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

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Tokyo Marathon Preview (updated)

It’s Tokyo Marathon weekend, and the main question right now is about the weather. Monday’s Osaka Marathon had freezing cold temperatures and snow over the last quarter of the race, which still had record-breaking performances. Right now Tokyo looks to be in the mid-teens most of the race and could hit 20˚ by the end. Cloud cover will be critical, and what’s in the forecast right now looks like it will burn off by the last hour of the race. It could get a bit rough out there. Nippon TV, the world’s premiere road race broadcaster, is doing the live TV broadcast from 9:00 to 11:50 a.m. local time, with an international TV feed hosted by JRN’s Brett Larner to be shown in 159 countries worldwide. The leaderboard with live splits and results will be here , with Japanese-language tracking here . Both the women’s and men’s races have great fields lined up. On the women’s side is last year’s winner and CR-breaker Sutume Asefa Kebede , facing 2024 Dubai and Berlin winner Tigist Ketema , 2023...

Putting It All On the Line - Tokyo Marathon 2025

If there was one consistent theme through all 4 races at the Tokyo Marathon this year it was risk. With temperatures nearing 20Ëš and sunny conditions in the forecast pacing plans audaciously called for 2:01 for the lead men and 2:12 for the lead women, with the next 3 groups on both sides all slated for very ambitious times. The men's wheelchair race kicked things off, 2024 Tokyo winner and NR holder Tomoki Suzuki going after his own NR completely solo and coming up with a 1:19:14 CR that saw him beat 2nd place by over 11 minutes. The women's race was a CR-pace showdown between Paris Paralympics gold and bronze medalists Catherine Debrunner of Switzerland and Susannah Scaroni of the U.S.A. that saw them locked together until 40 km. Debrunner had that something else that makes her the world record holder, throwing down to open 32 seconds on Scaroni over the last 2 km, both breaking the CR but Debrunner getting the win in a stellar 1:35:56. The women's marathon was a comp...

Tokyo Marathon Elite Field (updated)

The Tokyo Marathon elite field is out, and it's a pretty good one. On the women's side are the last 3 winners, Sutume Asefa Kebede , Rosemary Wanjiru and Brigid Kosgei , 2022 world champion Gotytom Gebreslase , last year's Dubai winner Tigist Ketema and another 6 women in the 2:17-2:19 range. Top Japanese draw Ai Hosoda hopes to get into the sub-2:20 club after a 2:20:31 PB in Berlin last fall. The men's field has 2024 CR breaker Benson Kipruto and 3rd-placer Vincent Ngetich , 2:02:38 man Derese Geleta , Joshua Cheptegei taking another stab at the distance, and another 8 at the 2:03-2:04 level. 2:05-class Japanese men Yohei Ikeda , Ichitaka Yamashita and Kenya Sonota and Paris Olympics 6th-placer Akira Akasaki will be gunning for the 2:04:56 NR, and there are interesting debuts from 10-mile world best holder Benard Koech and Hakone Ekiden star Aoi Ota from 2024-2025 champ Aoyama Gakuin University . The wheelchair race includes WR holder Catherine Debrunner , ...