japan running news

Day two of the 2019 Japanese National Track and Field Championships saw heavy rain hit the roofless Hakatanomori Field midway through the desultory late afternoon schedule, impacting the men's javelin throw, women's pole vault and women's long jump and leaving the track slick for the evening's main events.

Just before the first wave of rain struck, Haruka Kitaguchi (Nihon Univ.), the only woman in the javelin throw to have cleared the Doha World Championships standard, opened with a national championships record 62.68 m that pretty much wrapped up her win. On her fourth throw Kitaguchi extended the record to 63.68 m, her final winning mark and securing her a place in Doha. In the final round of throws Yuka Mori (Nikoniko Nori) unexpectedly bettered Kitaguchi's first-round record with a PB of 62.88 m as the first few drops began to fall.

By the time the men's javelin got started it was a full on downpour, with race officials desperately trying to push a deepeni…

One of Japan's main spring meets, the Golden Games in Nobeoka saw some strong performances in its 30th edition. Evans Keitany (Toyota Boshoku) ran the performance of the day, breaking the 5000 m meet record with a 13:12.65 to win the almost all-African D-Heat. 2019 national cross-country champion Yuta Bando (Fujitsu) came in at all-time Japanese #24 in the same heat with a 13:26.70 for 12th, the first runner to crack the Japanese top 25 in four years. By comparison, all-time #2 Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei) won the 5000 m A-heat in 13:36.77.

Half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) continued his forward momentum this season after a long slump following his 2:06:11 at last year's Tokyo Marathon, winning the 10000 m in 27:53.67 to become the first Japanese man under 28 this year. Shitara surprised everyone by announcing post-race that he plans to run July's Gold Coast Marathon before doing the Sept. 15 MGC Race Olympic marathon trials. His fellow trials q…

On a day that saw three more world-leading marks, three more championships records and nine more national records, Japan saved its best for the last day of the Doha Asian Athletics Championships, bringing home three gold medals, two silvers and four bronze.

Yuki Hashioka brought the Japanese performance of the day, winning gold in the men's long jump with a world lead-tying PB jump of 8.22 m +0.6. Gold also came in the women's 100 m hurdles along with one of the bronzes, with Ayako Kimura and Masumi Aoki going 1 and 3.

The other gold came in the show-stopping men's 4x400 m relay, where Japan led start-to-finish to win  by 0.34 over India. India was later disqualified, elevating China to silver and hosts Qatar to bronze. The Japanese women's 4x400 m team led their race for almost 3/4 of the way, overtaken by India just before the last exchange and caught by Bahrain on the back corner but holding on for a surprise bronze.

Takashi Eto and favorite Naoto Tobe took silver an…

April 1 is the start of the new academic and fiscal year, the time when runners move up from high school to university teams and on from university to the corporate leagues. The Kanaguri Memorial Meet is always one of the first chances to see people debut in new uniforms, and even though it was a week later than usual this year there were still lots of interesting items to be had.

#1 among them was the debut of Australian Melissa Duncan in the Shiseido team's pink uniform. Duncan had no trouble putting away the field of Japanese and Kenyan corporate leaguers, soloing a 15:20.88 to win the women's 5000 m A-heat by over 20 seconds.

2018 National Sports Festival women's 1500 m champion Ran Urabe (Nike Tokyo TC) had a much narrower margin of victory in the 1500 m A-heat but still pulled out a win over 2018 World U20 Championships 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka 4:21.96 to 4:22.25, Tanaka debuting in the new Toyota Jidoshokki TC uniform after moving to that club sponsor at …

https://www.iaaf.org/news/report/niiya-mcsweyn-win-zatopek-10-2018


58th Zatopek:10Melbourne, Australia, 12/13/18
complete results

Women's 10000 m
1. Hitomi Niiya (Japan/Nike Tokyo TC) - 31:32.50
2. Sinead Diver (Australia) - 31:50.98
3. Ellie Pashley (Australia) - 32:17.81
4. Emily Brichacek (Australia) - 32:22.38
5. Camille Buscomb (New Zealand) - 32:28.37

Women's 1500 m
1. Whitney Sharpe (Australia) - 4:16.48
2. Madeleine Murray (Australia) - 4:18.36
3. Lilli Price (Australia) - 4:18.73
4. Natalie Rule (Australia) - 4:22.15
5. Isabella Thornton-Bott (Australia) - 4:23.53
-----
7. Ran Urabe (Japan/Nike Tokyo TC) - 4:27.32

photo © 2018 Riley Wolff/Tempo Journal, all rights reserved

Livestreaming of today's Zatopek:10 meet in Melbourne, Australia beginning at 6:25 p.m. local time. Japan's Ran Urabe and Hitomi Niiyaof the Nike Tokyo Track Club will both run, Urabe in the women's 1500 m at 7:25 p.m. and Niiya in the women's 10000 m at 8:15 p.m. Full schedule and entries here. Live results will be posted here.

5th in the 10000 m at the 2013 Moscow World Championships, Hitomi Niiya (30, Nike Tokyo TC) left Japan Dec. 7 for her first 10000 m since returning from five years away from the sport, the Dec. 13 Zatopek:10 in Melbourne, Australia. The Zatopek:10 will be her fifth race in a year that saw her run a 31:08 course record on the anchor stage of November's East Japan Women's Ekiden. Her condition is even better than at the time of her come-from-behind East Japan victory.
"The result is important, but everything that I could do to be ready for it is done," she told reporters. "All that's left is to run hard for 30 minutes." Since starting her comeback Niiya has run mostly 5000 m, but now her focus has shifted to 10000 m. "If you consider when I was running before a 10, I'm at about 6 or 7 right now" she said. As a test of her fitness she is setting 31:30 as her target. That is more than 30 seconds off her best but would rank her #1 in Japan and…

All-time Japanese #3 for 10000 m, Hitomi Niiya (Nike Tokyo TC) makes a return to the distance at Australia's Zatopek:10 next week with support from JRN after five years away from the sport. Niiya's history at the distance is short with only four track 10000 m races to her name, but good ones they were, one and all:
31:28.26, 2012 Hyogo Relay Carnival - 1st30:59.19, 2012 London Olympics - 9th31:06.67 MR, 2013 Japanese National Championships - 1st30:56.70, 2013 Moscow World Championships - 5th Following her crushing defeat over the last lap in Moscow after leading the entire race Niiya quit running and everything to do with it. But in the spring this year, now 30, she decided to try to make a comeback in hope of making the 2020 Olympic team in the 10000 m, telling the media, "I still totally hate running, but unfortunately it seems like this is where I belong." 
After three track races from 3000 m to 5000 m between June and October she made a definitive statement of in…

Avoiding the worst of the typhoon that caused the season-opening national-level high school ekidens and other events to be canceled over the weekend, the National Sports Festival continued through Tuesday after day one and day two of athletics competition.

National junior records fell in the women's 5000 m racewalk, where Nanako Fujii (Edion) took 2nd overall in 21:24.40, and the junior men's 110 m hurdles, where Ko Tawada (Ogaki Shogyo H.S.) ran 13.31 (+1.5 m/s) for the win. Tawada also broke the meet record, one of four to be set over the final three days. Along with Tawada's mark, women's 5000 m racewalk winner Kumiko Okada (Bic Camera) set a new meet record of 21:08.97, Takumi Murashima (Fuji Pref. Sports Assoc.) set a senior men's 800 m meet record of 1:47.45, with his teammate Taio Kanai (Fukui Pref. Sports Assoc.) breaking the senior men's 110 m hurdles record in 13.46 (+1.2 m/s).



In distance action the highlight was the junior women's 3000 m, where…