japan running news

by Brett Larner
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With the Japanese Federation getting serious about this fall’s Asian Games as Japan’s buildup to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics gets underway, Fukushima plays host to the 98th edition of the National Track and Field Championships this weekend. Several events have seen national records fall this season, and there is the potential for more including one key distance record.

Friday

Friday’s main long distance race is the women’s 10000 m. Last year Hitomi Niiya lapped the entire field to set a meet record of 31:06.67 for the win, but with Niiya apparently serious about her retirement last year’s 2nd through 4th-place finishers will have a go at succeeding her for the national title. 2013 runner-up Yuko Shimizu (Team Sekisui Kagaku) made a decent marathon debut at London in April and will be returning to the track for her first major race since then. Ayumi Hagiwara (Team Uniqlo) has run big for most of the year since finishing 3rd behing Shimizu, ta…

by Brett Larner

The big race of the second day of Olympic track and field competition was of course the historic men's 10000 m, which saw training partners Mo Farah (U.K.) and Galen Rupp (U.S.A.) go 1-2 to give the U.K. its first-ever Olympic 10000 m gold and the U.S. its first men's 10000 m medal since the Tokyo Olympics.  Ethiopia's Tariku Bekele claimed bronze over his brother Kenenisa Bekele, with Saitama-based Bitan Karoki, a graduate of Hiroshima's Sera H.S. who now runs for Team S&B, taking 5th to land as the top Kenyan after losing out to the superior closing speed of the top four.  Two-time Japanese 10000 m national champion Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin), the only Japanese man in the race, ran up to expectations, sitting mid-pack through the slow early stages before falling away once the true action began and crossing the finish line in 28:44.06 for 22nd place.

100 m national champion Takayuki Kishimoto (Keio Univ.) had better luck, bringing the Japanes…

by Brett Larner

Japan's field contingent at the London Olympics is small, but every member is a world-level medalist, national record holder or national collegiate record holder.  Most eyes will be upon 2011 Daegu World Championships and 2004 Athens Olympics men's hammer throw gold medalist Koji Murofushi (Mizuno), who has previously indicated the intent to retire following London.  Murofushi was on top of his game in Daegu, but this spring he was lying low, taking his record 18th-straight national title with a throw of only 72.85 m.  Such a minimal-effort performance raised concerns about his fitness, but Murofushi typically brings his best to the major championships and, if fit, should move up far in the standings from his low-level seeded position.

If any other Japanese athletes are likely to figure into the top of the competition it will be in the men's javelin throw, where 2009 Berlin World Championships bronze medalist Yukifumi Murakami (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and his …

by Brett Larner

Day Two of the 2012 Japanese Olympic Trials was bracketed by two classic performances, one an Olympic-qualifying national record and the other an unforgettable duel between a World Championships medalist and the best of the next generation.  Five athletes altogether met the Federation's requirement of a win and an Olympic A-standard mark to secure their places on the London team, while another half-dozen stand a good chance of joining them.

The national record came without warning in the women's pole vault, where Tomomi Abiko (Shiga Lake Stars AC) executed a large PB to unexpectedly clear 4.40 m, a new NR by 4 cm and the first-ever Japanese woman's mark hitting the Olympic B-standard.  Abiko was short of the A-standard mark, but with no other Japanese woman qualified for the Olympics in the pole vault it is hard to see her staying home.  Less certain is the fate of women's 100 mH champion Ayako Kimura (Team Edion), who like Abiko only holds a B-standard …