japan running news

The 41st edition of the 6-stage, 42.195 km National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships took place Nov. 28 in Sendai, Miyagi. 28 teams took part, with Sekisui Kagaku  running a course record 2:13:03 to win its first national title. Shiseido was 52 seconds behind in 2nd and Denso  3rd, with 2-time defending champ Japan Post  coming up short of a three-peat at 4th. On the race's longest and most competitive stage, the 10.9 km Third Stage, Sekisui Kagaku's Sayaka Sato  took over the lead, and solid runs from the rest of its runners helped protect the team's lead all the way to the end.  Queens Ekiden 41st National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships Sendai, Miyagi, 28 Nov., 2021 28 teams, 6 stages, 42.195 km complete results Top Individual Stage Performances First Stage  (7.6 km) - Harumi Okamoto (Yamada Holdings) - 23:52 Second Stage  (3.3 km) - Ran Urabe (Sekisui Kagaku) - 10:07 - CR Third Stage  (10.9 km) - Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) - 3...

Temperatures in the single digits and strong winds held back people's chances of qualifying for next year's World Championships, but they couldn't stop this year's Hachioji Long Distance meet from delivering a piece of history. In the fastest of the meet's seven heats of 10,000 m,  Evans Keitany  (Toyota Boshoku) ran 27:28.25 for the win, edging 2nd-placer James Muoki  (Konica Minolta) by 0.24 seconds and 3rd-placer Samwel Masai  (Kanebo) by 0.52.  Behind them another 18 men broke 28 minutes for a total of 21, breaking the record of 20 set at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 8 of the 21 men were Japanese, with Tatsuhiko Ito  (Honda) taking the top Japanese spot at 4th in 27:30.69 and Tomoki Ota (Toyota) breaking through with a 27:33.13 PB for 5th. National record holder Akira Aizawa  (Asahi Kasei) was 20th in 27:58.35. And it didn't stop there. In the final heat marathoner Hiroto Inoue  (Mitsubishi Juko) ran a 13-second PB of 27:43.17 for the win, lea...

75 years, 75 stories from the people who made Fukuoka international.  75 legendary marathoners spanning 1957 to 2020 from over 30 countries, including 26 Olympic and World Championships medalists and 5 marathon world record breakers, remember running the Fukuoka International Marathon ahead of its final running on Dec. 5. Premiering Friday, Dec. 3, 2021 at 19:00 Japan time, 21:00 in Sydney, 13:00 in Nairobi, 11:00 in Berlin, 10:00 in London, 5:00 a.m. in NYC and 2:00 a.m. in L.A.  A JRN production. Support JRN:

At Sunday's Kyoto Time Trials meet, 1500 m and 5000 m high school record holder Keita Sato , a 17-year-old 3rd-year at Rakunan H.S. , added the 3000 m high school record to his resume with a mostly solo 7:50.81. In perfect fall conditions Sato frontran the entire way, tailed through a 2:34 first 1000 m by Kogakkan University 's Shoya Suzuki  but all on his own the rest of the way. From 1000 to 2000 m he split 2:38, more or less holding that pace the rest of the way with a 61-second final lap to split 2:38 again for the final 1000 m. In terms of World Athletics scoring tables, Sato's three records break down like this: 1500 m: 3:37.18 - 1145 points 3000 m: 7:50.81 - 1110 points 5000 m: 13:31.19 - 1098 points Sato's rankings on the all-time Japanese lists mirror this, his 1500 m putting him at all-time #3 along with #1 on the U20 and U18 lists, his new 3000 m time at #10 on the all-time list, #2 on the U20 and #1 on the U18 lists, and his 5000 m nowhere near the all-tim...

The sheer gravitational pull of the Hakone Ekiden drags most of the top high school boys' distance talent to the Tokyo-centric Kanto Region for university. But for those on the Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe Kansai Region axis, Saturday's Tango University Ekiden was the peak of the season. In the race's 83rd edition, Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University  men overcame a mid-race challenge from Kwansei Gakuin University  to score a fourth-straight Tango win. Ritsumeikan first-year Hayato Omori  got the team out of the gate well with a 27:33 to lead the 9.0 km First Stage. Ritsumeikan's next three runners held the lead, but a course record 35:31 on the 12.3 km Fifth Stage from Kwansei Gakuin's Sota Ueda  dropped Ritsumeikan to 2nd. Kazuki Moriya  extended Kwansei Gakuin's lead from 6 seconds to 1:04, but when KGU's seventh runner Yoshinobu Imai  struggled Ritsumeikan's Maki Yamada  was three to pick up the lead with a new stage record of 38:32 for 13.3 km. Anchor Ryota T...

https://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=14153&do=news&news_id=629164 2nd Michigan Pro Ekiden Utica, Michigan, 17 Nov., 2021 6 teams, 6 stages, 42.2 km complete results Top Individual Stage Results First Stage  (6.1 km, women) - Annie Frisbie (MDC) - 19:25 -  CR * Second Stage  (5.0 km, men) - Thomas Ratcliffe (BTC) - 14:10 -  CR * Third Stage  (5.0 km, women) - Vanessa Fraser (BTC) - 16:22 Fourth Stage  (6.1 km, men) - Woody Kincaid (BTC) - 17:16 -  CR * Fifth Stage  (10.0 km, women) - Elise Cranny (BTC) - 32:19 -  CR * Sixth Stage  (10.0 km, men) - Grant Fisher (BTC) - 28:36 - CR * Team Results 1. Bowerman Track Club - 2:08:24 - CR * 2. Hoka Northern Arizona Elite - 2:12:01 3. Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project - 2:12:27 4. Roots Running Project - 2:13:01 5. Minnesota Distance Elite - 2:14:36 6. TEAM Boulder - 2:17:29 *Stages were run in a different order from last year . © 2021 Brett Larner, ...

an editorial from the Rikujo Tsushin site The Yachiyo Kogyo corporation has announced that it will be shutting down its men's ekiden team at the end of the fiscal year because, with an eye toward the company's future, it needs to reallocate resources elsewhere. Yachiyo Kogyo manufactures resin parts and replacement parts for use in car components and systems like fuel tanks and sun roofs. Its total revenue adds up to  157.2 billion yen [~$1.37 billion USD]  annually, with its fuel tank segment making up 44.3 billion yen [~$386 million USD]  or roughly 28% of its revenue. The trend in the automotive world is clearly toward electric vehicles. In Germany and the U.K., sales of new gasoline or diesel-powered automobiles will be banned as of 2030. California will do the same by 2035, with France following suit by 2040. China's plans call for only hybrid vehicles by 2035. Comparing the manufacture of electric vehicles and internal combustion engine vehicles, the number of pa...

The Ageo City Half Marathon, Japan's major elite-level fall half marathon, was supposed to have happened this past Sunday but was among the many races canceled again for reasons pandemic. But two other half marathons did go off as scheduled, both with fast wins by runners from the Aoyama Gakuin University  ekiden team. The bigger of the two was the Setagaya 246 Half Marathon in suburban Tokyo. AGU's Yuto Tanaka  led teammate Hironobu Nakakura  and 2021 Hakone Ekiden and National University Ekiden champ Komazawa University 's Takumi Karasawa  under 63 minutes, Tanaka winning in 1:02:38 by 6 seconds over Nakakura and 7 seconds over Karasawa. Marathoner Reia Iwade  set a new course record in the women's race, winning in 1:11:25. Far to the north in Iwate at the Miyako Salmon Half Marathon AGU's Aoi Ota  was even faster, winning in 1:02:27. His teammates Masahiro Sekiguchi , Tsubasa Nojima  and Kaisei Nishikawa  all cleared 63 minutes, running 1:02...

Qualification for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships wrapped up Sunday with the last four regional corporate ekidens. In the highly competitive Chubu Region race, Toyota , the winner the last 7 years, struggled when Bedan Karoki  finished only 8th on the Second Stage. Despite Toyota's fourth runner Tomoki Ota  making up a lot of the ground with a sensational 43:48 CR on his 15.5 km stage, almost a minute under the old record and 45:18 pace for 10 miles, Toyota faced pressure throughout the race from Toyota Boshoku . A 34:07 course record for the 11.8 km Seventh Stage by anchor Yuji Onoda  was enough to seal the win for Toyota Boshoku, finishing the 80.5 km race 39 seconds up on Toyota in 3:54:15.  Aichi Seiko  was the top team to miss the qualifying cutoff, almost two minutes behind the last qualifier, Chuo Hatsujo , in 3:59:13. Held simultaneously with the Chubu Region race, the Hokuriku Region saw an even closer margin of vict...

Half marathon collegiate record holder Mekubo Mogusu 's 10000 m collegiate record lasted for over than 13 years until Joseph Razini Lemeteki  (Takushoku Univ.) bettered it by 2 seconds with a 27:25.65 at the Sept. 27 Nittai University Time Trials meet. Lemeteki's record lasted less than 7 weeks, as Charles Kamau Wanjiku  (Musashino Gakuin Univ.) won the latest Nittai iteration 's A-heat in 27:18.89. With the always-fast Hachioji Long Distance meet just around the corner it was a surprisingly deep race, Wanjiku leading the top four under 27:30 and the top 13 all sub-28, four of them Japanese. In the slowest heat, 57-year old Tatsuo Koizumi  ran 32:38.88, short of Australian Keith Bateman 's M55 world record of 31:51.86 but a M55 Japanese national record by almost two minutes and over 30 seconds under the known age 57 world record . The B-heat was hot too, with three Sendai Ikuei H.S.  runners going sub-29, Boniface Mutech  and Shunsuke Yoshii running 28:11.48...

Two weeks after her public coming out as Japan's next big hope, 18-year-old Seira Fuwa  anchored the Gunma  team to a come-from-behind win at the East Japan Women's Ekiden . A smaller version of January's National Women's Ekiden with teams representing the 18 prefectures in northeastern Japan, each team made up of the best junior high school, high school, collegiate, club team and corporate league runners from that prefecture, East Japan returned this year after the first cancelation in its 36-year history last year. Two weeks ago Fuwa, a first-year at Tokyo's Takushoku University , set an incredible 28:00 course record for her 9.2 km stage at the National University Women's Ekiden . With her name on the list for the 10.0 km anchor stage at East Japan the entire race was about other teams trying to get as far ahead of Gunma as possible before the last of the marathon-length race's nine stages. Gunma didn't make it easy for them. Its leading runner Harum...

Although the official new coronavirus case count 7-day average for the entire country of Japan has dropped below 200, about 1/5 that of New York City which hosted its marathon this past weekend , marathons as far away as the Mar. 13, 2022 Shizuoka Marathon are still citing pandemic risks and announcing fresh cancelations. Despite that, some of Japan's marathons have bucked the trend of timidity and are bringing large-scale races back. The Oct. 31 Kanazawa Marathon was the first, with 9,457 finishers and winning times of 2:17:03 by Junichi Ushiyama  and an excellent 2:35:52 PB by 47-year-old Mai Fujisawa .  On the Nov. 3 public holiday, the Gunma Marathon in Maebashi returned for its 31st running. 3,408 people finished, Taku Fujiwara  winning the men's race in 2:23:14 and Tomomi Sawahata  winning for the fifth time in a course record 2:37:02. The same day as New York, 8,880 people finished the 6th edition of the Toyama Marathon within its 7-hour limit. Hiroki Suga...

The combined 61st Chubu Corporate Ekiden and 51st Hokuriku Corporate Ekiden regional qualifiers for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships took place Nov. 7 in Tahara, Aichi.   Toyota Boshoku won for the first time in 8 years, covering the 7-stage, 80.5 km course in 3:54:16. 2021 New Year Ekiden runner-up Toyota  was 39 seconds back in 2nd, its 7-year winning streak as the king of the Chubu Region coming to an end. Toyota Boshoku didn't take the lead until the final leg, anchor Yuji Onoda , 25, playing the critical role in his team's success. Onoda started the last stage 23 seconds behind Toyota's Atsushi Yamato  but reeled him in within 4 km. Onoda and Yamato were teammates at Aichi's Toyokawa H.S.  and had run together countless times, giving each of them insight into how the other was moving. "Usually I wouldn't be able to overtake him like that," said Onoda. "I figured he must not be in peak condition." That ...

Despite missing star 2nd-year Mebuki Suzuki , last year's national champion Komazawa University  pulled-off a late stage reversal to win a second-straight National University Men's Ekiden title by one of the tightest margins in the race's history.  First-year Shoji Sato  broke the course record on the opening leg by 2 seconds to put Komazawa out front, but a string of weak runs on the middle stages knocked it off the eight-deep podium. It took until the Sixth Stage for Komazawa's luck to turn around with 2nd-year Taiyo Yasuhara  taking them from 9th to 4th. That put #1 man Ren Tazawa  in position to take the lead by 18 seconds over the perpetually strong  Aoyama Gakuin University  with the fastest-ever time by a Japanese man on the stage, 50:36 for 17.6 km. AGU anchor Takayuki Iida  reeled in Komazawa's Yuki Hanao  midway through the 19.7 km stage, but instead of going by he tucked in. Hanao responded by gradually slowing down, saving ...

50th TCS New York City Marathon New York, U.S.A., 7 Nov. 2021 Women 1. Peres Jepchirchir (Kenya) - 2:22:39 2. Viola Cheptoo (Kenya) - 2:22:44 3. Ababel Yeshaneh (Ethiopia) - 2:22:52 4. Moly Seidel (U.S.A.) - 2:24:42 5. Helalia Johannes (Namibia) - 2:26:09 ----- 12. Haruka Yamaguchi (Japan) - 2:34:04 Men 1. Albert Korir (Kenya) - 2:08:22 2. Mohamed El Aaraby (Morocco) - 2:09:06 3. Eyob Daniel (Italy) - 2:09:52 4. Elkanah Kibet (U.S.A.) - 2:11:15 5. Abdi Nageeye (Netherlands) - 2:11:39 ----- 13. Akira Tomiyasu (Japan) - 2:16:39 photo © 2021 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Regional qualification for the New Year Ekiken corporate men’s national championships started Wednesday with two of the most competitive regions, East Japan and Kyushu. In East Japan, 2020 national champ Fujitsu returned with an anchor stage reversal to win East Japan for the second year in a row. Honda ’s Olympic 10000 m man Tatsuhiko Ito led on the 13.4 km opening stage, but on the 8.4 km Second Stage Yakult ’s Stanley Waithaka put his team out front where they stayed until another Honda Olympian, steepler Ryoma Aoki regained the top spot on the 8.4 km Fourth Stage.  Over the next two stages Honda maintained the lead, but behind them Fujitsu drew closer and closer. Fujitsu anchor Ken Yokote started just one second behind Honda’s Yuta Shitara and had no trouble running him down and opening an 8-second margin of victory by the end of the stage. The top 12 teams in East Japan qualified, with the Comodi Iida supermarket team not moving into the 12th spot until late in the fina...

Welcoming over 10,000 runners every year, the Shizuoka Marathon 's organizing committee today announced the cancelation of next year's race. "Corona case numbers are down right now, but concerns about a sixth wave of infections remain," the organizers said in their announcement. It is the third year in a row that the event has been canceled. Launched in 2014, the Shizuoka Marathon is the largest marathon in the prefecture with over 10,000 participants annually. It was canceled last year in the early days of the pandemic. Next year's race was scheduled to have been held on Mar. 13, but as per their statement the organizing committee remains unconvinced about the future prospects for staging the event safely and opted to instead cancel the race for the third time in a row. Their statement said in part, "Our #1 priority is the health and lives of the runners, race staff, and courseside supporters. We hope that the coronavirus pandemic comes to an end soon and t...

USATF's announcement last week of its selection policy for its marathon teams at next summer's Oregon World Championships motivates me to tackle Japan's selection policy. It was initially announced in late August with some additions and changes since then, but given the amount of info it entails it's been hard to find the time or energy to write something about it. Say what you will about USATF's mostly after the fact timing on announcing its system, but it's simple and straightforward, and prioritizes proven ability to place in high-level races over fast times. Top priority goes to top 10 in last summer's Olympics. Next priority is top 10 in the three U.S. Majors, preference given to higher placing with time serving as a tie-breaker. The overseas Majors aren't included, but none of them had Americans in the top 10 anyway, so while anyone who might have planned to run, say, Valencia is getting deprioritized, given the timing of the annoucement it's...

With just over a month to go until its final edition, on Nov. 1 the organizers of the Fukuoka International Marathon held a press conference to announce its last elite field. For the second year in a row it's domestic-only, headlined by Kyohei Hosoya  (Kurosaki Harima), 2:06:35 at the final Lake Biwa Marathon this past spring, Ryu Takaku  (Yaklut), 2:06:45 in Tokyo last year, and Daisuke Uekado (Otsuka Seiyaku), 2:06:54 in Tokyo just behind Takaku.  Out of a total field of 124, along with the 3 sub-2:07 guys there are 11 sub-2:08, 18 sub-2:09, 25 sub-2:10 and many more at the sub-2:11 and sub-2:12 levels. It's an even bigger front end than was on the entry list at the record-breaking final Lake Biwa Marathon earlier this year, and for a domestic field it's one worthy of sending off Fukuoka's 75-year history. Last year's winner  Yuya Yoshida  (GMO), who was scheduled to run October's Tokyo Marathon before it was postponed until March, is absent.  With Ja...

After being canceled last year, the Kanazawa Marathon returned Oct. 31 for its seventh edition, with 9.843 participants from across the country running down the autumn streets of Kanazawa. It was Japan's first full-size mass-participation marathon since February, 2020. Nagano's Junichi Ushiyama  won the men's race in 2:17:03 after frontrunning most of the race, with Mai Fujisawa  of Hokkaido scoring a commanding win by almost ten minutes in the women's race in 2:35:52. As part of the event's coronavirus strategy the start was divided into two waves of about 5,000 people each, the first wave starting at 8:35 from a start in front of Ishikawa Geihinkan and the second at 8:45 from in front of City Hall. Runners passed many of the city's historic temples and gardens en route to finishing at Seibu Ryokuchi Park Stadium. The Kanazawa Marathon is a joint project of the city and prefectural governments, and the Hokukoku Newspaper. source articles: https://www.hokkoku....