Skip to main content

Weekend Track and Road Roundup


This was a relatively quiet weekend as people make their final preparations for the five major championship ekidens over the next three weeks. The main action came Saturday in Kyoto at the Edion Distance Challenge.

19-year-old Judy Jepngetich (Shiseido) had the biggest result of the meet, winning the women's 5000 m A-heat in a PB 14:50.20. 2nd-placer Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera) and 3rd-place Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels) both ran PBs too, the 19-year-old Mwikali running 14:51.35 and Kamulu 14:54.19. After having run 14:44.83 in November pacer Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) jogged it in to a 4th-place finish, just missing out on another sub-15 clocking at 15:02.15. Across three heats a total of 35 women were under 16 minutes.

Results in the women's 10000 m fast heat were good too. Rino Goshima made it a double for the national champion Shiseido team with a 31:22.38 win. Momoka Kawaguchi (Toyota Jidoshokki) and Wakana Itsuki (Kyudenko) were 2nd and 3rd in 31:57.81 and 31:58.59, with Goshima's Shiseido teammate Yuka Takashima 4th in 31:59.60.

Yuta Bando (Fujitsu) took the men's 5000 m fast heat in 13:25.16, with teammate Yuhei Urano, Samwel Masai (Kao) and Waweru Nganga (Chugoku Denryoku) all just sneaking under 13:30. Keita Yoshida (Sumitomo Denko) won the men's 10000 m in 28:13.34, the only one to go under 28:40.

Sunday saw two marathons around the 8000-finisher level. At Miyazaki's Aoshima Taiheiyo Marathon, both the women's and men's course records fell. Reia Iwade (Denso) took over six minutes off the women's record as she won in 2:35:26, with local Ryuji Kawakita (Asahi Kasei Nobeoka) getting under the men's CR by three seconds to win in 2:19:51.

At the Nara Marathon, women's course record holder Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) made it four in a row with a solo 2:37:17 for the win. Chuo Hatsujo corporate team coach Yoshihiro Yamamoto won the men's race for the third time in a row, beating college student Yumeto Tanaka (Biwako Gakuin Univ.) by 54 seconds to win in 2:23:05.

© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...
Post a Comment
Read more

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