Skip to main content

Matsunaga Just Misses 10000 m Racewalk World Record in Kitami


In his second pro season, junior and collegiate men's 10000 m racewalk national record holder Daisuke Matsunaga (Fujitsu) stepped up with his biggest performance yet, becoming the first Japanese man to break 38 minutes and coming in with a near miss on the world record to win the 10000 m racewalk in a national record 37:58.08 at Saturday's Hokuren Distance Challenge Kitami meet. A 2017 graduate of Toyo University, throughout the race Matsunaga had support from younger Toyo athletes Koki Ikeda and Masatori Kawano who ended up 2nd and 3rd 40 to 50 seconds back. Currently ranked 4th in the world over 20 km, Matsunaga may be just what Japan needs for Tokyo 2020: a legit gold medal contender in athletics.

Speaking of Tokyo 2020, the JAAF is desperate to get some women under 15 minutes for 5000 m before, something only national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) has ever done. As a step toward that objective, for the second year in a row the Hokuren Distance Challenge featured a women's 3000 m specifically aimed at beating Fukushi's 3000 m national record of 8:44.40. Last year Riko Matsuzaki (Sekisui Kagaku) bounced one off the rim, clocking an all-time Japanese #2 8:49.61 with one other runner making it into the all-time top ten. This year Tomoka Kimura (Univ. Ent.) and Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) were the ones stepping up to take their shots.

Despite support from a group of African pacers the pace was never quite there, Yamanouchi aggressive throughout but Kimura surging by in the last 200 m to win in an all-time Japanese #10 time of 8:55.14 . Yamanouchi was just behind in 8:57.02 three days after a hard 10000 m at Hokuren's Abashiri meet. But given the fatigue from the 10000 m and her short development phase this season, Yamanouchi showed better potential to go further than Kimura, a longtime top-level track and ekiden runner. We're going to go out on a limb and pick Yamanouchi, someone JRN first spotted at a tiny local road race in 2010, as the woman most likely to clear 15 by the Olympics.

The men's and women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m were mostly uneventful, the biggest news coming in the men's 5000 m where Taisei Hashizume of four-time Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University set a school record 13:37.75 for 2nd behind Kenyan Dominic Langat (Konica Minolta). Not many Japanese collegiate runners break 13:40 and the ones who do usually go on to bigger and better things, so with a breakthrough like this Hashizume suddenly finds himself at the top of the ladder on the Hakone circuit.

The 10000 m was notable mostly for what didn't happen, i.e. someone breaking 28 minutes. Japan has been cranking out up to eleven men sub-28 a year for a long time and usually has at least three or four on the books by this point in the season. This year the fastest time to date is only a 28:00.49 by national champ Shuho Dairokuno (Asahi Kasei). No Japanese men broke 28:30 in Kitami. Compare that to the marathon rankings for the year, twelve men sub-2:10 and two sub-2:07 so far, and it's pretty clear where the priorities lie as the system fixates on the Olympics.

With men's 10000 m on the bill for both of the remaining two Hokuren meets next week maybe someone will get there. Maybe national XC champ Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project), entered in both the 5 and 10 in Shibetsu after a DNF at Stanford and a DNS at Nationals. If not, don't look for anyone to do it before November's Hachioji Long Distance meet. In the meantime, check out the live streams of the Fukagawa meet on July 11th and Shibetsu on the 14th.

Hokuren Distance Challenge Kitami Meet

Kitami, Hokkaido, 7/7/18
complete results

Men's 10000 m A-Heat
1. Jeremiah Thuku Karemi (Toyota Kyushu) - 28:04.79
2. Amos Kurgat (Chudenko) - 28:09.43
3. John Muritu (Toyota Kyushu) - 28:13.29
4. Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) - 28:34.11
5. Ryo Matsumoto '(Toyota) - 28:34.17
6. Keita Shitara (Hitachi Butsuryu) - 28:39.77
7. Shuhei Yamaguchi (Asahi Kasei) - 28:44.91
8. Ryoichi Yoshida (Kyudenko) - 28:50.42
9. Kenji Yamamoto (Mazda) - 28:51.56
10. Yuki Oshikawa (Toyota Kyushu) - 28:54.59

Women's 5000 m A-Heat
1. Shuru Bulo (Toto) - 15:32.19
2. Harumi Okamoto (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 15:32.57
3. Marta Mokaya (Oita Tomei H.S.) - 15:36.10
4. Maho Shimizu (Yamada Denki) - 15:42.49
5. Zeidona Fusan (Denso) - 15:44.66
6. Nana Kuraoka (Denso) - 15:44.78
7. Rino Goshima (Chuo Univ.) - 15:45.32
8. Akane Yabushita (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 15:48.54
9. Ayaka Nakagawa (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:49.84
10. Miku Daido (Iwatani Sangyo) - 15:56.28

Men's 5000 m A-Heat
1. Dominic Langat (Konica Minolta) - 13:33.17
2. Taisei Hashizume (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 13:37.75
3. Samuel Mwangi (Konica Minolta) - 13:39.10
4. Yuma Higashi (Kyudenko) - 13:39.26
5. Benuel Mogeni (Oita Tomei H.S.) - 13:39.64
6. Akira Aizawa (Toyo Univ.) - 13:40.98
7. David Njuguna (Yakult) - 13:44.36
8. Toshiyuki Yanagi (Hitachi Butsuryu) - 13:45.03
9. Simon Kariuki (Nihon Yakka Univ.) - 13:45.38
10. Kazuya Nishiyama (Toyo Univ.) - 13:46.95

Women's 3000 m A-Heat
1. Tomoka Kimura (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 8:55.14 - all-time JPN #10
2. Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) - 8:57.02
3. Grace Kimanzi (Starts) - 8:57.38
4. Kaori Morita (Panasonic) - 9:11.31
5. Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) - 9:14.08

Men's 1500 m A-Heat
1. Shoma Funatsu (Chuo Univ.) - 3:43.26
2. Rikuto Iijima (Waseda Univ.) - 3:43.85
3. Riku Kimura (Tokai Univ.) - 3:44.29
4. Kazuyoshi Tamogami (Chuo Univ.) - 3:44.78
5. Ryota Matono (MHPS) - 3:45.05

Women's 1500 m A-Heat
1. Ayako Jinoouchi (Kyudenko) - 4:19.30
2. Yumi Yoshikawa (Shiseido) - 4:19.43
3. Yui Yabuta (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 4:21.35
4. Mayuko Nakamura (Cerespo) - 4:21.77
5. Yume Goto (ND28 AC) - 4:21.92

Women's 10000 m Racewalk
1. Ai Michiguchi (SDF Academy) - 45:28.72
2. Sui Nga Ching (Hong Kong) - 45:46.93
3. Kaori Kawazoe (SDF Academy) - 46:44.24
4. Chiaki Asada (DNP) - 46:46.62
5. Natsumi Wada (Shigakkan Univ.) - 51:46.17

Men's 10000 m Racewalk
1. Daisuke Matsunaga (Fujitsu) - 37:58.08 - NR
2. Koki Ikeda (Toyo Univ.) - 38:40.04
3. Masatori Kawano (Toyo Univ.) - 38:50.37
4. Fumitaka Oikawa (Fukui Pref. Sports Assoc.) - 39:01.20
5. Yusuke Suzuki (Fujitsu) - 39:24.49

© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...
1 comment
Read more

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...
2 comments
Read more