Yamagata 9.95 NR - Weekend Track Roundup

There was a lot of distance action this weekend, but the biggest performance in Japan came at the Fuse Sprint meet in Tottori. Lucking out with a maxed out legal tailwind of 2.0 m/s, Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) took 0.02 off the national record in his first sub-10 clocking to win in 9.95. 2nd-place Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) also scored a PB of 10.01, with sub-10 man Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) 3rd in 10.13. Despite a scratch from former NR holder Yoshihide Kiryu and a weak run from relay regular Aska Cambridge, the Japanese men's 4x100 m looks to be in a stronger position than ever.

Fuse also produced a national record in the women's 100 m hurdles thanks in part to an ideal +1.8 m/s tailwind. Masumi Aoki (77 Ginko) equalled the 12.87 NR held by Asuka Terada (Japan Create) for the win, with Terada running 12.89 for 2nd. Both women are still short of the Olympic qualifying standard, but the solid runs will push them up further from their current positions of 32nd and 33rd in the 40-deep quota.

In distance action Yokohama's Nittai University Time Trials meet turned out the fastest times of the weekend. After having run 27:01 twice last fall during the blackout period on Olympic qualifying, Richard Kimunyan Yator (Hitachi Butsuryu) came up agonizingly short of the 27:28.00 standard for 10000 m, running 27:28.79 to win the A-heat in what had to have been his last shot at getting the standard. The great Paul Tanui (Sunbelx) was 2nd in 27:43.98, with the next four runners, all Kenyan, going under 28 minutes. Justus Soget (Honda) came even closer to Olympic qualification, winning the 5000 m A-heat in a PB of 13:14.10 just 0.60 short of the standard.

Dolphine Nyaboke Omare (USE TC) won the women's 5000 m in 15:38.87 over Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) and Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto), 2nd and 3rd in 15:42.19 and 15:42.91.

The amateur club runner Kaneshige then went straight up to Niigata for the Denka Athletics Challenge Cup, where less than 24 hours later she won the women's 10000 m in a PB of 32:46.83 with a 3:02 final 1000 m. Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University's Ren Tazawa took one last shot at hitting the men's 10000 m Olympic standard, but after a quick start he faded over the last quarter of the race to win in 27:52.52, the only runner to break 28 minutes.

Naomi Muthoni Kariuki (Univ. Ent.) won the Denka women's 5000 m in 15:03.01, the sole runner to clear the Olympic the standard. Steeplechase specialist Hironori Tsuetaki (Fujitsu) took the men's 5000 m in a PB of 13:39.00 ahead of the National Championships later this month.

At Saitama's Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials meet, Titus Wambua (SID Group) joined Kimunyan and Tazawa in making it a weekend of sub-28 winning times all around, taking the men's 10000 m A-heat in 27:49.89. Charles Kamau Wanjiku (Musashino Gakuin Univ.) took the 5000 m A-heat in 13:53.03.

Kanagawa's National University Individual Championships saw the meet records fall in both the women's and men's 5000 m. In the women's race photofinish specialist Narumi Kobayashi of National University Women's Ekiden champ Meijo University replicated her close victory at March's National University Half Marathon, winning in a meet record 15:33.69 by 0.43 over first-year Seira Fuwa (Takushoku Univ.). Tomoki Ichimura (Tokai Univ.) won the men's 5000 m, likewise going under the meet record in 13:45.20 to win by 1.42 over Hiroki Wakabayashi (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.). Video of both races can be had here.

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...

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...

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...

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