Skip to main content

Hachioji Long Distance, Akidor Back at Nittai, and National Corporate Women's Ekiden - Weekend Preview and Streaming


This weekend's main event is Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance meet at western Tokyo's Gion Stadium. The main program features seven heats of men's 10000 m, finely graded as top corporate and collegiate runners tune up for January's New Year Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden. The whole meet will be streamed live above starting at 14:00 local time, with the fastest heat kicking off at 18:20. 29 top Japan-based Kenyans are on the list including Gideon Rono (GMO) and Jonathan Ndiku (Hitachi Butsuryu), both sub-27:15 this season.

10 Japanese men are also in the fast heat in hopes of getting as close to the 27:10.00 World Championships qualifying standard as they can, notably featuring national champion Komazawa University power duo Ren Tazawa and Mebuki Suzuki and Hakone Ekiden First Stage CR holder Yamato Yoshii (Chuo Univ.) Tazawa's all-time JPN #2 27:23.44 is still a long way from the standard, but with #4 Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko), 27:28.92, and #8 Tomoki Ota (Toyota), 27:33.13, on the list too maybe they'll give Akira Aizawa's 27:18.75 NR a serious go. Weather conditions are looking pretty favorable.

Also on the track, the 301st edition of the Nittai University Time Trials series in Yokohama inverts its usual setup, with 26 heats of men's 5000 m on Saturday and everything else, 10 heats of men's 10000 m, 5 heats of women's 5000 m and 4 heats of women's 3000 m, on Sunday. The women's 3000 m A-heat looks like the best race of the meet, with Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) back after running a 14:44.83 PB for 5000 m on the same Nittai track two weeks ago.

The other main race on Sunday is the National Corporate Women's Ekiden in Miyagi. TBS will broadcast it live starting at 11:50 a.m. local time. 24 teams race 42.195 km in 6 stages, with the top 8 earning places at 2023's edition. Defending champ Sekisui Kagaku and 2021 runner-up Shiseido are still the heavy hitters, Shiseido having picked up a major boost to its chances in the spring with the transfer of women-only marathon NR holder Mao Ichiyama from the Wacoal team.

3rd-placer Denso is down on strength after the transfer of its top track runner Mikuni Yada, leaving the door open for one of the top teams from October's Princess Ekiden qualifier, Panasonic, Kyudenko, Tenmaya or Daiichi Seimei, to break through into the front half of the podium.

© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

World Marathon Majors Japanese Entries

We're back from a short summer break. A week and a half out from the first race of the season's four World Marathon Majors races, here's a look at Japanese athletes scheduled to run. Everything right now is about qualifying for the MGC Race, the official trials race for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to be held in the fall of 2027 in Nagoya. The JAAF makes no mistake about wanting to keep its top people racing domestically where it can get a share of revenue from the TV broadcast and race operations, so anyone who decides to race overseas has to do it in a WA platinum label race and hit either 2:06:30 or 2:23:30, regardless of place, course or weather if they want to make the trials. At the same time concessions are make for domestic races, like for example the late-August Hokkaido Marathon where up to 3 men and 3 women can qualify if they go 2:12:00 or 2:32:00. As a result, you get things like last year where amateur runner Yudai Fukuda made the trials by finishing 3rd Jap...
1 comment
Read more

Nakajima Breaks 100 mH NR Twice, Kitaguchi Returns - August Track Roundup

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...
1 comment
Read more

Asian Games Competition Schedule

The daily athletics event schedule for September's Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games . Wednesday, Sept. 23 7:30 - Women's / Men's Half Marathon Race Walk Final Thursday, Sept. 24 10:00 - Women's Heptathlon 100 mH 10:20 - Mixed 4x400 m Relay Heats 10:30 - Men's Triple Jump Heats 10:40 - Women's Heptathlon High Jump 19:05 - Men's High Jump Heats 19:13 - Women's Heptathlon Shot Put 19:33 - Women's 100 m Heats 19:44 - Women's Triple Jump Final 20:08 - Men's 100 m Heats 20:55 - Men's Discus Throw Final 21:00 - Women's Heptathlon 200 m 21:25 - Women's 10000 m Final 22:15 - Mixed 4x400 m Relay Final Friday, Sept. 25 10:00 - Women's Heptathlon Long Jump 10:30 - Men's 400 m Heats 11:25 - Women's Heptathlon Javelin Throw 19:05 - Women's Shot Put Final 19:13 - Women's 100 m Semifinal 19:33 - Men's 100 m Semifinal 20:03 - Women's Pole Vault Final 20:11 - Women's Heptathlon 800 m 20:32 - Men's 10000 m Final 20:40 - M...
Post a Comment
Read more