Skip to main content

Weekend Track Results - Women's 4x100 m Relay National Record

by Brett Larner

The Japanese track season continued the May 7-8 weekend with the first of three straight weekends of regional corporate championships. The Chugoku Regional Championships held its 5000 m the night of May 7, with Yuko Watanabe (Team Endion) and Hironori Arai (Team Chugoku Denryoku) having surprise wins in 16:08.48 and 13:58.65 over top-ranked woman Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) and Kenyan Joseph Gitau (Team JFE Steel). The rest of the meet including the 10000 m will be held this coming weekend of the 14th-15th.

The Chubu region held its entire championships on the 7th and 8th, meaning many runners doubled at 5000 m and 10000 m in less than 24 hours. Kenyan John Thuo (Team Toyota), who ran a then-world-leading 10000 m last month at the Hyogo Relay Carnival meet, had the best run of the weekend, taking the men's 10000 m in 27:52.86. His teammate Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) was the top Japanese finisher, 5th in 29:10.06 with a 57-second last lap. Kenyan Samuel Ndungu (Team Aichi Seiko) took the men's 5000 m with ease in 13:57.76. Mao Kuroda (Team Yutaka Giken) won the women's 10000 m in 34:21.47 while Yukie Nagata of the newly-relocated Team Toyota Jidoshokki won a slow women's 5000 m in 16:35.71.

The biggest news of the weekend, however, came at the Golden Grand Prix in Kawasaki, where the women's 4x100 m relay team, featuring 100 m and 200 m national record holder Chisato Fukushima (Hokkaido Hi-Tec AC) and rival Momoko Takahashi (Team Fujitsu) set a national record of 43.39 to win over a competitive Australian squad, the latest step in the continued progression of Japanese sprinting. The men's 4x100 m was also quick, with both Japanese teams going under 39 seconds. 2010 World Junior 200 m champion Shota Iizuka (Chuo Univ.) anchored the B-team to a 38.94 finish with the A-team, including 100 m national champion Masashi Eriguchi (Team Osaka Gas) and 2008 Beijing Olympics bronze medalist Shinji Takahira (Team Fujitsu) running 38.78 for the win.

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Nationally-Ranked Gakuho Ishikawa H.S. Withdraws From Region Championships Due to Bear Attacks

5th at last year's National High School Ekiden boys' race, Fukushima's Gakuho Ishikawa H.S. has withdrawn its boys' and girls' team from the Nov. 6 Tohoku Region Ekiden Championships in Fukushima. A school spokesperson commented, "We made this decision based on the likelihood of our students coming into contact with bears in the city when out running in the morning." The Akita Athletics Association had already made an announcement on its website on Oct. 31 that due to the high number of bear encounters within the city of Akita this year , the ekiden would be held on a track instead of as a road race. Organizers said that they are leaving it up to each individual school whether to participate, and that they will accept schools choosing not to participate due to safety concerns. The Gakuho Ishikawa boys and girls both won the Fukushima Prefecture High School Ekiden in October, earning them places at the Tohoku regional meet and December's National High...

'Kobe 2024: Monday Sees Shocking Wins on the Track and the Field'

  https://www.paralympic.org/news/kobe-2024-para-athletics-world-championships-monday-sees-shocking-wins-track-and-field Complete results and daily schedule from the Kobe World Para Athletics Championships  are here .

Hofu Yomiuri Marathon Elite Field

Everything in Japanese marathoning is already about qualifying for the MGC Race, Japan's trials race for the L.A. Olympics. Scheduled the same day as the Fukuoka International Marathon, the Dec. 7 Hofu Yomiuri Marathon counts the same weight as Fukuoka, Tokyo and Osaka in men's qualification, with trials spots up to be had by the first 6 Japanese men under 2:09:00 and the first Japanese woman under 2:27:00. The only real contender to do that among the women is Mizuki Nishimura , running her first marathon off a 1:41:42 CR at the Kumanichi 30k in February. Given the Tenmaya corporate team's track record of success in the marathon, including the current women's NR of 2:18:59, her chances are pretty good. Ayumi Morita ran a 2:31:38 PB in Tokyo last year, but it's a big jump for her to get down to 2:26 and it'll mostly be a question of whether Nishimura executes the same way she did at Kumanichi. For men there are 6 under 2:09:00 in the last 3 years, with Ryoma T...