japan running news

At a press conference on Mar. 1 at the Grandvrio Hotel in Tokushima, the organizing committee of the Mar. 25 Tokushima Marathon 2018 announced that London Olympics marathon bronze medalist and all-time 4th-fastest man Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich (Kenya) and others will run Tokushima as invited athletes. 14,200 people, 8,461 from within Tokushima prefecture, 5,558 from elsewhere in Japan and 181 from abroad, are entered in this year's race. To elevate the level of competition at the race, Tokushima organizers will for the first time invite three Kenyan athletes. Kipsang has a best time of 2:03:13 and won last year's Tokyo Marathon. The Tokushima Marathon course record of 2:15:25 was set in 2014 by Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't). Domestic invited athletes include Yoshihiko Ishikawa (29, Nichiaka Kagaku), Toshiharu Takai (31, Miyoshi T&F Assoc.) and Kana Unno (25, Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo). Ishikawa won last year's 24-Hour Ultra World Championships in Northe...

Things are buzzing in Japan right now in a way they haven't for a long, long time. Yuta Shitara 's 2:06:11 national record last weekend in Tokyo , Hiroto Inoue joining him under 2:07, and a record-breaking group of seven other Japanese men at the 2:08 to 2:09 level have everyone believing. Believing that they can do it too. The first test of that belief comes Sunday at the last main marathon of the Japanese season, the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon . The hoop that made so many Japanese men jump so high last week was qualification for Japan's new 2020 Olympic trials, the MGC Race . Sub-2:08:30 and you're in. Sub-2:11:00 and in the top three Japanese? You're in. Sub-2:10 and in the top six Japanese? You're in too. As Kohei Ogino and Tadashi Isshiki , 7th and 8th Japanese in Tokyo in 2:09:36 and 2:09:43, found out, people are taking qualification seriously. Lake Biwa has had more editions with five Japanese men sub-2:10 than any other marathon, and with the qua...

Along with the National Cross-Country Championships and Tokyo Marathon, the weekend saw competitive half marathons across the country and nearby in South Korea. Yuta Shimoda of four-time Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University turned the fastest time of the weekend with a 1:03:20 win at the Kashima Yutoku Road Race half marathon, beating sometime training partner Aritaka Kajiwara (Hiramatsu Byoin) by 35 seconds. A week after his course record-breaking win at the Kitakyushu Marathon, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) won the local Fukaya City Half Marathon in Saitama in 1:04:26, beating corporate leaguer Rui Watanabe (Shindengen) by 29 seconds. Amateur Tomomi Sawahata (Sawahatters) scored yet another road race win in 1:15:42, the fastest time of the weekend by a Japanese woman. At the 40th anniversary running of the Inuyama Yomiuri Half Marathon , Toyo University first-year Ryoga Asai won in 1:04:44. Eri Watanabe (Aichi Denki) took the women's race i...

For the last seven years the New York Road Runners have invited a pair of Japan's best collegiate runners from November's Ageo City Half Marathon to run against world-class competition at the United Airlines NYC Half . The very first year of the program in 2012, one of the two sophomores from Toyo University to earn the invitation was future half marathon and marathon Japanese national record holder Yuta Shitara . Since Shitara's trailblazing 1:01:48 in that race, others have gone to New York and come back to rise to the top of Japan's distance running world. Following in their footsteps are Komazawa University teammates Kei Katanishi and Shogo Ise . Katanishi, the gold medalist in the half marathon at the 2017 World University Games, was the top Japanese university man in Ageo last November and went on to break 62 minutes for the first time with a 1:01:58 at the Marugame Half in February. Ise, a second-stringer at Komazawa with two wins at second-tier Japanese h...

On Feb. 27 the organizers of the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon announced that last year's 4th-placer, Satoru Sasaki (Asahi Kasei) has withdrawn from Sunday's race after developing pain in his right knee and foot. A 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympian in the marathon, Sasaki's PB of 2:08:56 made him the fastest Japanese man in the field. source article: https://www.jiji.com/sp/article?k=2018022701045&g=spo translated and edited by Brett Larner

At Sunday's Tokyo Marathon , half marathon Japanese national record holder Yuta Shitara (26, Honda) ran 2:06:11 to set a new Japanese national record. Taking almost 3 minutes off his PB, Shitara bettered the old record set by Toshinari Takaoka in 2002 by 5 seconds. Shitara finished 2nd overall, 41 seconds behind winner Dickson Chumba (Kenya). With his record having stood for almost 16 years, Takaoka gave his blessings, saying, "My record being beaten has made the path forward to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics brighter. When I saw Shitara's race in Tokyo last year I knew the day my record would fall was close at hand." Comparing the 2002 race where he set the old record of 2:06:16 and this year's Tokyo Marathon, Takaoka said, "Running a Japanese national record requires the right combination of weather, competition, pacing, and physical condition. It was a great thing for Shitara that Hiroto Inoue was there running ahead of him as well. The most important t...

Kengo Suzuki is the 2017 National University Half Marathon champion and bronze medalist at the 2017 World University Games. A fourth-year at 2017 National University Men's Ekiden champ Kanagawa University , he made his marathon debut in Tokyo on Sunday, running 2:10:21 for 19th. He will graduate next month. Suzuki wrote the following on the Kanagawa ekiden team site after the race. Thank you all for your support. I'm very happy that in my first marathon I was able to go with the others until 35 km. After that it was really painful, and I was fully baptized in the waters of the marathon. But it was a really valuable experience to get to make my marathon debut as an invited elite athlete while still a college student. After graduating I want to keep working steadily, focusing my abilities on each race that's there before me and making progress in building on what I can do now so that I can earn my place in the MGC Race (2020 Olympic marathon trials). Thank you all for...

Since Yuta Shitara 's national record-breaking 2:06:11 yesterday at the Tokyo Marathon I've been getting a lot of questions about the 100 million yen bonus he received for doing it. The bonus comes via Project Exceed , an initiative launched in 2015 by the National Corporate Federation to try to produce new men's and women's marathon national records ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Under the plan, any Japanese citizen, whether a registered corporate league athlete or not, who broke the men's national record of 2:06:16 or the women's record of 2:19:12 on a record-legal course would receive 100 million yen, roughly 760,000 Euro or $937,000 USD at today's exchange rate. The athlete's coach or team would also receive a separate 50 million yen (380,000 Euro or $468,000 USD) bonus for their role in having made the record happen. If more than one athlete broke the record in the same race, the other athletes breaking the record would receive 10 million y...