japan running news

Set to take part in the Deaflympics , the world's quadrennial main event for hearing-impaired athletes, members of the Japanese team appeared at Tokyo City Hall on July 5 to talk to Governor Yuriko Koike about their upcoming competition. Governor Koike spoke to them using sign language to express her support, with the athletes returning the distinctive sign for applause in thanks. The Deaflympics begin July 18 in Samsun, Turkey with 108 Japanese athletes in 11 different sports competing. 18 members of the team appeared at Tokyo City Hall. Swimmer Ryutaro Ibara , 23, told Koike, "I want to make this an opportunity for people in Japan and around the world to better understand handicapped athletes. I will do my best to help lead the team on to further success at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games." Governor Koike commented, "I am making Tokyo a place where every athlete has the opportunity to deliver their best. Please bring home as many medals as you c...

For the last few years Ethiopia's Tsegaye Kebede and Japan's Yuki Kawauchi have been in a race to erase serial marathoner great Abebe Mekonnen from the record books. At one point Mekennon held a controlling share of the sub-x marathon world records, the number of times an athlete ran under 2:** in their career. Kebede has been taking Mekonnen's records away from the faster end and Kawauchi from the slower, finally meeting each other at the sub-2:12 level. Kawauchi got there first, tying Mekonnen's record of 22 at May's Prague Marathon. With his 2:09:18 at Sunday's Gold Coast Airport Marathon Kawauchi took away Mekonnen's last record as he marked his 23rd career sub-2:12, the first man in history to run such depth at quality. His Gold Coast performance extended Kawauchi's range to every record from sub-2:12 to sub-2:19. Looking ahead, he is now 8 races away from tying American Doug Kurtis ' record of 76 career sub-2:20 marks. With 6 more marat...

A month out from the London World Championships, women's marathon team member Risa Shigetomo (Tenmaya) tuned up with her first road race since winning January's Osaka International Women's Marathon, lining up at Hokkaido's Hakodate Half Marathon . Running in the second pack with 2015 winner Asami Kato (Panasonic) and last year's winner Hiroko Miyauchi (Hokuren), Shigetomo took 6th in 1:14:38. 3rd the last two years, Yuko Mizuguchi (Denso) scored the win in 1:13:37 over Reia Iwade (Dome) and Miharu Shimokado (Nitori), both still adjusting to recent team and coaching changes. London team alternate Misato Horie (Noritz) was also in action in Hokkaido later the same day, running 16:21.77 for 10th in the women's 5000 m at the season's first Hokuren Distance Challenge meet in Shibetsu. In the men's race in Hakodate last year's top three shuffled positions to sweep the podium again. 2nd last year, Charles Ndungu (Komori Corp.) got the better ...

http://www.iau-ultramarathon.org/index.asp?menucode=h00&col001=1641&tmp=tmp1&menu_id=News&submenux=News&foto=foto0&more=x&taal=nl Yoshihiko Ishikawa (Japan) and Patrycja Bereznowska (Poland) lead us into the finalo hour at the @iaunews @belfast24hr World Championships! pic.twitter.com/8Mc6PCCrGs — Ryan Maxwell (@NiRunning) July 2, 2017

Ten years ago today Japan Running News started with a story about the withdrawal of Wataru Okutani from the Japanese men's marathon team just before the start of the Osaka World Championships. The concept was to provide a high-quality and reliable source for information in English about as much of the fascinating and exciting but otherwise invisible world of Japanese distance running as possible, and in the ten years of almost daily updates since then that ideal hasn't changed. The timing couldn't have been better, capturing the arcs of Samuel Wanjiru , Arata Fujiwara  and  Yuki Kawauchi , the rise of the Hakone Ekiden-driven university men's running circuit and of Japanese men's sprinting, and the buildup toward the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Along the way JRN has grown in ways we couldn't have expected, bringing writing jobs for publications worldwide and TV commentating work, the chance to work directly with some of Japan's best athletes and to travel ar...

Running on his 29th birthday, Takuya Noguchi (Team Konica Minolta) became just the sixth Japanese man to ever win a marathon outside Japan in a sub-2:10 time as he shot down favorites and past champions Kenneth Mungara (Kenya) and Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) to win the Gold Coast Airport Marathon in a 2-minte-plus PB of 2:08:59. In the women's race #1-ranked Abebech Bekele (Ethiopia) became only the second Ethiopian woman to ever win Gold Coast as she took more than a minute off the year-old course record to win in 2:25:34. Pre-race Noguchi's wife Risa Takenaka (Team Shiseido), the 2015 Gold Coast women's winner and running again this year, told JRN that he was in better shape than she was and had come in part to try to outgun Kawauchi. With a good season behind him including a 1:02:37 half marathon PB and 2:11:04 marathon PB in February and a 1:02:21 half marathon best in May Noguchi had the momentum to see that through. Two-time defending champ Mung...

The first race I ran in Japan was the 1997 Terry Fox charity run at the Imperial Palace a month after I moved to Tokyo. At that race I met people from the running club where seven years later I met my future wife and associate editor Mika Tokairin, who in 2007 suggested I start JRN. My mother was the daughter of immigrants, the first one in her family who was genuinely a product of Canada. As I've lived most of my life, part of my childhood and my entire adult life, outside of the country the connection I feel to Canada is tenuous at best, but if there is one thing that makes me proud to still have Canadian citizenship it is Terry Fox. Three days past the 36th anniversary of his death at age 22, long may his legacy live, and congratulations to his country on the 150th anniversary of its confederation.

https://www.iaaf.org/news/preview/2017-gold-coast-marathon-preview Past Gold Coast Airport Marathon winners Risa Takenaka (Team Shiseido) and Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) return to Sunday's race to lead a sizable Japanese contingent in both the full and half marathons. 2015 women's winner Takenaka will be seeking to improve on her PB of 2:28:09 and to extend the Japanese women's winning streak on the Gold Coast to six years in a row. 2013 men's winner Kawauchi will be running Gold Coast for the sixth year in a row as his final tuneup for next month's London World Championships. His 70th career marathon, his goal at Gold Coast is a sub-2:10. If he clears 2:12 he will break Abebe Mekonnen 's world record of 22 career sub-2:12 marathons. Other top Japanese competition includes last year's 4th-placer Chiharu Takada (Team JR Higashi Nihon), Takenaka's husband Takuya Noguchi (Team Konica Minolta), and 2016 Hofu Yomiuri Marathon winner Ryo...