japan running news

by Brett Larner click here for part one After a meet record in the men's 10000 m race walk earlier in weekend, the second half of the 71st National Sports Festival saw two more race walk meet records.  In the senior women's 5000 mRW, Kumiko Okada (Bic Camera) broke the record set 21 years ago with a new mark of 21:24.94 to win by almost a minute.  The junior men's 5000 mRW was closer, with Masatora Kawano (Gotemba Minami H.S.) pushing Ryutaro Yamamoto (Toyama Shogyo H.S.) to break his own record.  Yamamoto bettered his 2015 record by 12 seconds in 19:56.66, Kawano also coming in under Kawano's old mark in 20:02.38. In the junior men's 3000 m, 9th-grader  Hiroto Hayashida (Sakuragahara J.H.S.) bettered his high school competition to win in a new junior high school national record of 8:19.14.  No records were set in the junior women's 3000 m, but Kenyan Helen Ekarare (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) delivered one of the fastest performances in National Sports Festiv...

by Brett Larner Kicking off the 2016 Big Three University Ekiden season , the 6-stage, 45.1 km Izumo Ekiden played out almost exactly according to script , with defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University holding off the perfectly-matched Yamanashi Gakuin University and Tokai University on the second half of the anchor stage to win a second-straight title. A moderate easterly wind meant slower times than last year on the first three and final stages.  Right from the start it was all Aoyama Gakuin, Yamanashi Gakuin and Tokai, given a push on the 8.0 km First Stage by Nittai University 's Takumi Komatsu and Daiichi Kogyo University 's Geoffrey Gichia , but by midway through the 5.8 km Second Stage Aoyama Gakuin's Kazuki Tamura and Tokai first-year Ryoji Tatezawa had opened a lead over Yamanashi Gakuin that lasted until the anchor stage. In terms of the anchor stage Yamanashi Gakuin had the greatest advantage, with last year's stage winner Dominic Nyairo havi...

by Brett Larner click here for part two Japan's 71st National Sports Festival cleared the midpoint of its five days of athletics competition Sunday.  Meet records have fallen in five events so far, the highlight being the men's 10000 m race walk where Rio Olympians Eiki Takahashi (Team Fujitsu) and Daisuke Matsunaga (Toyo Univ.) dueled to push each other under the meet record, national record holder Takahashi setting a solid new mark of 38:21.88 but national junior record holder Matsunaga also more than 25 seconds under the old record set two years ago by 20 km world record holder Yusuke Suzuki (Team Fujitsu). Another Rio Olympian, women's 100 m national record holder Chisato Fukushima (Hokkaido Hi-Tech AC) duly took the 100 m final in 11.66 ( +0.5 m/s ).  Two members of the Rio silver medal-winning Japanese 4x100 m men's relay team, national champion Asuka Cambridge (Dome) and Ryota Yamagata (Seiko), were scheduled to run the 100 m, but while Yamagata won h...

by Brett Larner Sunday's Chicago Marathon saw the men go out unusually slowly.  Three Japanese men, Takuya Fukatsu (Team Asahi Kasei), Koji Gokaya (Team JR Higashi Nihon) and Ryoichi Matsuo (Team Asahi Kasei) were in the top ten until late in the race, Fukatsu and Gokaya leading at halfway and Fukatsu, a graduate of Komazawa University, still in the top spot at 30 km.  When the move came they were left behind as two-time world champion Abel Kirui (Kenya) took the win in 2:11:23, Fukatsu ultimately finishing 7th in 2:13:53 and Gokaya 9th in 2:14:34.  Fukatsu's placing was the best so far by a Japanese man in the Abbott World Marathon Majors Series X, although his time was nearly 3 minutes slower than that of Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) two weeks ago in Berlin. The women's race was more what you would expect, the pace hot on high 2:20 / low 2:21 track throughout the race.   Florence Kiplagat (Kenya) held steady at that rate to win by almost 2 minutes ...

by Brett Larner The organizers of the 28th Izumo Ekiden have released the starting order for Monday's six stage, 45.1 km race.  Below are the top runners on each stage from the field of twenty university teams and their best times for distances close to what they will be racing.  Click here for JRN's detailed preview .  Complete starting lists are available here in Japanese.  Follow @JRNLive for live coverage throughout the race beginning at 1:00 p.m. Japan time. Last year's course record-setting winner Aoyama Gakuin University is back as the favorite, but it's due for a serious challenge from last year's runner-up Yamanashi Gakuin University and the ascendant Tokai University .  Going by PB YGU runners lead AGU's on all but the Fifth Stage.  Both schools' anchors return, but last year YGU's Dominic Nyairo was a minute faster than AGU's Tadashi Isshiki over the 10.2 km Sixth Stage.  YGU may build up a lead over the first four stages and l...

by Brett Larner photos by Tsukasa Kawarai In a career teeming to overflow with double medals at the Olympics and World Championships and an unprecedented triple crown of Great North Run wins earned to varying degrees, Great Britain's Mo Farah staked the ultimate claim to the title of Greatest of All Time with the single most important victory of his career, a win at Saturday's Akasaka 5-Chome Mini Marathon . Running on a hilly 900 m four-loop course around and through broadcaster TBS' Akasaka studios as part of its semi-annual All-Star Kanshasai variety show, Farah overcame a 5 minute, 55 second handicap start to run down a cavalcade of Japan's finest models and comedians for the win, catching the last trio led by entertainer Kenji Moriwaki on the final uphill run up to the studio. 【オールスター感謝祭 TBS】 ファラー速い！💨💨💨🏃 やっぱりファラーはロードでも強かった！😊 pic.twitter.com/tFdpxEXT3K — NOBUKI T&F (@hagechabin123) October 8, 2016 Farah covered the 3.6 km cours...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/1721654.html translated by Brett Larner The organizers of the  Izumo Ekiden announced today that Kwansei Gakuin University has withdrawn from the event's 28th running on Oct. 10.  The Izumo Ekiden is one of the Big Three University Ekidens.  Organizers received notification of Kwansei Gakuin's withdrawal on Oct. 8 after a 21-year-old fourth-year Kwansei team member was arrested by Kyoto police on Oct. 7 on suspicion of entering a house and stealing money. Translator's note: The Kansai Region's Kwansei Gakuin University was ranked 13th in the Izumo field of 21 teams.

by Brett Larner photo by Dr. Helmut Winter Four Japanese men are scheduled to run tomorrow's Chicago Marathon , the site of the 2:06:16 Japanese national record set back in 2002 by Toshinari Takaoka .   Koji Gokaya (Team JR Higashi Nihon) is running Chicago for the second time, having run 2:12:15 for 7th in his second career marathon back in 2011.  Since then he has run 2:11:43 in Frankfurt 2014 and 2:09:21 in Tokyo 2015.  His 2:10:58 at last year's Berlin Marathon was the fastest time outside Japan by a Japanese man the entire year.   Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) leads 2016 with a 2:09:01 at July's Gold Coast Airport Marathon; Gokaya ran that race as a pacemaker and at that point told JRN that he was aiming for 2:08 in Chicago.  Only nine Japanese man have ever run that fast on foreign soil, and only Takaoka and Toshihiko Seko have ever done it in Chicago. Part of a dominant quartet while at Komazawa University, Takuya Fukatsu (Team Asahi Kase...