japan running news

MGC Race finalist Mao Ichiyama (22, Wacoal) took 22 seconds off her PB to win the Hakodate Half Marathon in 1:08:49, moving up to all-Japanese #8 in the record books. Also MGC Race-bound, her teammate Yuka Ando, 25, was 2nd in 1:09:47 to give the Wacoal team a 1-2 finish. Men's MGC Race finalist Ryu Takaku (26, Yakult) was the top Japanese man overall at 2nd in 1:02:43.

The Wacoal team seems to thrive at northern latitudes. Ichiyama secured her place at the MGC Race at April's London Marathon. "I've been feeling better and better since London and I want to keep taking chunks off my time," Ichiyama said. Ando was cool and professional after having been beaten by her younger teammate by 58 seconds. In June she had suffered a bit from overtraining, but, she said, "I'm doing the workouts in our training camp and bit by bit things are getting more responsive."

Along with Ichiyama and Ando, the Wacoal team also has veteran half marathon national record h…

6th in the men's pole vault two years ago, Masaki Ejima kept Japan's medal streak at the Tampere World U20 Championships alive with a bronze medal on the fifth day of competition. Both Ejima and silver medalist Zachery Bradford of the U.S.A. cleared 5.55 m on their third attempts and failed to clear 5.60, but as Ejima had struggled at 5.40 m the silver went to Bradford, who had cleared it with ease. Gold went to Armand Duplantis, who set a new championships record of 5.82 m.

A highly-anticipated medal failed to materialize in the men's 4x100 m, where the Japanese squad finished out of the medals by an agonizing 0.01 behind Germany, running in the top three throughout the race but outleaned at the line. Both the U.S.A. and Jamaica went under 39 seconds for gold and silver.  Another near-miss came in the women's 10000 m racewalk, where Nanako Fujii set a PB of 45:08.68 but came only 4th. In both the men's 10000 m racewalk and men's high jump Japan scored top eig…