Three Meet Records at U20 National Championships

Held in parallel with this weekend's senior National Championships, the U20 National Track and Field Championships happened Thursday through Sunday at Osaka's Yanmar Stadium Nagai. The timing meant most of the top U20 talent was in the senior championships, but even so there were three new meet records across disciplines.

On Friday Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) bettered the 9-year-old MR in the U20 women's hammer throw by almost a meter and a half, winning with a 59.43 m opening throw even though she fouled every attempt after that.

In Sunday's U20 men's long jump Nozomi Watanabe (Tsukuba Univ.) set a new MR, jumping 7.85 m (+1.6) on his fourth attempt. 2nd-placer Kosuke Tsuneizumi (Chuo Univ.) closed with a 7.66 (+2.1) jump but came short of overtaking Watanabe.

Also Sunday, the top 6 all broke the old U20 men's 3000 m MR of 8:16.20 despite running at the peak of mid-afternoon heat and sunlight. Shintaro Kudo (Ichinoseki Gakuin H.S.) took the national title in 8:08.05, Ren Sato (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) 2nd in 8:10.47 and Kotaro Suzuki (Koku Gakuin Kugayama H.S.) 3rd in 8:11.63, PBs by all. High schoolers taking the top 3 spots was no small feat given that over half the field was made up of university runners.

In other distance results, Hinata Maeda (APU) won a tight U20 men's 1500 m that saw the top 4 all within 0.13 sec. Maeda was the only runner under 4:00, winning in 3:59.97. Hiroto Yoshioka (Saku Chosei H.S.) won the U20 men's 5000 m in a solid 13:54.98, runner-up Rui Aoki (Koku Gakuin Univ.) getting under 14 minutes for the first time in 13:59.34. Ryotaro Onuma (Josai Univ.) outkicked Runa Yamaguchi (Nihon Univ.) in the home straight to win the U20 men's 3000 mSC 8:48.83 to 8:51.20.

Misaki Shitamori (Kitakyushu Municipal H.S.) ran a PB 4:21.43 for the win in the U20 women's 1500 m by nearly a second over Riho Yoshida (Toyokawa H.S.). Akari Matsumoto (Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S.) had the same margin of victory in the U20 women's 3000 m, winning in 9:20.25. Corporate leaguer Ramu Shibata (Wacoal) took the U20 women's 5000 m in 16:09.17, beating Marin Machi (Suzuki) by just 0.48 sec. Karin Kameoka (Takushoku Univ.) won the U20 women's 3000 mSC in 10:29.15, everyone in the top 3 running a PB to make the podium.

Complete results from the U20 National Track and Field Championships are available here.

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."...

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...

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 .

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