Skip to main content

Niiya Tears Up National Sports Festival 5000 m, Kiryu Under 100 m Youth World Record

by Brett Larner

After impressive runs in the Olympic 5000 m and 10000 m where she frontran her way to all-time Japanese top-ten marks at both distances, independent-spirited Hitomi Niiya (Team Univ. Ent.) made a decisive return to competitive racing on Oct. 5, smashing the meet record in the senior women's 5000 m on the first day of the 67th National Sports Festival in Gifu.  The 2012 national champion for 5000 m, Niiya characteristically set out a pace that simply nobody else could follow, winning by a margin of 17 seconds as she set a new meet record on 15:17.79.

2011 national champion Megumi Kinukawa (Mizuno) was a casuality, dropping out partway, but in the chase pack ascendant collegiate star Ayuko Suzuki (Nagoya Univ.) outran all competition for 2nd in 15:34.15, edging into the year's ten best Japanese women's times.  Just five days after setting a stage record on the anchor leg of the Kanto Region University Women's Ekiden, first year Haruka Kyuma (Tsukuba Univ.) was 6th in 15:46.88.  Collegiate 10000 m record holder Hikari Yoshimoto (Team Yamada Denki) continued to struggle with the transition to pro running, finishing last in 16:47.20.

The day's other big news came in the youth boys' 100 m.  Running with a legal 0.1 wind, Yoshihide Kiryu (Rakunan H.S.) won the final in 10.21, 0.02 ahead of American Rynell Parson's youth world record of 10.23.  More than for being an apparent Japanese world record, Kiryu's performance caused excitement for his upcoming run in the 200 m, where the youth world record is held by none other than Usain Bolt.

67th National Sports Festival
Gifu, Oct. 5-9, 2012
click here for complete results

Senior Women's 5000 m
1. Hitomi Niiya (Team Univ. Ent.) - 15:17.79 - MR
2. Ayuko Suzuki (Nagoya Univ.) - 15:34.15
3. Yuko Shimizu (Team Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:37.78
4. Misaki Onishi (Team Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:41.50
5. Yuki Mitsunobu (Team Kyocera) - 15:44.32
6. Haruka Kyuma (Tsukuba Univ.) - 15:46.88
7. Aya Nagata (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) - 15:50.64
8. Mutsumi Ikeda (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 15:54.88
9. Chihiro Takato (Team Wacoal) - 16:01.16
10. Chieko Kido (Canon AC Kyushu) - 16:02.52
DNF - Megumi Kinukawa (Mizuno)

Youth Boys' 100 m Final (wind +0.1)
1. Yoshihide Kiryu (Rakunan H.S.) - 10.21 - Youth WR (pending)
2. Akiyuki Hashimoto (Sensatsu Seijukan H.S.) - 10.42
3. Yusuke Uozato (Takigawa H.S.) - 10.58

(c) 2012 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