Skip to main content

Nineteen Collegiates Go Sub-29 at Kanto Region University 10000 m Time Trials

by Brett Larner
video courtesy of Ekiden News



Just a week after record-setting depth at the Ageo City Half Marathon, where seventeen men from Kanto-region universities broke 1:03, most for the first time, more records fell at the Kanto Region University 10000 m Time Trials meet at Tokyo's National Stadium, site of the future 2020 Olympic Stadium.  Like Ageo, the Kanto meet serves to build toward final team selection for the biggest event in Japanese sports, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden. Spurred on by the drive to make their schools' Hakone teams and by scholarships on offer to any university man who ran a sub-29 PB at the meet, last year fifteen collegiate men broke 29 in the A-heat.  This year the number was up to a stunning eighteen, led by Takuya Fujikawa of 2012 Izumo Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University in 28:35.72.

Fujikawa and Kenyan Duncan Muthee (Takushoku Univ.) who ran in the lead group most of the way in Ageo last weekend, ran together at an ambitious pace up front while a large pack stayed on a steady 28:40 pace.  In the final 1000 m the pack moved to try to catch Fujikawa and Muthee, Kazuma Tashiro (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) nearly closing the gap to Muthee but Fujikawa getting away on a strong last kick.  Fujikawa's time of 28:35.72 was a PB by over 45 seconds and led four Aoyama Gakuin men under 29, all in PBs.  A nineteenth man joined the sub-29 ranks in Heat 14, where Shintaro Miwa (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) unexpectedly ran 28:59.67 for the win, his first time under 29.

Again this year Kanto organizers added a university women's 10000 m to the timetable. Largely a dual race between 2013 National University Women's Ekiden Championships 2nd and 3rd placers Daito Bunka University and Matsuyama University, Daito Bunka athletes swept the top three spots led by Yuko Iwata in 33:14.88.  The top runner from a school other than the above two was Kana Kurosawa of Ibaraki University, 7th in 33:35.75.

All told the meet was another sign of the rapid rate of growth both depth and quality in Kanto Region university men's athletics that is transforming Japanese men's distance running.  With this generation of university athletes set to reach their peak at the time of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics the next seven years should be very interesting to say the least.

2013 Kanto Region University 10000 m Time Trials
National Stadium, Tokyo, 11/23/13
click here for complete results

Men's 10000 m Heat 16
1. Takuya Fujikawa (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 28:35.72 - PB
2. Duncan Muthee (Kenya/Takushoku Univ.) - 28:37.53
3. Kazuma Tashiro (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) - 28:38.81 - PB
4. Taketo Kumazaki (Teikyo Univ.) - 28:40.20 - PB
5. Daichi Kamino (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 28:41.48 - PB
6. Kenshi Sawano (Senshu Univ.) - 28:41.85 - PB
7. Ikki Takeuchi (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 28:42.71 - PB
8. Ryu Takaku (Toyo Univ.) - 28:42.78 - PB
9. Kengo Namioka (Kokushikan Univ.) - 28:43.44 - PB
10. Yuki Matsumura (Juntendo Univ.) - 28:44.29 - PB
11. Kazuki Uemura (Toyo Univ.) - 28:44.81 - PB
12. Tsukasa Koyama (Teikyo Univ.) - 28:45.24 - PB
13. Takaya Sato (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) - 28:46.02 - PB
14. Mizuho Tanaka (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) - 28:48.24 - PB
15. Shunsuke Ishida (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 28:48.62 - PB
16. Taiki Yoshimura (Ryutsu Keizai Univ.) - 28:50.23 - PB
17. Takahiro Yagihara (Teikyo Univ.) - 28:50.33 - PB
18. Takafumi Kikuchi (Kokushikan Univ.) - 28:54.17 - PB
19. Kenta Muto (Kokushikan Univ.) - 29:00.67 - PB
20. Shuji Matsuo (Senshu Univ.) - 29:01.99 - PB

Men's 10000 m Heat 14
1. Shintaro Miwa (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) - 28:59.67 - PB
2. Daiji Kawai (Reitaku Univ.) - 29:17.68
3. Kenta Nakayama (Senshu Univ.) - 29:19.44 - PB
4. Yusuke Nakayama (Kokushikan Univ.) - 29:20.01 - PB
5. Keita Nagura (Toyo Univ.) - 29:20.64 - PB

 Women's 10000 m
1. Yuko Iwata (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 33:14.88
2. Fueka Kimura (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 33:16.45
3. Eri Tayama (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 33:16.76
4. Anna Matsuda (Matsuyama Univ.) - 33:20.38
5. Natsumi Fujiwara (Matsuyama Univ.) - 33:25.57
6. Mari Tayama (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 33:33.85
7. Kana Kurosawa (Ibaraki Univ.) - 33:35.75
8. Hiromi Hikida (Nittai Univ.) - 33:39.55
9. Marie Yamakami (Matsuyama Univ.) - 33:44.06
10. Eri Utsunomiya (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 33:57.97

(c) 2013 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges.  Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...
1 comment
Read more

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."...
12 comments
Read more

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...
Post a Comment
Read more