Skip to main content

Atsushi Sato Wins Hiroshima XC Meet

by Brett Larner

Sato takes the lead. Click photo for complete photo sequence courtesy of the Rikubaka website.

Half marathon national record holder Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku) made another step toward a comeback when he won the men's 8 km division at the 12th annual Hiroshima Cross-Country Meet on a hot and humid Aug. 20.  Sato outran 2010 winner Peter Kariuki (Kenya/Team Mazda) and 2007 winner Joseph Gitau (Kenya/Team JFE Steel) over the final two km to take the win in 24:03 by a margin of 15 seconds.  Gitau finished 2nd in 24:18, Kariuki taking 3rd in 24:21.

At the nearby Central Japan Five-Prefecture Track and Field Championships Gitau's teammate Kota Otani (Team JFE Steel) broke the 25-year-old meet record with a new mark of 8:53.13 in the men's 3000 mSC, while Otani's identical twin brother Kenta Otani (Team JFE Steel) won the men's 5000 m in a modest 14:23.67.  Independent runner Kota Taniguchi (Tottori Pref.) almost broke the meet record in the steeple as well, finishing 2nd in 8:55.88 before returning 35 minutes later to finish 2nd in the 5000 m in 14:48.59.  Kariuki's teammate Akihiko Tsumurai (Team Mazda) won the men's 10000 m in 29:47.23.

Further south at the Kyushu Track and Field Championships in Miyazaki, top-ranked high schooler Tomoka Kimura (Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S.) bypassed the junior 3000 m for the women's 5000 m, which she won in 16:38.19 a fraction of step ahead of pro Misako Kato (Team Kyudenko) who was 2nd in 16:38.26.  Kyudenko runners also took the men's 5000 m and junior women's 3000 m, while local Yoshikazu Kawazoe (Team Asahi Kasei) won a competitive if not especially quick men's 10000 m in 29:55.47.

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

On the Loss of the ARRS Database

At some point in the last few months I discovered that both versions of the ARRS database, the static one and the searchable version , are gone. Last week David Monti posted a link to the ARRS history of an event he covered in Race Results Weekly, I guess copying and pasting a link from last year without looking at it, and that reminded me to write something about the loss of the database. The Association of Road Racing Statisticians was basically a one-man show operated from the remote Northern California shores by Ken Young . When the site existed its intro read: The Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyses and publishes results and statistics regarding elite distance running at distances 3000m and longer...The data of ARRS is stored in the ARRS database, which has more than 1.3 million performances from more than 240,000 races by more than 95,000 elite and sub-elite distance runners worldwide...This website ...
1 comment
Read more

Multiple National Records This Weekend

Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest. U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back. Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3...
Post a Comment
Read more

Japan's Team Lineup in Copenhagen

Re-upping an earlier post on Japan's team lineup for this weekend's  Copenhagen World Road Running Championships . The JAAF chose not to name any women to the team in the mile. Women 5 km Kana Mizumoto (Edion) - 15:06.98 Rina Kusu (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:10.91 Half Marathon Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon) - 1:09:14 Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:09:20 Rina Shimizu (Noritz) - 1:09:22 Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:09:23 Men Mile Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.) - 3:37.53 (1500 m) Tomoki Nakano (Toenec) - 3:37.92 (1500 m) 5 km Yota Mashiko (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.35 Rui Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.64 Half Marathon Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 1:00:22 Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:26 Neo Namiki (Subaru) - 1:00:29 Daisuke Sato (Chuo Univ.) - 1:00:40 © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved
2 comments
Read more