Skip to main content

10000 m National Championships Lead Weekend Action



It's a busy weekend on the track across the country. In long distance action the main event is Sunday's 10000 m national championships, held this year a month and a half before the rest of the National Track and Field Championships in an effort to help people produce better performances to maximize their world rankings points. The 10000 m will be held in Osaka's Nagai Stadium just after the Golden Grand Prix Osaka meet, which maxes out this time around with the 3000 m steeplechase.

22 women are entered in the 10000 m including 6 of the 7 who have cleared the 31:50.00 Doha World Championships standard and the only one who has cleared the 31:25.00 Tokyo Olympics standard. That would be the currently world-ranked #3 Hitomi Niiya (Nike Tokyo TC), who lapped 2nd place the last time she ran Nationals back in 2013 en route to a still-standing championships record 31:06.67. #16-ranked Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post), jointly #22-ranked Kaori Morita (Panasonic) and Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu), #25-ranked Yuka Hori (Panasonic) and 2018's fastest Japanese woman over the distance, Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera), are on the list, making for what should be a stellar race. A dark horse is National XC champ Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki TC), making her debut at 19.


The men's 10000 m has 26 Japanese men and 4 Kenyan pacers. Nobody has hit the 27:40.00 Doha standard within the window. In fact, only 7 Japanese men have every cleared it. 3 of them, New Year Ekiden national champion Asahi Kasei teammates Tetsuya Yoroizaka, Kota Murayama and Kenta Murayama, are in the race, but as it's been 4 years since any of them ran that kind of time the chances are pretty slim we'll see it broken Sunday. Forget about the 27:28.00 Tokyo Olympics standard. If anyone has a breakthrough run it'll probably be either Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) or top collegiate man Akira Aizawa (Toyo Univ.).


All the best talent will be in Osaka, but plenty of the rest will still be in action. In Tokyo, that would be at Saturday's Setagaya Time Trials meet, which focuses on the 3000 m and 5000 m. Corporate leaguers will be wrapping up their regional track championships in Hiroshima at the second half of the Chugoku Region Corporate Championships, in Saitama at the East Japan Region Corporate Championships, and in Fukuoka at the Kyushu Region Corporate Championships. JRN will be at the Golden Grand Prix and 10000 m national championships but will keep you up to date on all the action.

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...

Restaurant Owner Selected as Olympic Torchbearer Dies in Fire After Becoming Despondent Over Impact of Coronavirus Crisis (updated)

On the evening of Apr. 30, the 54-year-old male owner of a restaurant in Tokyo's Nerima ward specializing in tonkatsu deep fried pork cutlets died from full-body burns in a fire at the restaurant. The man had been one of the people chosen as a torchbearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics torch relay. With the coronavirus crisis causing both the postponement of the Olympics and a loss of business at the restaurant, the man had recently started talking pessimistically about the future to those around him. With evidence of the man's body having been doused in tonkatsu cooking oil, metropolitan police from the Hikarigaoka Police Station are carefully examining the cause of the fire. At around 10:00 p.m. on the 30th, the fire broke out in the tonkatsu restaurant on the first floor of a three-story building. A neighborhood resident who noticed smoke called the fire department. Firefighters found the floor and part of a wall burning, with the man lying on the floor in the customer seat...

Kawauchi Wins Inaugural Kawauchi Half Marathon

http://www.minyu-net.com/sports/running/FM20160501-070419.php translated by Brett Larner 川内優輝ロード pic.twitter.com/rEJk7CQPFV — みとっぽ (黒) (@mitoppo_tmyk) April 30, 2016 Yuki Kawauchi Road in Kawauchi, Fukushima Held to inspire former residents to return to the area after the nearby TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident five years ago, the village of Kawauchi held the first " Kawauchi no Sato Kaeru Half Marathon - From Reconstruction to Creation " on April 30.  The course started and finished at the village heliport.  1188 runners from across the country gathered to celebrate the village's revival as they ran through its springtime streets. The event's organizing committee was made up of local government and board of education members with support from the Fukushima Minyu Newspaper and other sponsors.  The race's purpose was to transmit the vitality and charm of the reconstructing Kawauchi village to the rest of the nation in hopes of helpin...