Skip to main content

Bando and Tanaka Win National XC Titles, Kasai and Hironaka Take Junior Races



Japan held its 2019 National Cross Country Championships Saturday in Fukuoka, its primary selection race for next month's Aarhus World Cross-Country Championships.

In the senior men's race, heavy favorite Kazuya Shiojiri (Juntendo Univ.) broke away from the field early, only to be run down midway by the 190-cm Yuta Bando (Hosei Univ.), who quickly broke Shiojiri and went ahead in the lead. With just a lap to go he was caught by brothers Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) and Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima). With Kazuki Tamura constantly turning to call encouragement to his younger brother over his shoulder Bando had just enough downtime to attack in the last kilometer and get away for the win in 29:36. Kazuki Tamura was 2nd in 29:40 with Yusuke 3rd in 29:41. Waseda University first-year Yuhi Nakaya was 4th, with Yohei Komatsu and Shota Onizuka, two of the star members of 2019 Hakone Ekiden winner Tokai University, rounding out the top six and probable Aarhus senior men's team. Shiojiri faded to 14th in his final collegiate race.

The senior women's 8 km went out with a large lead group that whittled down to ten, then eight, then seven, with main contenders Yuka Hori (Panasonic), Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) and Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu (Meijo Univ.) taking turns leading. The one runner who never went to the front was 2018 World U20 Championships 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka (ND28 AC), who kept herself nonchalantly in about 6th until Takamatsu made a break just after the start of the last lap. Tanaka immediately followed and it looked like it might be a race between Japan's two top 19-year-olds, but Yamanouchi was quick to catch up. When she did the pace slowed and Hori and others regained contact, but Yamanouchi soon made a move that only Tanaka could follow. Tanaka stayed a step behind until just before the last corner into the home straight, taking advantage of the last kick that won her a gold medal to come in to her first senior national title in 26:43 just one second up on Yamanouchi. Takamatsu and Hori also cleared 27 minutes for 3rd and 4th, Yukari Ishikawa (Edion) and Yukina Ueda (Tsukuba Univ.) claiming 5th and 6th.



Relative unknown Jun Kasai (Kansai Soka H.S.) took the junior men's 8 km in 23:48, winning by six seconds over a think pack including Ryuto Igawa (Kyushu Gakuin H.S.), Mebuki Suzuki (Saku Chosei H.S.) and some of Japan's other current top high schoolers. Defending champ and heavy favorite Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) won the junior women's 6 km by six seconds in 19:56 to lead the candidates for what's usually Japan's best World XC team. The final rosters for all four teams are expected to be announced early next week.


National Cross-Country Championships

Fukuoka, 2/23/19
complete results

Senior Men's 10 km
1. Yuta Bando (Hosei Univ.) - 29:36
2. Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) - 29:40
3. Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima) - 29:41
4. Yuhi Nakaya (Waseda Univ.) - 29:43
5. Yohei Komatsu (Tokai Univ.) - 29:52
6. Shota Onizuka (Tokai Univ.) - 29:55
7. Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) - 30:02
8. Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) - 30:03
9. Taishi Sakamoto (Toyota Kyushu) - 30:03
10. Ryoma Aoki (Hosei Univ.) - 30:05

Senior Women's 8 km
1. Nozomi Tanaka (ND28 AC) - 26:43
2. Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) - 26:44
3. Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu (Meijo Univ.) - 26:51
4. Yuka Hori (Panasonic) - 26:59
5. Yukari Ishikawa (Edion) - 27:01
6. Yukina Ueda (Tsukuba Univ.) - 27:03
7. Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) - 27:21
8. Yui Yabuta (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 27:28
9. Miharu Okamoto (Shiseido) - 27:34
10. Rino Goshima (Chuo Univ.) - 27:38

Junior Men's 8 km
1. Jun Kasai (Kansai Soka H.S.) - 23:48
2. Issei Sato (Yachio Shoin H.S.) - 23:54
3. Ryuto Igawa (Kyushu Gakuin H.S.) - 23:56
4. Tetta Shiratori (Saitama Sakae H.S.) - 23:57
5. Mebuki Suzuki (Saku Chosei H.S.) - 23:59
6. Taiga Nakanishi (Kanazawa Ryukoku H.S.) - 24:00
7. Genta Kuramoto (Sera H.S.) - 24:00
8. Shungo Yokota (Ishikawa H.S.) - 24:04
9. Keigo Yahara (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 24:10
10. Shota Nakano (Sera H.S.) - 24:20

Junior Women's 6 km
1. Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) - 19:56
2. Ayua Kazama (Narita H.S.) - 20:02
3. Chika Kosakai (Narita H.S.) - 20:03
4. Miku Sakai (Kitakyushu Municipal H.S.) - 20:04
5. Hikari Onishi (Suma Gakuen H.S.) - 20:05
6. Hazuki Doi (Suma Gakuen H.S.) - 20:11
7. Narumi Kobayashi (Nagano Higashi H.S.) - 20:11
8. Yuna Arai (Suma Gakuen H.S.) - 20:19
9. Ruru Hoshino (Tokiwa H.S.) - 20:19
10. Miki Nagai (Toyokawa H.S.) - 20:32

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Tokyo Marathon Top Japanese Man Tsubasa Ichiyama Works 4 Days a Week, Walked On in College

38,000 people ran the 2025 Tokyo Marathon . Every runner had their own story, but one of the most special was Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx). Despite being on almost nobody's radar, he outran some of the best in the country to finish as the top Japanese man. Ichiyama ran most of the race in the 3rd pace group, going through halfway in 1:02:44 and 30 km in 1:29:13. When the pacers stopped, he showed what he could really do. "I'm not good at downhills, so in the first part it was hard to run smoothly," he said at the post-race press conference. "But after the downhill part ended I got into my rhythm, and I think that helped me over the 2nd half." After dropping Asian Games gold medalist Hiroto Inoue (Mitsubishi Juko) and others, he quickly bore down on the Japanese athletes who had gone out faster in the 2nd pace group. Overtaking Paris Olympics 6th placer Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) and Yuhei Urano (Fujitsu), at 39.8 km he caught all-time Japanese #2 man Yohei I...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chepkirui Wins Nagoya Women's Marathon

Heavy-duty favorite Sheila Chepkirui took the win at Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon , pulling away after 30 km to cruise in for 1st in 2:20:40. Erratic pacing early saw the first and second groups only seconds apart for much of the first half of the race, the top group slower than planned and the 2nd group a bit ahead of schedule. At halfway in 1:10:37 the front group included Chepkirui, #2-ranked Ruti Aga and last year's runner-up Eunice Chumba , and Japanese contingent Sayaka Sato , Rika Kaseda , Natsuki Omori and Mao Uesugi . Omori was the first to drop, then Uesugi, then Aga, who ultimately dropped out before 30 km. When the pacers stopped at 30 km Chepkirui made a move that dropped Kaseda and strung out Chumba and Sato behind her, but all four came back together once before another surge put Kaseda away for good. As Chepkirui inched away Sato and Chumba passed each other repeatedly, and Chumba could only watch as the top Japanese runner got away from her again thi...
1 comment
Read more

Toyota Wins New Expo Ekiden

A new, nominally one-off event held as part of Osaka's hosting of Expo 2025, Sunday's ACN Expo Ekiden pit top top corporate and collegiate teams against each other on a 7-stage, 54.5 km course. The new race lost a bit of steam when New Year Ekiden runner-up Honda declined to participate, when winner Asahi Kasei pulled out days before the race, and when the top two teams at the Hakone Ekiden, Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University , didn't field A-list lineups. In their absence it was pretty much a blowout for New Year Ekiden 3rd-placer Toyota , who led start-to-finsh off a great leading run by Yamato Yoshii and stage best titles on 4 of the 7 individual legs to win in 2:32:48. Fujitsu came on strong over the 2nd half with wins by 4th and 5th runners Daniel Kosen and Kazuya Shiojiri and strong runs on the final stages by Hiroki Matsueda and Kengo Suzuki to move into 2nd, finishing 1:14 behind Toyota in 2:34:02. Hakonen 3rd-placer Koku Gakuin University b...
1 comment
Read more