Last year's McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania, Australia shaped out into a great Australia vs. Japan dual meet , with Jessica Stenson outrunning Yumi Yoshikawa to take the women's title in a 1:09:51 CR, and Teikyo University school record holder Teruki Shimada executing a tactically brilliant race to drop Isaac Heyne , then-NR holder Brett Robinson , and Teikyo teammate Jinya Ozaki for the win in 1:01:12, just a second off the Australian all-comers record. Marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan took that record down to 1:01:08 at the Gold Coast Half a month later, but its chances of surviving this weekend aren't looking good. Shimada leads last year's top 4 back to Launceston this year, and there's a lot of tough new competition. 2025 National Corporate Half winner Tsubasa Ichiyama , Australia's Haftu Strintzos , new Teikyo record holder Yuta Asakawa and American Ethan Shuley have all run faster that Buchanan's rec...
Kanto Regionals were the big domestic meet this weekend, but there were other important results here and overseas. At the Xiamen Diamond League meet: 110 mH NR holder Rachid Muratake (JAL) was 2nd in 13.13 (+0.5) behind winner Jamal Britt (U.S.A.) in 13.07. The only other Japanese athlete in Xiamen, women's javelin throw NR holder Haruka Kitaguchi (JAL) was 7th at 60.08, down from her performance last week at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix Meet in Tokyo and eclipsed by the brilliant all-time #2 71.74 m throw by China's Ziyi Yan . 4 Japanese athletes ran at the Sound Running L.A,.Track Fest meet, 3 of them graduates of Kyoto's Rakunan H.S. like Kanto Regionals D1 men's 5000 m winner Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.). The only non-Rakunan guy there, Hibiki Obara (GMO) ran only 8:33.21 for 9th in the men's 3000 mSC A-heat. Daichi Shibata (Chuo Univ.) was last in the same heat in 8:49.91. Itta Tameike (SG Holdings) had a great run in the men's 5000 m B-heat, breakin...