Weekend Track Preview

Things have been in a bit of a lull the last week or two with the Tokyo Olympics test event, university and corporate regional championship meets and more out of the way and everyone getting ready for the National Track and Field Championships in Osaka near the end of the month. But there is a lot going on this weekend, even if the leading edge of rainy season means conditions will not exactly be ideal.

Friday through Sunday the National University Individual Track and Field Championships happen in Kanagawa, the lesser cousin of September's National University Track and Field Championships without the team scoring. National record holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) is entered in the 3000 mSC, but with a place at the Olympics already guaranteed there doesn't look to be much reason for him to run except as a training run. 13:40 is the new sub-14, with the entire men's 5000 m A-heat field of 31 having bests under 14 minutes, 15 of them plus another 3 in the B-heat from Aoyama Gakuin University. Lawrence Ngure (Sapporo Gakuin Univ.) and Shotaro Ishihara (Tokai Univ.) lead the way with bests of 13:30.57 and 13:30.98.

First-year Seira Fuwa (Takushoku Univ.) leads the women's 5000 m field with a best of 15:37.44, the only one under 15:40 but with four others including 2021 National University Half Marathon champion Narumi Kobayashi (Meijo Univ.) under 15:45. Reimi Yoshimura (Daito Bunka Univ.), the top-ranked of the two Japanese women currently in the quota to make the Tokyo Olympics in the 3000 mSC at 37th of 45, leads the steeple field. With her three world ranking performances all coming in high-scoring meets she'll have a hard time improving her position here.

On Saturday and Sunday the Nittai University Time Trials also happen in Kanagawa, with the usual program spanning 800 m to 10000 m on Saturday and Sunday devoted to heats of men's 5000 m. Also Saturday, the Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials meet happens in Saitama.

But the best racing will probably be at Niigata's Denka Athletics Challenge Cup. From 200 m to 10000 m, most of the races feature big names getting near the end of hitting Olympic qualifying standards. The men's 10000 m has three Kenyan pacers lined up to try to get Daiji Kawai (Toenec) or Ren Tazawa (Komazawa Univ.), the #3-ranked Japanese man but still 11 seconds and 3 spots outside Olympic qualification, to the starting line in Tokyo. #1-ranked Japanese man Hiroki Matsueda (Fujitsu), 37th in the men's 5000 m quota of 42, and #3-ranked Yuta Bando (Fujitsu), currently #48, are entered in the 5000 m and will be trying to get closer to the standard or further up the rankings. The men's 1500 m has one particularly interesting entrant, South Sudanese NR holder Abraham Guem, stuck in Japan throughout the pandemic but benefitting from the environment.

The women's 10000 m squad is already full up for Tokyo, meaning a race for its own sake in Niigata where Ayumi Hagiwara (Toyota Jidoshokki) is the only woman to have gone under 32 minutes. Amateur club runner Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto) plans to run the 5000 m at Nittai on Saturday, then head up to Niigata for Sunday's 10000 m. Apart from sub-15:10 Kenyans Naomi Muthoni Kariuki (Univ. Ent.) and Tabitha Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) the women's 5000 m is low-key, Miku Moribayashi (Denso) the only Japanese women in it to have gone under 15:40. The women's 1500 m could be pretty good, with Kenyans Helen Ekarare (Toyota Jidoshokki) and Margaret Akidor (Comody) trying to help drag all the main Japanese contenders trying to snag spots in the Olympic quota to fast times.

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...

16 Women and 26 Men on the Current Olympic Trials Qualifier List

Last weekend's Nagoya Women's Marathon and the Tokyo Marathon the weekend before brought the main part of the first year of qualification for the Marathon Grand Championship Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials to be held in Nagoya in October, 2027, to an end. There are still a few races like the Nagano Marathon and overseas World Athletics platinum label races this season where people might qualify, but for the most part we're not likely to see many new additions until August's Hokkaido Marathon, where the qualifying period opened last year. As of right now 16 women and 26 men have qualified, although the first woman to make the cut, Ai Hosoda , announced that she was retiring after Tokyo earlier this month. Out of the 16 women to have qualified so far, Mikuni Yada is the fastest with her 2:19:57 debut at Osaka Women's in January. Including Hosoda that makes 2 qualifiers for the Edion corporate team, but Daihatsu has the biggest share of the field so ...

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...

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