Skip to main content

Hironaka and Nakaya Win National XC Junior Races, Kimura and Osako Take Senior Titles

Top-ranked high schoolers Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) and Yuhi Nakaya (Saku Chosei H.S.) won the junior titles at Saturday's National Cross-Country Championships in Fukuoka's Umi no Nakamichi Kaihin Park.

With some of her main competition including Nozomi Tanaka (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) on a training camp in Australia, Hironaka's primary challenge in the U20 Women's 6 km came from Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu (Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S.) who pushed her throughout the race but couldn't keep up in the later stages. Hironaka won in 19:50 by a margin of 8 seconds over Takamatsu, the pair the only ones to break 20 minutes.

Nakaya, star runner of 2017 National High School Ekiden champ Saku Chosei H.S. with accomplishments including a 13:47.22 best for 5000 m last October, outclassed the field to win the U20 Men's 8 km in 24:05 by 12 seconds over Takuro Miura (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.). His Saku Chosei teammates Sakito Matsuzaki and Keita Honma took 3rd and 5th for a typically dominant team performance.

In the Senior Women's 8 km, Rika Kaseda of 2017 National University Women's Ekiden winner Meijo University did most of the hard work early in the race, but with a run of sheer relentlessness Tomoka Kimura (Universal Entertainment) pulled ahead to win in 26:31 over corporate league competition Yukari Abe (Shimamura) and Rina Nabeshima (Japan Post). Sub-32 for 10000 m, Yuki Munehisa (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) ran Kaseda down to take the top collegiate spot at 4th in 26:44, Kaseda another 11 seconds back in 5th. Along with 8th placer Rino Goshima (Chuo Univ.) both were selected for the Japanese women's team for April's World University Cross Country Championships in St. Gallen, Switzerland.

In the Senior Men's 10 km, 2012 winner Suguru Osako (NOP), a Saku Chosei graduate, did what he did best, laying back for the first three laps of the 2 km course before sealing the race with a long push. In the past Osako has often fallen victim to overestimating his last kick. Here he judged his timing perfectly to avoid the shortcoming, just out of range of the hard-kicking Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) and Toyo University teammates Kazuya Nishiyama and Shunsuke Imamura in the home straight. Toyo dominated the collegiate component of the race, with Nishiyama, Imamura and Toyo's Sota Watanabe, 6th overall, picked for the World University XC team.

National Cross-Country Championships

Umi no Nakamichi Kaihin Park XC Course
Fukuoka, 2/24/18

U20 Women's 6 km
1. Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) - 19:50
2. Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu (Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S.) - 19:58
3. Yuna Wada (Nagano Higashi H.S.) - 20:02
4. Narumi Kobayashi (Nagano Higashi H.S.) - 20:02
5. Miku Moribayashi (Isahaya H.S.) - 20:05

U20 Men's 8 km
1. Yuhi Nakaya (Saku Chosei H.S.) - 24:05
2. Takuro Miura (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) - 24:17
3. Sakito Matsuzaki (Saku Chosei H.S.) - 24:23
4. Soshi Suzuki (Hamamatsu Nittai H.S.) - 24:26
5. Keita Honma (Saku Chosei H.S.) - 24:31

Senior Women's 8 km
1. Tomoka Kimura (Univ. Ent.) - 26:31
2. Yukari Abe (Shimamura) - 26:34
3. Rina Nabeshima (Japan Post) - 26:39
4. Yuki Munehisa (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) - 26:44
5. Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) - 26:55
6. Yuko Kikuchi (Hokuren) - 26:58
7. Nanami Watanabe (Panasonic) - 27:11
8. Rino Goshima (Chuo Univ.) - 27:14

Senior Men's 10 km
1. Suguru Osako (NOP) - 29:53
2. Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) - 29:57
3. Kazuya Nishiyama (Toyo Univ.) - 29:58
4. Shunsuke Imanishi (Toyo Univ.) - 30:01
5. Shin Kimura (Honda) - 30:05
6. Sota Watanabe (Toyo Univ.) - 30:06
7. Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) - 30:06
8. Kazuma Taira (Kanebo) - 30:06

© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
53 comments
Read more