National Sports Festival, Izumo, Chicago and More

National Sports Festival, Izumo, Chicago and More - Weekend Preview

It feels like old times again, with at least five big events on the Japanese calendar. The biggest is Monday's Izumo Ekiden, the season opener for the top university men's teams in the country. We'll have a separate Izumo preview out soon, but you can look forward to the race being broadcast live on Fuji TV starting at 13:00 local time Monday. We'll also cover it live on @JRNLive.

The other big ekiden is Sunday's Kurayoshi Women's Ekiden and Nihonkai Ekiden, the first major high school races of the season. They're really one thing billed with separate event names for the girls' and boys' races, five stages totaling 21.0975 km for girls and seven stages totaling 42.195 km for boys. Most of the top high school programs in the country will be there, with 2021 National High School Ekiden 2nd and 4th-placers Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. and Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. leading the 70 teams in the girls' race and 2021 Nationals winner Sera H.S., 2nd-place Rakunan H.S. and 5th-place Saku Chosei H.S. fronting the 96 team-deep boys' race.

Also on the roads, five Japanese men will be lining up Sunday at the Chicago Marathon. With ekiden season preventing there from being any high-level fall domestic marathons a lot of Japanese athletes have been going overseas this fall, some to try to pick up qualification for next year's MGC Race 2024 Olympic marathon trials, and for those already qualified, to get some experience running a high-level race where Japanese athletes are in the minority. Led by 2:06:26 guy Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima), all five in Chicago are in category B. No Japanese women are entered, but the wheelchair race also features male athletes Kota Hokinoue and Sho Watanabe.

On the track, the National Sports Festival has already gotten started in Tochigi, with the opening day on Thursday producing a great junior mens' 5000 m. Led by Hiroto Yoshioka (Saku Chosei H.S.) in 13:53.85, the top 8 all went under 14 minutes, with 9th through 14th all under 14:10. Yasunari Kusu (Ami AC) also took the senior men's 3000 mSC in 8:45.18. Upcoming highlights include the junior women's 3000 m on Friday and the junior men's 3000 m and senior women's 5000 m on Sunday.

Last up is the Chubu Region Corporate Track and Field Championships in Gifu. Chubu is the only corporate region with both a spring and fall track championship meet, and coming right before ekiden season it's had some good performances in the past. For men most of the talent is concentrated in the 10000 m, especially Heat 3 where top Kenyans Rodgers Kwemoi (Aisan Kogyo), Charles Kamau (NTN) and Bedan Karoki (Toyota) face marathoners Yuma Hattori (Toyota) and Daiji Kawai (Toenec), 27:33.13 man Tomoki Ota (Toyota), steeplechase Olympian Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) and more. 3000 m is the main distance for women, where Ethiopians Zeyituna Husan and Desta Burka lead the Denso corporate women's team. Streaming of the men's 10000 m will be here starting at 15:50 local time Saturday, and here for the women's 3000 m and other events starting 8:50 a.m. Sunday.

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

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."...

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...

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