Skip to main content

National Corporate Track and Field Championships - Preview (updated)

by Brett Larner

The National Jitsugyodan Track and Field Championships are the last major meet on the schedule for Japan's corporate runners before they head into the fall ekiden season next month. This year's meet takes place Sept. 25-27 in Okayama and kicks off with the men's and women's 10000 m.

The men's 10000 m promises to be one of the highlights of the meet. While it's unlikely everyone on the entry list will start, the names on the list include most of the best in the country, Japanese and foreign alike. Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) tops the list with his PB of 26:58.40 from this spring, accompanied by perpetual rivals Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and Yacob Jarso (Team Honda). Ngatuny's teammate Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) leads the Japanese contingent with his PB of 27:38.25. All told the field includes twelve 27 minute men alongside Ndambiri with another half dozen, among them Masato Kihara (Team Kanebo) in his pro debut, within seconds of breaking 28 minutes.

The women's 10000 m also has a strong field led by Kenyans Philes Ongori (Team Hokuren), Julia Mombi (Team Aruze) and Danielle Filomena Cheyech (Team Uniqlo). Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) leads four Japanese women with recent times under 32 minutes including Yurika Nakamura (Team Tenmaya), fresh from setting three PBs in three starts at last month's World Championships. As in the men's 10000 m, another half dozen women sit close to sub-32 level.

Other events to watch include:


  • National record holder Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica Minolta) and former university star Kensuke Takezawa (Team S&B) on their way back from injury in the men's 5000 m. It will be Matsumiya's first race since losing his 30 km world record to Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia at last week's Berlin Marathon.
  • Nakamura and Fukushi, the women's 5000 m national champion and national record holder respectively, face off again in the second heat of the 5000 m on Saturday. Also in the heat are 3000 m steeplechase national record holder Minori Hayakari (Kyoto Koka AC) and, trying again for another comeback, trouble-plagued 10000 m junior national record holder Megumi Kinukawa (Team Mizuno). Berlin World Championships marathon silver medalist Yoshimi Ozaki (Team Daiichi Seimei) will line up in the first heat.
  • Still showing momentum from his bronze medal performance at the World Championships, Yukifumi Murakami (Team Suzuki) will take down the field in the men's javelin.

Click here for complete entry lists for the 2009 National Jitsugyodan Track and Field Championships. Selected entry list highlights with season bests:

Men's 10000 m Heat 3
Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) - 26:58.40
Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 27:01.83
John Thuo (Team Toyota) - 27:31.61
Yacob Jarso (Team Honda) - 27:32.54
Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 27:38.25
Yusei Nakao (Team Toyota Boshoku) - 27:48.71
Nicholas Makau (Team JAL Ground Service) - 27:52.32
Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei) - 27:53.19 - DNS
Micah Njeru (Team Toyota Boshoku) - 27:53.79
Joseph Gitau (Team JFE Steel) - 27:58.09
James Mwangi (Team NTN) - 27:58.43
Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 27:58.63
Silas Jui (Team Hitachi Cable) - 27:58.88
Masato Kihara (Team Kanebo) - 28:06.48
Tomoaki Bungo (Team Asahi Kasei) - 28:07.20
Samuel Ndungu (Team Aichi Seiko) - 28:07.79
Satoru Kitamura (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 28:09.22
Kensuke Takezawa (Team S&B) - 28:23.28

Women's 10000 m Heat 2
Philes Ongori (Team Hokuren) - 30:29.21
Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) - 31:01.14
Yurika Nakamura (Team Tenmaya) - 31:14.39
Noriko Matsuoka (Team Suzuki) - 31:31.45
Julia Mombi (Team Aruze) - 31:39.38
Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera) - 31:42.86
Danielle Filomena Cheyech (Team Uniqlo) - 31:58.50
Yukari Sahaku (Team Aruze) - 32:01.80
Mari Ozaki (Team Noritz) - 32:03.17
Hiromi Ominami (Team Toyota Shatai) - 32:03.67
Megumi Seike (Team Sysmex) - 32:04.79

(c) 2009 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Brett Larner said…
The start lists are up. In the men's 10000 m there are two notable changes. Ryuji Ono (Asahi Kasei) is out, while Kensuke Takezawa (S&B) is in. Takezawa must be feeling back to normal. Japanese guys don't usually go all out at this kind of championship race, but Takezawa vs. Yuki Sato (Nissin Shokuhin) is the race everyone wants to see. These two guys are going to push each other into national record territory over the next 5-10 years.
September 25, 2009 at 4:23 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Heisei Mountaineering Stops Takigahara SDF Base From Scoring 10-Year Streak at Mount Fuji Ekiden

by Koichi Iwasa of DogsorCaravan On Aug. 2 the 51st Mount Fuji Ekiden took place, starting and finishing in Gotemba, Shizuoka and covering 11 stages up to the peak of Mount Fuji and back down. Teams of 6 runners tackle the tough course, each running handling one uphill and one downhill leg with the 6th runner reaching the peak before turning around to head back to the exchange zone where they started. The Heisei Mountaineering Club team took the overall win in 3:50:39, beating 9-time winner Takigahara SDF Base by 2:07 and stopping them from achieving a 10-year victory streak. The independent team division and SDF team division were separated in 2005, and this was the first time that the winning independent team outran the fastest SDF team to take the overall title. The roster that Heisei Mountaineering put together for this year's race raised eyebrows among everyone familiar with the Japanese trail running scene. Handling the 5th and 7th legs was Ruy Ueda , winner of the Fuji M...
Post a Comment
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
54 comments
Read more

Komazawa University One Step Away From Perfect Season With Hakone Ekiden Day One Win

Already the course record-breaker at the Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden this season, 2021 Hakone Ekiden champion Komazawa University came one step away from its first-ever triple crown of single-season ekiden wins as it won a highly competitive 2023 Hakone Ekiden Day One over defending champ Aoyama Gakuin University and last year's 6th placer Chuo University . Things got off to an unexpected start when Select Team runner Hayate Nitta of non-qualifier Ikuei University decided to take his one and only Hakone shot and run it up to his ability on the 21.3 km 1st leg even though the rest of the field opted to jog. At one point Nitta had a lead of almost a minute and a half, but as beautiful as it would have been for him to pull it off, Meiji University 's Shunpei Tomita and Komazawa's Kensuke Tsubura still managed to run him down in the final kilometer. Tomita took the stage win in 1:02:44, 1:02:08 half marathon pace vs. his 1:02:10 PB despite the slow s...
4 comments
Read more