japan running news

https://www.paralympic.org/news/rabat-2026-records-fall-stars-rise-inaugural-grand-prix-season While Yudai Shimazu 's 14:03.45 debut as a para athlete in Rabat was a T13-class world record by over 17 seconds, his actual PB is 13:33.83 from last May's Golden Games in Nobeoka. Expect him to take this WR, and others in his class, a lot further. His other current PBs vs. the existing T13 WR : 3000 m : 7:58.34 (Kitami 2024) / 8:07.64 (Mikey Brannigan/USA 2017) 10000 m: 28:24.69 (Hachioji 2024) / 31:41.85 (Said Gomez/PAN 1988) half marathon: 1:01:32 (Yamaguchi 2025) / no existing record marathon: 2:11:20 (Osaka 2024) / 2:22:25 (Carlos Talbot/USA 1988)

30 km is an under-appreciated distance, and both of Japan's big races at that distance happened Sunday. At the Ome Road Race in western Tokyo's mountains, Sydney Marathon 6th-placer Masato Arao (ND Software) became the first man since the great Kunimitsu Ito in 1985-1986 to win back-to-back years. Arao, who finished 39th of 40 on his leg at the New Year Ekiden last month, stayed in the pack through 20 km before going on the attack, putting over a minute on New Year Ekiden Sixth Stage CR breaker Yudai Shimazu (GMO). Sub-1:31 winning times are rare on the tough and hilly Ome course, but Arao's 1:30:54 almost equaled his 1:30:50 from last year, making him the first Japanese man ever to do it twice and second only to CR holder Ezekiel Cheboitibin . Next up Arao races the Tokyo Marathon, where he is targeting sub-2:06. Shimazu was 2nd in 1:31:58 and Yuta Nakayama (JR Higashi Nihon) 3rd in 1:32:07. Cheboitibin was only 9th, running almost 8 minutes off his CR in 1:36:42. Shi...

Things have really been coming up fast the last year or so in Japanese distance running, but even so this year's New Year Ekiden really felt like the era has changed. GMO took the lead on the second of the race's 7 legs and went on to take over 2 minutes off the overall course record for the 100.0 km course, winning its first national title in 4:44:00. En route 6 of the 7 legs had new CR, a lot of them with multiple people breaking them, and the only leg that didn't, the 12.3 km First Stage, saw Shunpei Tomita of Logisteed run 34:23, only 7 seconds off the CR held by sub-27 Kenyan Martin Mathathi . The level at the collegiate Hakone Ekiden keeps going up up up , and that showed here as 3 of the new stage CR were set by guys in their first season in the corporate leagues who were some of the biggest stars at Hakone last year. Aoyama Gakuin University grad Aoi Ota sneaked in 1 second ahead of Toyota 's Jin Yuasa to set a 46:00 CR on the 15.9 km Fifth Stage. Collegi...

No big surprises at the New Year Ekiden , where 2025 kicked off with a battle between favorites Toyota , Honda and Asahi Kasei that came down to a sprint finish in the last 800 m of the 7-leg, 100 km race. 2017-2020 New Year Ekiden winner Asahi Kasei took the lead from the start with an opening leg win by Sonata Nagashima . On the longest leg, the 21.9 km Second Stage, Yuto Imae from the team most expected to challenge the big three, GMO , made it to the front, but with a great run from Tomoki Ota the defending champs Toyota took the lead on the Third Stage. Samuel Kibathi held on over the short Fourth Leg, but on the Fifth Leg Yusuke Nishiyama showed fatigue from his 2:06:54 at Fukuoka a month ago and was run down by Olympic steepler Ryoma Aoki from 2022-2023 New Year winner Honda and Asahi Kasei's Shuho Dairokuno . Looking very strong over a longer distance than he'd usually run, Aoki opened a 10-second lead on Dairokuno that Honda's 6th runner Toru Kubota turned...

Conditions couldn't have been better for Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance meet in western Tokyo's Minami Osawa, with zero wind, 9.5˚C temps and humidity in the low 40% range, the Wavelight ready, and experienced pacers across the seven heats of 10000 m. The field took complete advantage of it, with these winning times in the first five races: Race 1: Shotaro Hosokawa (Sekino Kosan) - 29:27.57 Race 2: Hiromi Suzuki (Sekino Kosan) - 28:47.27 Race 3: Yudai Shimazu (GMO) - 28:27.32 Race 4: Tetsu Yokoyama (Logisteed) - 28:14.05 Race 5: Yuki Muta (Logisteed) - 28:04.41 Things really took off in Race 6, where Shadrack Rono (Subaru) front ran a 27:42.37 to lead the top 17 under 28 minutes. Waseda University grad Ryuto Igawa (Asahi Kasei) ran a 12-second PB of 27:47.21 for top Japanese honors at 4th, with teammate Shuho Dairokuno just behind in 27:49.31 for 6th and three other Japanese men getting under 28. With that kind of progression in winning times across the first six ra...

Sunday is part two in the Big Three University Men's Ekiden series, the 8-stage, 106.8 km National University Men's Ekiden from Nagoya to Mie. TV Asahi has a 6-hour live broadcast, with English coverage on @JRNLive starting at 7:45 a.m. local time Sunday. Two-time national champ Komazawa University is riding high in its prep for a third-straight title, winning last month's season-opening Izumo Ekiden with a new course record to set itself up for a shot at a rare Big Three triple crown. Each of the three races has a different focus, Izumo's 7.51 km average stage length prioritizing 5000 m and 10000 m credentials, Nationals' 13.35 km average length shifting the balance toward the 10000 m to half marathon range, and Hakone's 21.7 km average pushing half marathon ability up front. Komazawa has it covered. The 8 fastest people on its Nationals roster have average PBs of 13:35.90 for 5000 m and 28:19.32 for 10000 m. None of the 26 other teams in the race are any...

The level at the Hakone Ekiden just keeps going up and up.  Every year it seems like it can't go any further, and then it does. 3 stages this year had new course records, 9 out of 10 legs had at least one all-time top 10 mark, and 4 stages had 4 times inside their best-ever 10. In the absolute sense, shoes have played a part in that over the last few years, but in a relative sense the best college teams have at least equalled the top of the corporate leagues, and the teams behind them are getting closer and closer to the same level. At this year's 98th running on Jan. 2 and 3  Aoyama Gakuin University broke its own course record to make it 6 wins in 8 years. AGU clocked 10:43:42 for the complete 10-stage, 217.1 km course, an average of 2:57.9/km the entire way. How does that compare to Honda , which won the New Year Ekiden corporate men's championships on Jan. 1? Honda ran 4:51:04 for the 7-stage, 100.0 km course, averaging 2:54.6/km over an average 14.3 km stage lengt...

Heavy favorite Aoyama Gakuin University set up for its sixth overall Hakone Ekiden  victory in the last eight years, taking the Day One win by over two and a half minutes and leading defending champ Komazawa University  by more than three.  Yamato Yoshii  (Chuo Univ.), Japan's 5000 m U20 NR holder and 2nd-fastest U20 half marathoner, led the 21.3 km opening leg start to finish, starting with a 2:50 CR pace opening km, splitting 27:58 at 10 km, and ending at 1:00:40, 26 seconds under the old record held by Yuki Sato and equivalent to a 1:00:06 half marathon. The rest of the field was fast too, Komazawa's Takumi Karasawa leading them in in 1:01:19 with AGU's Hayato Shiki  6 seconds further back. Komazawa's top man Ren Tazawa , who ran an all-time Japanese #2 27:23.44 for 10000 m last month, took his time calmly reeling in Chuo's Shun Teshima on the 23.1 km Second Stage, taking just over 7 km to close the gap and never looking back once he did. The expectation ...

It was a strange sight to see the biggest race of them all run through empty streets mostly stripped of the millions of fans who always line them. But as Japan's coronavirus bill comes due, it was a relief just to see the Hakone Ekiden 's 97th running happen at all. The first km of the 21.3 km First Stage was possibly the slowest in Hakone history, with the entire field practically walking its way through the first 800 m before Kiseki Shiozawa  (Tokai Univ.) got it moving enough to clock a 3:35 opening split. Things quickly picked up to more normal between 2:50 and 2:55/km, but the slow start meant that 18 out of the field of 21 were still together when the pack hit the climb onto the bridge just before 20 km. There and on its downhill end some of the bigger names made moves that broke the pack down, with Shiozawa and Koki Kamata  (Hosei Univ.) pulling away to make it a head-to-head race for the stage title.  Surprisingly Kamata was the one who got away, giving Hosei its...

On Aug. 11 Mizuno issued corrections to  a press release originally dated July 1 announcing that its all-white prototype model containing the new Mizuno Enerzy foam was being released under the name Wave Duel Neo. On its third page the updated press release corrected specifications for the shoes' sole thickness. The company apologized for any inconvenience caused by inaccurate specifications in the previous versions of the release. On July 28, World Athletics announced new regulations governing the sole thickness of shoes used in track and field competition. The new rules specified the method by which sole thickness was to be measured. Previously, sole thickness was measured from the outsole to the midsole. The new World Athletics regulations specified that in addition to the outsole and midsole, the inner sole and insert were also to be included in measurements of thickness. In accordance with the new regulations, Mizuno amended the specifications of both the Wave Duel Neo...

On July 21 it was learned that Soka University third-year Yudai Shimazu , who at January's Hakone Ekiden broke the 13-year-old anchor stage course record to give Soka its first-ever top ten finish, first return trip to Hakone 2021, and first invitation to the Izumo Ekiden, has taken a leave of absence from the university. Shimazu started the Hakone anchor stage in 11th but succeeded in running down two teams to put Soka into 9th. He earnied special attention for having done it while being one of only 33 runners in the Hakone field of 210 not to wear Nike's Zoom X Vaporfly Next %, instead wearing a white pair of Mizunos. On the 21st, the Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto (KGRR) announced the seven teams it will send to the Nov. 1 National University Men's Ekiden Championships. In a normal year these teams would earn their places at June's Yosenkai qualifying race, each team fielding two runners in each of four heats of 10000 m on the track with teams scored b...

Day One results and report After a record-breaking first day , 2015-2018 Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University held off last year's winner Tokai University to take the overall title in course record time. AGU started the return trip to Tokyo with a 3:22 lead over Tokai, enough for Tokai head coach Hayashi Morozumi to express pessimism about his team's chances of making up such a big deficit over Day Two's five stages totaling 109.6 km. Not that they didn't try. On the day's first stage, the brutal 20.8 km Sixth Stage featuring a steep climb early on and then over 800 m of descent, mostly in the middle 10 km, two-time 1500 m national champion Ryoji Tatezawa broke the course record by 40 seconds to cut over a minute off AGU's lead. Tokai's next two runners Sakito Matsuzaki and Yohei Komatsu cut further into AGU's margin of error, but at the start of the day's longest stage, the 23.1 km Ninth Stage, Tokai was still exactly 2 minu...