Skip to main content

Hagiwara and Hoshi Lead Japanese Team for Asian XC Championships

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20140212-00000203-jij-spo
http://mainichi.jp/sports/news/20140213k0000m050001000c.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

On Feb. 12 Rikuren announced the lineup for the Japanese team for the Feb. 22 Asian Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka's Uminonakamichi Kaihin Park.  Held in conjunction with the Fukuoka International Cross Country Meet, the Asian Championships will consist of the senior men's 10 km, senior women's 6 km, junior men's 8 km and junior women's 6 km events.

2013 National Championships 5000 m champion Sota Hoshi (Team Fujitsu) and runner-up Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei) lead the men's team in the 10 km, with National Championships 10000 m 3rd-place Ayumi Hagiwara (Team Uniqlo) and marathon national collegiate record holder Sairi Maeda (Bukkyo Univ.) topping the women's team for the 6 km division.  Thirteen countries are scheduled to compete, some of them fielding leading African athletes with transferred citizenship.  Rikuren strengthening committee director Katsumi Sakai commented, "It will be respectable if they finish in the top eight."

Also competing as invited individuals in the 10 km men's race as an individual are the popular Akinobu Murasawa (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and others.  With the cancellation of the Feb. 9 Chiba International Cross Country Meet due to heavy snow, Fukuoka has also been designated the selection race for the Japanese team for the Mar. 22 World University Cross Country Meet in Uganda.  2014 Hakone Ekiden Third Stage winner and 2012 World University XC silver medalist Yuta Shitara (Toyo Univ.) leads the contenders for the team.

Note: 2013 Southeast Asian marathon gold medalist Mok Ying Ren (Singapore) will also run the men's 10 km, returning to Japan for the first time since setting the Singaporean national record at November's Ageo City Half Marathon.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ivy League at the Izumo Ekiden in Review

Last week I was contacted by Will Geiken , who I'd met years ago when he was a part of the Ivy League Select Team at the Izumo Ekiden . He was looking for historical results from Izumo and lists of past team members, and I was able to put together a pretty much complete history, only missing the alternates from 1998 to 2010 and a little shaky on the reverse transliterations of some of the names from katakana back into the Western alphabet for the same years. Feel free to send corrections or additions to alternate lists. It's interesting to go back and see some names that went on to be familiar, to see the people who made an impact like Princeton's Paul Morrison , Cornell's Max King , Stanford's Brendan Gregg in one of the years the team opened up beyond the Ivy League, Cornell's Ben de Haan , Princeton's Matt McDonald , and Harvard's Hugo Milner last year, and some of the people who struggled with the format. 1998 Team: 15th of 21 overall, 2:14:10 (43
Post a Comment
Read more

Hirabayashi Runs PB at Shanghai Half, WR Holder Nakata Dominates Fuji Five Lakes - Weekend Road Roundup

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half
Post a Comment
Read more