japan running news

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...

Just over a month since his 17th birthday, Taiju Goto proved his 48.31 U18 WR in the men's 400 mH heats yesterday wasn't a fluke as he bettered that in the final on the last day of the 110th National Track and Field Championships in Nagoya. Slow in the start, Goto picked up momentum coming up to 200 m before really getting into gear, pulling away from the rest of the field in the last 100 m to win in 48.09, another U18 WR, a new U20 NR, and a run that made him the first high schooler ever to with the Nationals 400 mH. Now only 0.20 off the senior NR, Goto joins the list of Rakunan H.S. talent to be re-writing the record books that includes Yoshihide Kiryu , Ryuji Miura , Keita Sato and Toshinari Takaoka . Another Nationals MR went down, this one in the women's 3000 mSC thanks to NR holder Miu Saito . Having taken 3rd in the 5000 m 2 days ago, Saito started out a little on the conservative side with company from last year's winner Manami Nishiyama in the first 1000 ...

Entry lists are out for next week's National Track and Field Championships in Nagoya, the main selection event for Japan's teams for September's Nagoya Asian Games and Copenhagen World Road Running Championships. Top entries in each event with best time in 2025-26. Asterisks indicate 2025 national champions. Men Men's 100 m *Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) - 9.99 Sorato Shimizu (Seiryu H.S.) - 10.00 Yuhi Mori (Watanabe Pipe) - 10.00 Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.06 Fukuto Komuro (Chuo Univ.) - 10.08 Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) - 10.08 Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.10 Ryota Suzuki (Suzuki) - 10.11 Naoki Inoue (Osaka Gas) - 10.12 Rikuto Higuchi (Suzuki) - 10.12 Men's 200 m Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) - 20.45 Aoto Suzuki (Sumitomo Denko) - 20.49 Kota Uematsu (Chuo Univ.) - 20.50 Yuji Michael Orisa (GK Line) - 20.51 Soshi Mizukubo (Miyazaki T&F) - 20.51 Mitsuhiro Numata (Legalis) - 20.58 Seisho Sasaki (Iwate Univ.) - 20.60 Sota Miwa (Koizumi) - 20.61 Naoki Uemoto (Lega...

Day 4 of the Tokyo World Athletics Championships had a relatively small number of Japanese athletes in action, but it was highlighted by another great run in the men's 400 m from new NR holder Yuki Joseph Nakajima . 800 m NR holder Ko Ochiai , who made Worlds on a host country slot, bowed out in the first round with a 1:46.78 for 7th in Heat 5, putting him at 45th of 63 finishers overall. Neither member of the women's triple jump squad advanced either, Maoko Takashima 13th in qualification group A at 13.86 m (-0.3) and Mariko Morimoto 17th in group B and last overall at 13.10 m (+0.5). Ryoichi Akamatsu added to Japan's top 8 placing count, taking 8th in the men's high jump final at 2.24 m. Yuto Seko was 10th, clearing only 2.20 m after having hit the 2.33 m qualifying standard in late August. Olympic champ Hamish Kerr of New Zealand won a great duel against Korean Sanghyeok Woo , 2.36 m to 2.34 m. Czech Jan Stefela won bronze at 2.31 m. In the men's 110 m hur...

With less than 3 weeks to go until the Aug. 24 deadline to qualify for September's Tokyo World Championships let's take a look at what kind of team Japan might have. In terms of potential medalists there are 6 solid candidates, all the usual suspects. World and Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi leads the women's javelin throw. Ranked 5th, Nanako Fujii has an outside chance in the women's 20 km race walk. On the men's side, Ryuji Miura looks to be a contender in the 3000 mSC where he's ranked 3rd. Toshikazu Yamanishi and Satoshi Maruo are ranked 1-2 in the 20 km race walk, with Masatora Kawano at 3rd in the 35 km race walk. After that it's the always-strong men's 4x100 m, ranked 2nd, although the big question is who is going to be on the team. In the marathon, you want to feel like Fukuoka CR breaker Yuya Yoshida has a chance. The women's javelin, marathon and race walks look like the only events where Japan is likely to field full squads of 3...

60 mH and 110 mH national record holder Shunsuke Izumiya came the closest to medaling on the small Japanese team at the Nanjing World Indoor Championships , taking 4th in the men's long jump on the final day of competition Sunday. Medalists Mattia Furlani , Wayne Pinnock and Liam Adcock were each only a cm apart, Furlani taking gold with a best jump of 8.30 m. Izumiya was 7 cm off Adcock, jumping a PB 8.21 m for 4th and continuing a steady progression in long jump since 2021. Hibiki Tsuha was last in the field of 13 at 7.13 m. With a stronger 2nd day that saw him make single-digit placings in each event, Yuma Maruyama took 9th in the heptathlon, scoring 5807. His best performance came in the pole vault, where Maruyama cleared 4.80 m for 8th of 12. In the women's 60 mH, Yumi Tanaka took 4th in her opening round heat in 8.06 to advance to the semifinals. There she ran 8.03 for 5th in SF2, missing a time qualifying spot by 0.07. With no other Japanese athletes making finals ...

  The Japanese men's 110 mH national record holder at 13.04 and a semifinalist in the Paris Olympics 110 mH, Shunsuke Izumiya (Sumitomo Denko) turned in the biggest performance at this year's National Corporate Track and Field Championships. Doing his annual shot at the long jump at Corporate Nationals, Izumiya beat his 2022 best of 8.00 m and last year's winning mark of 8.10 m with a new PB of 8.14 m (+0.7) on his first and only successful attempt. That was good enough to take the win over Hibiki Tsuha by 11 cm and moved Izumiya up to all-time Japanese #10 in the long jump. NR holder Shotaro Shiroyama (Zenrin) was 3rd with a first attempt jump of 7.81 m (+0.5). Other standout performances: Shoto Uno (Orico) got into the sub-10.1 club with a 10.09 (+1.4) win in the men's 100 m final. 400 m specialists Fuga Sato (Mizuno) and Kentaro Sato (Fujitsu) stepped down to the 200 m, beating Uno to go 1-2 in 20.67 (+0.4) and 20.79 with Uno 3rd in 20.90. Nanako Matsumoto (T...

Former Juntendo University teammates and co-NR holders  Rachid Muratake and Shunsuke Izumiya had the chance to make history in the first track event of the evening session on day 7 of athletics at the Paris Olympics . No Japanese man had ever made it to the final of an Olympic 110 m hurdles before, and with the top 2 finishers in each semifinal plus the next 2 fastest going on to the final both lined up in their SF with the 2nd-fastest season best time in their race. Muratake was up first, but with a 13.26 (+0.1) for 4th in SF1 his chances of getting through didn't look good. Senegal's Louis Francois Mendy kept Muratake's hopes alive when he ran only 13.34 (-0.1) for 3rd in SF2, leaving it to SF3 and Izumiya. Izumiya was sluggish through the early and middle phases of the race but came back with a brilliant last 20 m to take 3rd. When his time of 13.32 (+0.6) came up it meant Muratake was in as Japan's first Olympic finalist, but Izumiya himself was just short of k...

There still aren't many Japanese athletes on the ground in athletics at the Paris Olympics. Day 3 on Saturday saw only 3 men in action, all in the 100 m. Abdul Hakim Sani Brown was the only one to make it out of the heats and into Sunday's semifinals, running 10.02 (0.0) for 2nd in Heat 4 behind Jamaican Oblique Seville . Ryuichiro Sakai missed a time qualifying spot by only 0.01, running 10.17 (+0.3) for 5th in Heat 7. Akihiro Higashida was 5th in Heat 1, running 10.19 (+0.6). In the semifinals Sani Brown had an unlucky draw, running SF 3 against Kishane Thompson , Fred Kerley , Andrew De Grasse , Ferdinand Omanyala and others. Totally determined to make the final, Sani Brown ran a PB 9.96 (+0.5) for 4th, the 2nd-fastest ever by a Japanese man and just 0.01 off the NR. But with the fastest times ever in Olympic semifinals coming in two of the three races it took a 9.93 to make the final on time, putting it out of Sani Brown's range. His best just wasn't enough, bu...

Athletics is about to kick off at the 2024 Paris Olympics . Japan's medal chances are few, but there's a decent number of people with a realistic shot at top 8 or top 10, depending on what you care about. The ones most likely to hit one of those targets: Women's Javelin Throw - Haruka Kitaguchi Kitaguchi is the 2023 world champion and Diamond League final winner and the only woman in the field over 67 meters in the Paris qualifying window. She's been more consistent this season than in the lead-up to Budapest last year but also hasn't had a really big throw. Last year she went in to the World Championships with a 67.04 m in mid-July. This year she's only hit 65.21 m, also in mid-July, but both Colombia's Flor Denis Ruiz Hurtado and Austrian Victoria Hudson have thrown over 66 m this season. Kitaguchi's medal chances are good, but it'll take a peak performance for her to walk away with gold. Men's 20 km Race Walk - Koki Ikeda , Ryo Hamanishi a...

Getting stuck in the shinkansen cancelation headaches yesterday means we're a day late getting to the weekend's track roundup, but better late than never. At the top of the list, women's 100 mH national record holder Mako Fukube (NKK) took 0.04 off her own record to win in 12.69 (+1.2) at the All-Star Night Games in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa in her last race before the Paris Olympics. Other Paris team members won their races too: 4x400 m squad member Takuho Yoshizu (GK Line) took the win in the men's 400 m in 45.89. Men's 400 m hurdler Daiki Ogawa (Toyo Univ.) set a meet record 49.09 for the win. Sumire Hata (Sumitomo Denko) set a women's long jump MR of 6.61 m (+0.8). Marina Saito (Suzuki) and Momone Ueda (Zenrin) both threw over the old MR held by world champion and Paris teammate Haruka Kitaguchi , Saito getting the win with a final attempt of 58.45 m, Ueda next at 57.93 m and 3rd-placer Yuki Yamamoto (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) also going over the old MR at 57...

Newly crowned women's 800 m national champion Rin Kubo , 16, anchored one of two 4x800 m teams from Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S. at a time trial meet in Higashi Osaka Friday, setting a new Japanese NR of 8:33.77. The team, which included Rin Kitamura , Runa Asano , Misa Tamura and Kubo, took 8 seconds off the old record, clocking individual splits of 2:07.4 for Kitamura, 2:11.2 for Asano, 2:13.1 for Tamura and a solid 2:01.9 for the 16-year-old Kubo whose official PB for a standard 800 m is 2:03.13. Higashi Osaka Keiai's B-team also broke the old high school NR in 8:55.06. Overseas, three members of Japan's team for the Paris Olympics tuned up at the Monaco Diamond League meet. Women's javelin world champion Haruka Kitaguchi (JAL) ntook the win in style with a 65.21 m season best on her final throw, surpassing the leader since the first round, Australian Mackenzie Little , by 47 cm. After a good comeback run at the Paris Diamond League meet, Shunsuke Izumiya (Sumitom...

Catching up on track results from the last few days: After skipping the National Championships, men's 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Subaru) and 110 mH hurdler Shunsuke Izumiya (Sumitomo Denko) demonstrated fitness at the Paris Diamond League meet. Miura ran a season best 8:10.52 for 7th, with Izumiya 3rd in the final in a 13.16 (-0.6) SB after winning Heat 2 in 13.16 (+0.4). National champion Rachid Muratake (JAL) was a DNS in the final after winning Heat 1 in 13.15 (+0.1). At the last Nittai University Time Trials meet of the season, collegiate 5000 m and 10000 m record holder Richard Etir (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) won the men's 5000 m fast heat in 13:27.48, outrunning Brian Kiptoo (Reitaku Univ.) and Patrick Kamau (Kokushikan Univ.). Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) was the fastest Japanese man in the meet at 13:45.54 for 6th. Kiptoo also soloed a 10000 m, literally, as in the only person in the race, in 29:05.52. Sharon Mwanthi (Yamanashi Gakuin H.S.) won the wome...

  Summer seemed to finally break right on the autumnal equinox, just in time for the second day of the 2023 National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Gifu. Things kicked off with the women's 10000 m race walk, where Kaori Kawazoe (SDF Academy) took the national title in a leisurely 48:26.31 by 8 seconds over Nami Kumagai (Sekisho). The men's 10000 mRW didn't happen for another 7 hours, but it saw MR holder Koki Ikeda (Asahi Kasei) take the win in 38:46.81 with Ryo Hamanishi (Sunbelx) 8 seconds behind. WR holder Eiki Takahashi (Fujitsu) was 6th in 41:56.86, with Daisuke Matsunaga (Fujitsu) 8th in 42:50.60 in his final race before retiring and becoming an assistant coach at Toyo University . The men's 100 m heats saw some of the aging greats of Japanese men's sprinting back in action after sitting on the bench while younger talent represented in Budapest last month. NR holder Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) won H1 in 10.26 (+2.4), 2010 World U20 Championships...

The World Athletics Championships wrapped up August 27 in Budapest after 9 days of competition. Japan earned only one gold and one bronze medal, but it had a record 11 top-8 placings, many in events where Japan has typically lagged behind the rest of the world. After the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the JAAF set about on a program to develop "unwavering athletes" in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics, raising the level of the sport by developing athletes who can perform reliably at the international level. Women’s javelin gold medalist Haruka Kitaguchi , 25, represents the kind of athlete the JAAF is looking for, along with first-ever World Championships 110 m hurdles finalist Shunsuke Izumiya , 23, 5th in Budapest, and 3000 m steeplechase 6th-placer Ryuji Miura , 21. All three were near the top of the world rankings going into Budapest and performed up to ability there. All of them show the "unshakability" the JAAF is pushing. All competed in Diamond League meets this seas...

  Shunsuke Izumiya was one of Japan's few individual medal possibilities at the Budapest World Championships , and on Day 3 of the championships he ran like that was a true statement. After a 13.33 +0.5 m/s for 2nd in his 110 m hurdles opening heat, Izumiya stepped up with a 13.16 -0.2 m/s to win his semifinal, making him Japan's first-ever Worlds 110 mH finalist and putting him at 3rd among the eight finalists. From there he needed another step up to get into the medals, but with a 13.19 +0.0 m/s he finished only 5th as Americans Grant Holloway and Daniel Roberts took gold and bronze in 12.96 and 13.09, and Jamaican Hansle Parchment silver in 13.07. In the men's 400 mH semifinals, Kazuki Kurokawa ran a PB of 48.58, the fastest time by a Japanese man in 11 years and good for #6 on the all-time Japanese list and #10 on the all-time Asian list. But it wasn't enough to get him into the final, as Kurokawa placed 4th in SF2, 0.19 short of qualifying on time. The women...