japan running news

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...

The Shiseido women's corporate team announced Oct. 14 that it will disband at the end of the fiscal year in March, 2027. A statement on the Shiseido site read, "In the midst of a rapidly changing society, to enhance both growth and profitability, Shiseido is focusing its global efforts on areas that hold a strong synergy with its core business. Given the major shifts in the environment since our founding and careful deliberation on our strategic direction, we have reached this decision." The Shiseido women's team was founded the same year as the Tokyo International Women's Marathon in 1979 with an ambitious mission statement "aiming to make a mark at the international level." For nearly half a century since then it has been one of the leaders of women's athletics in Japan, with 2 Queens Ekiden national titles and marathon success including a 2nd-place finish at the 1993 Tokyo International Women's Marathon by Mari Tanigawa , 3-straight Olympic m...

Four elite-level Japanese athletes were at the Chicago Marathon Sunday. In the women's race, Yuka Akasaki (Kraftia), 6th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, ran the second-fastest time of her career, 2:23:18 for 11th. Her husband Akira Akasaki (Kraftia), also 6th in Paris and runner-up in Berlin last year, better his PB by 28 seconds with a 2:05:47 for 9th, the fastest time this year by a Japanese man and his second-straight World Marathon Majors top 10 finish. NR holder Suguru Osako (Li Ning) was about 3 minutes off his goal of a new Asian record with a 2:07:34 for 14th, with half marathon NR holder Tomoki Ota (Toyota) struggling a bit to find his feet in his marathon debut, running 2:11:52 for 26th off a 1:02:57 first half. At the Perth Running Festival marathon in Australia, 2025 Warsaw Marathon winner Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) had a great head-to-head race against Kenyan Dominic Ngeno , together through 10 km, then dropping as far as 1:42 behind at one point before...

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...

We're at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii where JRN associate editor Mika Tokairin is making her debut here as an athlete after having come to Kona for years as a journalist. Next to Kona the most eyes worldwide will be on the Chicago Marathon , where a solid Japanese contingent is lining up including men's marathon NR holder Suguru Osako and half marathon NR holder Tomoki Ota , Kiyoshi Koga , and the other power couple in Japanese marathoning, last year's Berlin Marathon runner-up Akira Akasaki and Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Akasaki . Osako's manager told JRN that he is going for the Asian Record of 2:04:43 held by Moroccan-born Bahraini El-Hassan El-Abbassi who was served up a 4-year suspension not long after setting the record. Last year's Warsaw Marathon winner Ryoma Takeuchi is at the Perth Running Festival marathon in Australia where he hopes to add a CR win to his PB at July's Gold Coast Marathon. On the home front Keita Satoh i...

On Oct. 5 the Osaka Junior High School Athletics Association held a meeting for parents and related parties to explain the situation surrounding 8 local Osaka boys and girls who were scheduled to represent the city at this month's JOC Junior Olympics U16 Track and Field Championships but were barred from competing due to mistakes with the entry process by OJHSAA officials . A spokesperson apologized to the parents, saying, "This situation was the result of inadequacies with our procedures and verification. The athletes have no responsibility for what happened at all, and we offer our sincerest apologies." According to OJHSAA officials, their staff member in charge of registering the Osaka team for the Junior Olympics mistakenly thought the deadline for entries was Sept. 28, not the actual deadline of 6:00 p.m. on Sept. 24. The staff member realized the mistake at around 5:50 p.m. on the 24th and attempted to log in to the JAAF entry system and register the Osaka team, bu...

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...