Japan Announces Team of 65 for Tokyo Olympics

On July 2 the JAAF announced a team of 43 men and 22 women in track and field for the Tokyo Olympics.

With the men's 4x100 m relay being Japan's best chance of a medal outside the road events, the men's 200 m entries are of particular interest. National champion Yuki Koike, one of only two men to have hit the Olympic qualifying standard, is listed as an alternate, while the other Abdul Hakim Sani Brown, is listed as a stating member despite a DNS at Nationals due to injury concerns after the 100 m. Should Sani Brown scratch and Koike take his place it would open the door for 100 m alternate Yoshihide Kiryu to run if the feeling is that doing the triple would hurt Koike's chances in the relay.

High schooler Hiroki Yanagida was named as an alternate to the 4x100 m team after a breakthrough 10.22 at last weekend's National Championships. Another one of the breakthrough stars at Nationals, 19-year-old Juntendo University hurdler Rachid Muratake was named alternate in the 110 mH after hitting the standard in the heats only to false start in the final.

A complete breakdown of entries by event:

Men's 100 m / 4x100 mR

Ryota Yamagata - 9.95

Yuki Koike - 9.98

Shuhei Tada - 10.01

alternate and 4x100 mR - Yoshihide Kiryu - 9.98

4x100 mR - Bruno Dede - 10.15

4x100 mR alternate - Hiroki Yanagida - 10.22

Men's 200 m

Abdul Hakim Sani Brown - 20.08

Shota Iizuka - 20.29

Jun Yamashita - 20.40

alternate - Yuki Koike - 20.24

Men's 400 m

Julian Walshi - 45.13

Women's 1500 m

Nozomi Tanaka - 4:08.39

Ran Urabe - 4:10.52

Men's 5000 m

Yuta Bando - 13:18.49

Hiroki Matsueda - 13:24.29

Women's 5000 m

Ririka Hironaka - 14:59.37

Nozomi Tanaka - 15:00.01

Kaede Hagitani - 15:05.78

alternate - Tomoka Kimura - 15:19.99

Men's 10000 m

Akira Aizawa - 27:18.75

Tatsuhiko Ito - 27:2573

Women's 10000 m

HItomi Niiya - 30:20.44

Ririka Hironaka - 31:11.75

Yuka Ando - 31:18.18

Men's 110 mH

Shunsuke Izumiya - 13.06

Taio Kanai - 13.16

Shunya Takayama - 13.25

alternate - Rachid Muratake - 13.28

Women's 100 mH

Masumi Aoki - 12.87

Asuka Terada - 12.87

Ayako Kimura - 13.11

Men's 400 mH

Kazuki Kurokawa - 48.68

Takatoshi Abe - 48.80

Hiromi Yamauchi - 48.84

alternate - Masaki Toyoda - 48.87

Men's 3000 mSC

Ryuji Miura - 8:15.99

Kosei Yamaguchi - 8:19.96

Ryoma Aoki - 8:20.70

Women's 3000 mSC

Yuno Yamanaka - 9:41.84

Men's High Jump

Naoto Tobe - 2.35 m

Takashi Eto - 2.30 m

Men's Pole Vault

Masaki Ejima - 5.71 m

Seito Yamamoto - 5.70 m

Men's Long Jump

Shotaro Shiroyama - 8.40 m

Yuki Hashioka - 8.36 m

Hibiki Tsuha - 8.23 m

Men's Javelin Throw

Takuto Kominami - 82.52 m

Women's Javelin Throw

Haruka Kitaguchi - 66.00 m

Men's 20 km RW

Toshikazu Yamanishi - 1:17:15

Koki Ikeda - 1:17:25

Eiki Takahashi - 1:18:00

alternate - Yuta Koga - 1:18:42

Women's 20 km RW

Kumiko Okada - 1:27:41

Nanako Fujii - 1:28:58

Kaori Kawazoe - 1:31:10

Men's 50 km RW

Masatora Kawano - 3:36:45

Satoshi Maruo - 3:37:39

Hayato Katsuki - 3:42:34

alternate - Kai Kobayashi - 3:43:31

Men's Marathon

Suguru Osako - 2:05:29

Yuma Hattori - 2:07:27

Shogo Nakamura - 2:08:16

alternate - Shohei Otsuka - 2:07:38

Women's Marathon

Mao Ichiyama - 2:20:29

Honami Maeda - 2:23:30

Ayuko Suzuki - 2:29:02

alternate - Mizuki Matsuda - 2:21:47

Women's 4x100 mR

Mei Kodama - 11.46

Yu Ishikawa - 11.48

Hanae Aoyama - 11.56

Ami Saito - 11.61

Remi Tsuruta - 11.80

alternate - Aiko Iki - 11.59

Men's 4x400 mR

Kentaro Sato - 45.61

Kaito Kawabata - 45.75

Rikuya Ito - 45.85

Aoto Suzuki - 45.94

alternate - Kosuke Ikeda - 46.45

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."...

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .

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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