Kamimura Gakuen Girls Break Own CR by 28 Seconds - National High School Ekiden Qualification Weekend Roundup

With the National High School Ekiden Championships looking like a go for Dec. 20 at this point, the main action across Japan this weekend came in prefectural high school ekiden championships. In each of Japan's 47 prefectures boys typically raced 42.195 km in seven stages and girls 21.0975 km in five stages, with the top-placing boys' team and top girls' team in the prefectural race set to go on to represent their prefecture at Nationals. Not every prefecture held its qualifying race this weekend or just before, but among those that did here's a quick rundown on the winners.

In Hiroshima, the video above, due to the coronavirus crisis the race was held on a 400 m track instead of its regular road course. The Sera H.S. boys and girls both won, the boys winning the prefectural title for the 17th year in a row and the girls for the 15th. Both teams last won the national title in 2015, when the boys set the still-standing Nationals course record of 2:01:18, but at last year's Nationals both finished off the eight-deep podium.

2nd at Nationals last year after winning in 2018, Kamimura Gakuen H.S. took 28 seconds off its own course record to win the girls' race in Kagoshima in 1:06:04, with new records for the last three stages including a 15:10 for the 5.0 km anchor stage by Kenyan Cynthia Baire. 2010 national champ Kagoshima Jitsugyo H.S. took the boys' race in 2:06:13.

Likewise 2nd at Nationals in 2019 after winning the 2018 race, Kurashiki H.S. took the Okayama boys' race in 2:06:09, over seven minutes ahead of the next-best team. 4th at Nationals in 2019, Kojokan H.S. held off the Kurashiki girls by 37 seconds to win the prefectural title again.

Nearby in Miyazaki, the Kobayashi H.S. boys ran a solid 2:03:13 to knock last year's winner Miyazaki Nichidai H.S., 7th at Nationals in 2019, out of a return trip to the big race. The Kobayashi girls also beat Miyazaki Nichidai to join the boys at Nationals.

In Hyogo, Suma Gakuen H.S. was another school to pull off a double win, its girls winning for the third year in a row and the boys for the first time in three years. The Suma Gakuen girls last won the national title in 2006, finishing 6th last year.

In Kyoto, 2012 national champions Ritsumeikan Uji H.S., 7th at Nationals last year, won the girls' race for the 32nd year in a row in 1:10:27. The Rakunan H.S. boys won for the sixth year in a row in a solid 2:05:45.

8th at Nationals last year, Isahaya H.S. won the girls' race again in Nagasaki. Chinzei Gakuin H.S. took the boys' race, which was marred by an accident when an athlete from Keiho H.S. was struck from behind by a car that had entered the course.

In Mie, the Yokkaichi Kogyo H.S. boys won for the second year in a row. 3rd-year Shogo Sakamoto, son of 2016 Osaka Marathon winner Yoshiko Sakamoto, helped lead the team to the win with a stage best on the sixth leg. 2018 winner Tsu Shogyo H.S. returned to the top in the girls' race, beating Uji Yamada Shogyo H.S. by just five seconds.

The list goes on and on, and there's still more to come. Look for another round of prefectural qualifying races this coming weekend before the final buildup to the Dec. 20 national race. Hopefully.

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...

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