Skip to main content

Kashiwabara Starts Off Second Year

by Brett Larner

Toyo University's Ryuji Kashiwabara, who caught the national eye with an epic new stage record on the 5th leg of January's Hakone Ekiden, begins his second year of university competition this Sunday at the 5th Kanto Private School Five University Track and Field Meet at Daito Bunka University. Kashiwabara will be one of four students in the final event of the day, the 3000 m Premium Race, where he will face professional runners from four teams along with three of his university rivals. The strongest contenders for the win on paper are Josai University's Yuta Takahashi and Team Chugoku Denryoku's Yasuhiro Tago, but Takahashi was a DNS at the recent World Cross Country Championships and his fitness may be in question. The Premium Race will also feature as pacemakers two of the best African runners in Japan, Team Komori Corp.'s Josephat Ndambiri and Team Nissin Shokuhin's Gideon Ngatuny. JRN will be on hand to cover the meet.

The Premium Race 3000 m Entry List
Indicated times are 5000 m PBs.
Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) - pacemaker
Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - pacemaker
Yuta Takahashi (Josai Univ.) - 13:37.69
Yasuhiro Tago (Team Chugoku Denryoku) - 13:39.13
Kosaku Hoshina (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 13:50.71
Yusuke Hasegawa (Jobu Univ.) - 13:52.76
Yoshinori Murakami (Team Fujitsu) - 13:57.38
Ryuji Kashiwabara (Toyo Univ.) - 13:58.28
Akira Kiniwa (Team S&B) - 13:59.99
Kazuma Kaikura (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 14:03
Keisuke Tanaka (Josai Univ.) - 14:07.23
Hiroshi Ino (Team Fujitsu) - 3:44.69 (1500 m)

(c) 2009 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...