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2026 Izumo Ekiden Preview

We're at the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii where JRN associate editor Mika Tokairin is making her debut here as an athlete after having come to Kona for years as a journalist. Next to Kona the most eyes worldwide will be on the Chicago Marathon , where a solid Japanese contingent is lining up including men's marathon NR holder Suguru Osako and half marathon NR holder Tomoki Ota , Kiyoshi Koga , and the other power couple in Japanese marathoning, last year's Berlin Marathon runner-up Akira Akasaki and Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Akasaki . Osako's manager told JRN that he is going for the Asian Record of 2:04:43 held by Moroccan-born Bahraini El-Hassan El-Abbassi who was served up a 4-year suspension not long after setting the record. Last year's Warsaw Marathon winner Ryoma Takeuchi is at the Perth Running Festival marathon in Australia where he hopes to add a CR win to his PB at July's Gold Coast Marathon. On the home front Keita Satoh i...
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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."...
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Local Federation Takes Case of Osaka JHS Students Barred from Junior Olympics to Arbitration as Governor Yoshimura Steps In

On Oct. 5 the Osaka Junior High School Athletics Association held a meeting for parents and related parties to explain the situation surrounding 8 local Osaka boys and girls who were scheduled to represent the city at this month's JOC Junior Olympics U16 Track and Field Championships but were barred from competing due to mistakes with the entry process by OJHSAA officials . A spokesperson apologized to the parents, saying, "This situation was the result of inadequacies with our procedures and verification. The athletes have no responsibility for what happened at all, and we offer our sincerest apologies." According to OJHSAA officials, their staff member in charge of registering the Osaka team for the Junior Olympics mistakenly thought the deadline for entries was Sept. 28, not the actual deadline of 6:00 p.m. on Sept. 24. The staff member realized the mistake at around 5:50 p.m. on the 24th and attempted to log in to the JAAF entry system and register the Osaka team, bu...
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