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

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

CHN and JPN National Records Go Down - Weekend Track Update

There weren't any Japanese athletes in action at the Rabat Diamond League meet Sunday, but 2 lower-tier domestic meets produced new national records. At the Nittai University Time Trials meet in Yokohama, Samuel Kibathi (Toyota) led the top 5 in the men's 10000 m under 28 minutes in 27:39.97. In 3rd, China's Wenjie Wang took just over a second off his own NR from the same meet last year, setting a new record of 27:47.53. His teammate Haoran Tang was 6th in a 28:27.44 PB, with the top Japanese time in the race being a 28:33.39 for 8th from Jin Yuasa (Toyota). Amazingly, Wang and Tang were back the next day on day 2 of the Nittai meet, Wang running a PB of 13:35.58 for 4th in the A-heat and Tang winning the B-heat in a PB of 13:38.80. Isaac Ndiema took the A-heat in 13:26.49, with the fastest Japanese time going to Yuhei Urano (Fujitsu) with a 13:35.94 for 5th behind Wang. Other Nittai highlights: Deborah Chemutai (Univ. Ent.) won a photo finish against Yua Nagamori ...

Batt-Doyle and Strintzos Break Records at Launceston Half

Australians Isobel Batt-Doyle and Haftu Strintzos turned in record-breaking performances to win the McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania. Running with a private male pacer, NR holder Batt-Doyle dusted the field with the fastest half marathon ever by an Australian woman on Australian soil, a 1:08:46 CR that put her 2 and a half minutes ahead of runner-up Genevieve Gregson . Last year's runner-up Yumi Yoshikawa was almost a minute back from Gregson in 3rd in 1:12:03, but was almost run down by club runner Ayaka Shimoyamada . Starting slow in her international debut, Shimoyamada moved up from 7th over the 2nd half of the race to finish 4th in 1:12:06, kicking hard in the home straight to try to catch Yoshikawa and momentarily blacking out after finishing. Kaho Onishi was 7th in 1:12:45 in her own international debut. The men's half had pacing set at 2:53/km to try to deliver the first-ever sub-61 half marathon on Australian soil. CR holde...