Region meet, wh…

by Brett Larner

Kenyan Rosemary Wanjiru (Team Starts) bettered her own world leading marks to break the Oda Memorial Meet women's 5000 m meet record Saturday in Hiroshima.  With an early lead from Ethiopian Shuru Bulo (Team Toto), Wanjiru took over in the second half of the race to win in 15:11.48, two seconds under both the old meet record and her previous world leading mark from the Kanaguri Memorial Meet earlier this month.  Bulo also cleared the old meet record, 2nd in 15:12.13.  Tomoka Kimura (Team Universal Entertainment) was 3rd in 15:27.68, coming up short of the London World Championships qualifying standard.  Already the fifth-fastest Japanese high school ever, Shuri Ogasawara (Yamanashi Gakuin Prep H.S.) confirmed that position was a 15:31.46 to beat top university placer Natsuki Sekiya (Daito Bunka Univ.) by almost 10 seconds.  Sekiya led the qualifiers for the Japanese team for August's Taipei World University Games.

In the men's 5000 m, Rio Olympics 10000 m s…

by Brett Larner



The New Year Ekiden is the peak of the year for corporate league men, their national championship race with 37 teams of seven squaring off over a total of 100 km in front of a live TV audience.  At 61 runnings it is still a newcomer compared to the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden and has long struggled to approach Hakone's popularity.  The upswing in talent at the university level over the last few years has brought more fans to the New Year Ekiden as one after another of the biggest Hakone stars have graduated and entered the corporate machine.

Last year Toyota scored a second-straight New Year Ekiden title with a very young team that averaged 23 years old.  This year its roster is bolstered by the addition of one of the most popular and talented 2016 graduates, 30 km collegiate national record holder Yuma Hattori, formerly of Toyo University. Hattori will tackle the New Year Ekiden's longest stage, the 22.0 km Fourth Stage, and with much of last year's lineup ret…

by Brett Larner

With ekiden season just starting to break track action was heavy across the country as teams started to sharpen their lineups after summer mileage.  At the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Osaka, Rio Olympics 4x100 m silver medalist Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) ran a 10.03 (+0.5 m/s) PB and meet record to beat his Rio relay teammate Asuka Cambridge (Dome), drawing ever closer to Japan's first sub-10 clocking.  Another member of the Rio team, Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) duly won the 200 m in 20.57 (+0.0 m/s), doubling in the 4x100 m and running a rare 4x400 m to help bring Mizuno national corporate titles in both, Mizuno breaking the 4x400 m meet record with a 3:04.51 win.

A meet record also fell in the men's 3000 mSC, where two-time national champion Hironori Tsuetaki (Team Fujitsu) ran an all-time Japanese #7 8:29.78 for the win.  Times were also fast by Japanese standards in the women's 1500 m, where Kenyan Ann Karindi (Toyota Jidoshokki) came up …

by Brett Larner

Hot and windy across the country, it was a busy weekend on the corporate circuit with four regions holding their spring track championships, a high-level time trial meet and one decent result overseas.

Felista Wanjugu (Kenya/Team Universal Entertainment) turned in the fastest women’s 10000 m of the weekend, running 32:04.11 to win the East Japan corporate region. Hisami Ishii (Team Yamada Denki) was next across the line, just missing the Rio standard in 32:16.60 but scoring the fastest Japanese time in the four corporate meets. Already on the Rio team in the marathon, Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) won the Kansai region women’s 10000 m in 33:02.94.

The fastest women’s 5000 m also came in East Japan as Rosemary Wanjiru (Kenya/Team Starts) took the A-heat in 15:23.10. 4th-placer Sayaka Kuwahara (Team Sekisui Kagaku), returning from a solid 2:25:09 marathon debut in Nagoya in March, ran 15:44.99, topping the 15:46.40 time of Kansai region winner Mizuki Matsuda (Team Daih…

by Brett Larner

Japan-based Kenyans Rosemary Wanjiru (Team Starts) and Paul Kamais (Team Chugoku Denryoku) scored tight wins to take the Grand Prix 5000 m titles at the 50th Oda Memorial Track and Field Meet at Hiroshima's Edion Stadium on Saturday.  Wanjiru, a graduate of Aomori Yamada H.S., led start to finish in the women's race, taking it out at 15:20 pace and closing in 2:58 to beat teammate Grace Kimanzi by just over a second.  Yuka Ando (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), already the fastest Japanese woman so far this year for 10000 m, delivered the fastest 5000 m, 15:37.21, to take the top Japanese spot in 5th.

Kamais, a brand-new graduate of Hiroshima's local National High School Boys Ekiden course record-setter Sera H.S., alternated the lead with two-time World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) throughout the men's race before closing in 2:33 for the win.  Shuho Dairokuno (Team Asahi Kasei) was the top Japanese finisher in 13:31.56 for 5th, …

by Brett Larner

James Mwangi's 27:23.24 10000 m world leading time on day one of the Hyogo Relay Carnival lasted less than 24 hours as two-time World Championships bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) held off an Ethiopian challenge from Mamiyo Nuguse (Team Yasukawa Denki) to win Hyogo's day two Grand Prix 10000 m in a new world leader of 27:22.28.  Tanui led the entire way from a 2:42 opening 1000 m to the finish, Nuguse waiting to kick in true Ethiopian style but coming up short in 27:24.85 for 2nd.  2016 National cross-country champion Takashi Ichida (Team Asahi Kasei) outran a heavyweight domestic field to take the top Japanese spot, running 28:22.57 for 5th.

Felista Wanjugu (Team Univ. Ent.) took the women's Grand Prix 10000 m in 32:11.68, running behind Yuka Ando (Suzuki Hamamatsu) through 9000 m before kicking away for the win.  Ando was 2nd in 32:16.34, well ahead of a Japanese trio including marathoner Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya).

Japan-based Africans also won bo…

by Brett Larner

The Golden Games in Nobeoka are the main spring Japanese meet for distance runners, held in Japan's Eugune, the Asahi Kasei team's home of Nobeoka.  Fans line the track, banging on the metal sponsor boards with sticks to produce a wall of sound that pushes runners to some of the best Japanese times of the year, every year.

This year a lot of the big names will be chasing Olympic qualifying times in the United States, but the 5000 m and 10000 m still have deep lists of upper-tier Japanese and Japan-based African talent.  Last year two-time World Championships medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) paced Kenta Murayama (Team Asahi Kasei) and Yuta Shitara (Team Honda) to two of the fastest Japanese 10000 m times ever.  This year both Tanui and Shitara are back in the 10000 m along with Shitara's twin brother Keita Shitara (Team Konica Minolta), 61-minute half marathoner university teammates Keisuke Nakatani and Naoki Kudo (Komazawa Univ.) and former Hakone Ekiden…

by Brett Larner
photos by @rikujolove


2015 national corporate men's champion Toyota held off all comers to take a second-straight New Year Ekiden national title thanks in part to its second-to-last runner Hideyuki Tanaka and some bad luck for its strongest competition.

An expected challenge from the all-Japanese Asahi Kasei superteam never materialized as its 10000 m national record-breaking pair Tetsuya Yoroizaka and Kota Murayama finished 16th and 24th out of 43 on the first two of the 100.0 km New Year Ekiden's seven stages.  In their absence Yoshihiro Wakamatsu of East Japan region runner-up Nissin Shokuhin took the First Stage, 4 seconds ahead of Konica Minolta's Kazuto Nishiike and another 5 seconds ahead of Toyota's Tsubasa Hayakawa, winner of last year's anchor stage.

【動画】これはひどい。 沿道の観客の犬が飛び出しコニカミノルタのポールクイラ選手転倒 ちゃんとリード持っとけよアホ #ニューイヤー駅伝#tbspic.twitter.com/tLoyDfBRXe — アナログちゃん (@anlgc) January 1, 2016
2013 World Cross-Country Championships junior silver medali…

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…