The 41st Kurayoshi Women's Ekiden and 45th Nihonkai Ekiden took place Oct. 4 in Kurayoshi, Tottori, the first big national-level high school ekidens of the season. In the 5-stage, 21.0975 km Kurayoshi race, the Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin girls' A team won for the third year in a row in 1:09:11, its 5th win in event history. Kunei Joshi 3rd-year Mai Fukumoto got them off to a good start with a 3rd-place finish on the 6.0 km First Stage in 19:30. 1500 m national high school champion Waka Murai , also a 3rd-year, ran the fastest time on the 4.0975 km Second Stage, 12:46, to make up the 11-second gap to the leader and move into 1st. From there on out the younger runners on the team excelled. 1st-year Mei Imanishi extended the lead to 31 seconds on the 3.0 km Third Stage, and 2nd-years Kaia Okuno and Kotoko Asahi placed near the top on the 3.0 km Fourth Stage and 5.0 km Fifth Stage to give Kunei Joshi the overall win by 1:10. Kanagawa's Hakuho Joshi H.S. was 2nd in 1:10:21...
The International Testing Agency announced on Oct. 2 that provisional suspensions have been imposed on two athletes, Kazakhstan's Aiana Bolatbekkyzy in track and field, and Tajikistan's Issamjon Sharifov in tennis, after they tested positive for prohibited substances at the Asian Games in Nagoya, Aichi. Bolatbekkyzy, 19, tested positive for the steroid drostanolone in a sample collected during an in-competition test at the Games. A diuretic drug was found in the sample collected from Sharifov, 23. source article: https://www.sanspo.com/article/20261002-X4FJLT5MMZKFND6WXPOESAKETQ/ translated by Brett Larner