japan running news

2018 World U20 Championships 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka delivered the top Japanese performance on the sixth day of the Doha World Championships. Running the first of two heats in the women's 5000 m, Tanaka started close to PB pace and hung as the pack got faster and faster. Only faltering in the last two laps when the top four women took off, Tanaka held off Canada's Andrea Seccafien and South Africa's Dominique Scott to take 6th, qualifying for the final on time with an 11-second PB and all-time Japanese #3 time of 15:04.66. Post-race she told Japanese media, "I was just hanging on to the back of the pack. In the final I want to run a race I can enjoy."

In the second heat, national champion Tomoka Kimura hung with the early slow pace but soon dropped back to finish last in 15:53.08. Her Shiseido teammate Melissa Duncan of Australia took 9th in 15:37.37 but fell short of qualifying for the final.

After running a PB of 45.14 in the first round of men'…

The first Nittai University Time Trials meet of the season and the National Corporate Track and Field Championships delivered most of the weekend's pre-Doha World Championships action on the track.

At Nittai, Australian Melissa Duncan (Shiseido) and Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) tuned up for Doha with a head-to-head race over 3000 m, Duncan taking it by 0.40 in a sprint finish with a 9:05.45. The men's 10000 m was reasonably quick, with newcomer Razini Lemeteki (Takushoku Univ.) running a PB of almost two minutes to lead the top three under 28 minutes in 27:51.91.

But the most interesting result came in the women's 5000 m A-heat, where amateur club runners Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) and Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto) went 1-2 in another sprint finish, outkicking 2016 Gold Coast Marathon winner Misato Horie (Noritz), 2:23 marathoner Mao Kiyota (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and every other corporate leaguer in the field to do it. Yamaguchi, who ran a PB of 2:33:09 last weekend for 4th…

Following the end of the qualification period for the 2019 Doha World Championships, the JAAF announced additions to the initial Japanese National Team roster released earlier in the summer. Along with the additions, the JAAF made public that Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Univ. of Florida) will not run the 200 m in order to focus on the 100 m and relay, and that Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu), the only Japanese man to have cleared the Doha standard, will not race due to an apparent injury following a fall last week in Zagreb. Final changes to the team roster, if any, are expected to be announced Sept. 17.
Japanese National Team, Doha World Championshipsas of Sept. 11, 2019
times listed are best within qualifying window
WomenHurdles
100 m Hurdles  - Asuka Terada (Pasona Group) - 12.97
100 m Hurdles - Ayako Kimura (Edion) - 13.11

Long Distance
5000 m - Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki TC) - 15:15.80
5000 m - Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido) - 15:19.99
5000 m / 10000 m - Rina Nabeshima (Japan Post) - 15:21.40 / …

Running her first race as a 20-year-old two days after her birthday, 2018 World U20 Championships 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki TC) tuned up for the Doha World Championships with a 15:17.28 meet record in the Memorial Francisco Ramon Higueras meet in Andujar, Spain.

Running with support from JRN, Tanaka had an unexpected rematch against this year's 5000 m national champion Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido). With a projected 3000 m split of 9:13 Tanaka kept herself in 3rd place until the pacer dropped out a lap early at 2600 m. When frontrunning Ethiopian-born athletes Beyenu Degefa and Bontu Rebitu immediately slowed down Tanaka went to the front to keep the pace moving, dropping Kimura and others. Over the next three laps she and Degefa exchanged the lead at least three times before Tanaka put the hammer down from 800 m out.

Alone over the last 800 m, Tanaka was under 3:00 for the final 1000 m to take the win in 15:17.28, missing her PB by less than 2 seconds but …

Wednesday afternoon and evening saw the fourth meet in this year's five-part Hokuren Distance Challenge series, this time in the town of Kitami. The program included the little-raced 2000 m steeplechase as a tuneup for Monday's series-closing Abashiri meet, and in both the women's and men's races the national records went down. A top collegiate steepler while at Kyoto Sangyo University, Yui Yabuta (Otsuka Seiyaku) ran 6:27.74 to break the women's record. In the men's race 1500 m specialist Yasunari Kusu (Ami AC) surprised many by breaking the Japanese national record with a world-leading 5:31.82 despite little experience in the steeple.

The women's 3000 m in Kitami was more explicitly set up as a national record attempt, with four of the ten fastest Japanese women ever over the distance lined up to gun for the great Kayoko Fukushi's 8:44.40 record dating back to 2002. From the gun it was out at NR pace, with pacers Hellen Ekalale (Toyota Jidoshokki) an…

Following the weekend's National Championships, the JAAF announced the first round of athletes named to its national team for this fall's Doha World Championships. Any athlete who won their event at Nationals and had either won a gold medal at April's Doha Asian Championships or held the Doha qualifying standard was named to the team, with all other athletes, including Doha standard holders who finished 2nd or 3rd at Nationals, having to wait until the final team announcement in mid-September.
Japanese National Team, Doha World Championshipsas of July 1, 2019

Women

100 m Hurdles - Ayako Kimura (Edion) - 13.11
5000 m - Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido) - 15:19.99
10000 m - Rina Nabeshima (Japan Post) - 31:28.81
Javelin Throw - Haruka Kitaguchi (Nihon Univ.) - 64.36 m
4x400 m Relay -
Seika Aoyama (Osaka Seikei AC) - 53.42
Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) - 53.52
Yuna Iwata (Chuo Univ.) - 53.97
Konomi Takeishi (Toho Ginko) -54.27

Men

100 m / 200 m - Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Univ. of Florida) - 9…

On the final day of the 2019 National Track and Field ChampionshipsShunya Takayama (Zenrin) and Kensuke Izumiya (Juntendo Univ.) raced each other to a men's 110 m hurdles national record-tying 13.36. With one of the favorites, Taio Kanai (Mizuno) out after a false start in the semis, Takayama and Izumiya were side by side. In the middle of the heaviest rain of the day they went right to the line together. Izumiya looked as though he had it, but on review Takayama was timed at 13.354 and Izumiya at 13.356, both tying Takayama's national record on official time. Having cleared the Doha standard Takayama earned a place on the national team for this fall's Doha World Championships.

The rain also impacted the women's and men's 200 m. Local collegian Mei Kodama (Fukuoka Univ.) won the women's 200 m in 23.80 (-0.4 m/s), a PB but on the slow side for a national championship. Favorite Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Univ. of Florida) fought off Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) and …