japan running news

Back in Japan for the first time in 32 years and representing 60% of the world's population, with more athletes competing across all sports than at the Olympics, the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games are already underway. Athletics competition starts tomorrow and runs through Tuesday the 29th. Some of the biggest names on the entry list include: Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage (SRI) - men's javelin throw - 2026 World Ultimate Championships gold and 2026 Diamond League champion Haruka Kitaguchi (JPN) - women's javelin throw - 2026 World Ultimate Championships and 2024 Paris Olympics gold Birhanu Balew (BRN) - men's 5000 m/10000 m - 2026 Diamond League 5000 m champion Sanghyeok Woo (KOR) - men's high jump - 2025 Tokyo World Championships silver Hayato Katsuki (JPN) - men's marathon race walk - 2025 Tokyo World Championships bronze Abderrahman Samba (QAT) - men's 400 mH - 2025 Tokyo World Championships bronze Jiale Zhang (CHN) - women's hammer throw - 2025 Tokyo W...

https://www.irunfar.com/2026-iau-100k-world-championships-results-americans-courtney-olsen-charlie-lawrence-win IAU 100 km World Championships Ames, Spain, 20 Sept. 2026 complete results   Women 1. Courtney Olsen (U.S.A.) - 7:10:31 2. Miho Nakata (Japan) - 7:11:57 3. Gemma Arenas Alcazar (Spain) - 7:17:50 4. Noora Honkala (Finland) - 7:21:37 5. Nikolina Sustic-Stankovic (Croatia) - 7:21:57 6. Estefanía Unzu (Spain) - 7:22:13 7. Natasa Sustic (Croatia) - 7:22:43 8. Malory Leroy (France) - 7:24:07 9. Selina Leroy (France) - 7:26:29 10. Mirjana Simek Bilic (Croatia) - 7:27:46 ----- 21. Mikiko Ota (Japan) - 7:48:55 25. Akiko Maruichi (Japan) - 8:02:21 29. Ako Takigahira (Japan) - 8:12:20 Women's Team Scoring 1. Croatia - 22:12:26 2. Spain - 22:21:06 3. Finland - 22:46:15 Men 1. Charlie Lawrence (U.S.A.) - 6:09:25 2. Aleksandr Sorokin (Lithuania) - 6:12:41 3. Alex Milne (Great Britain) - 6:17:50 4. Dariusz Nozynski (Poland) - 6:23:47 5. Jason Pointeau (France) - 6:24:34 6. Steven Galibe...

Japan had a team of 14 at the World Athletics Road Running Championships this weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark, opting not to send any women in the road mile. That was actually where the best Japan-adjacent performance came, as Mirriam Cherop , who returned to Kenya this year after several seasons with the Kansai-based Shin Nihon Jusetsu team, took bronze in 4:25.71. The best Japanese placing was in the men's mile, where Waseda University 's Ojiro Honda was 16th in a PB of 3:57.50, 0.50 off the NR but almost 4 seconds behind what Keita Satoh ran at last weekend's Fifth Avenue Mile in New York. Top placings in the other events were all in the mid-20s, Kana Mizumoto 24th in the women's 5 km in 15:42, Rui Suzuki 28th in the men's 5 km in 13:38, Yumi Yoshikawa 25th in the women's half marathon in 1:09:34, and Yuma Nishizawa 26th in the men's half marathon in 1:01:17. In half marathon team scoring, the Japanese men were 6th and the women 8th, disappointing...

This week the JAAF announced changes to the lineup for its home team at next week's Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games . The main change announced was the withdrawal of Ririka Hironaka from the women's 10000 m, leaving only Nozomi Tanaka to do it as part of a 1500-5000-10000 triple. In theory it seems like it would be pretty easy and swap in an alternate, but apparently not. No announcement of withdrawals for Tomonori Yamaguchi , who missed June's National Championships 5000 m with injury, or high jumper Ryoichi Akamatsu , who hasn't competed since early last October and made the Asian Games team based his 8th-place finish over a year ago at the Tokyo World Championships. Complete entry lists, schedule and results are available here . The latest Japanese team lineup, with current Asian ranking limited to 2 athletes per country, and best performance in 2025-26: Men 100 m 6 - Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.10 (+1.4) 9 - Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.06 (+1.4) 200 m 1 - Tow...

Re-upping an earlier post on Japan's team lineup for this weekend's  Copenhagen World Road Running Championships . The JAAF chose not to name any women to the team in the mile. Women 5 km Kana Mizumoto (Edion) - 15:06.98 Rina Kusu (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:10.91 Half Marathon Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon) - 1:09:14 Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:09:20 Rina Shimizu (Noritz) - 1:09:22 Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:09:23 Men Mile Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.) - 3:37.53 (1500 m) Tomoki Nakano (Toenec) - 3:37.92 (1500 m) 5 km Yota Mashiko (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.35 Rui Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.64 Half Marathon Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 1:00:22 Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:26 Neo Namiki (Subaru) - 1:00:29 Daisuke Sato (Chuo Univ.) - 1:00:40 © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved

At some point in the last few months I discovered that both versions of the ARRS database, the static one and the searchable version , are gone. Last week David Monti posted a link to the ARRS history of an event he covered in Race Results Weekly, I guess copying and pasting a link from last year without looking at it, and that reminded me to write something about the loss of the database. The Association of Road Racing Statisticians was basically a one-man show operated from the remote Northern California shores by Ken Young . When the site existed its intro read: The Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyses and publishes results and statistics regarding elite distance running at distances 3000m and longer...The data of ARRS is stored in the ARRS database, which has more than 1.3 million performances from more than 240,000 races by more than 95,000 elite and sub-elite distance runners worldwide...This website ...

Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest. U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back. Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3...