Skip to main content

Richard Etir Runs 27:06.88 Collegiate 10000 m Record - Weekend Track Roundup


There were big meets across the country this weekend, but the biggest results were at the Nittai University Time Trials in suburban Yokohama. Across the fastest two 10000 m heats Saturday night, a total of 10 men, 7 of them university athletes, broke 28 minutes. Topping the list was 19-year-old Tokyo Kokusai University 1st-year Richard Etir, who just missed a world-leading time as he blasted a new collegiate record of 27:06.88 to win the A-heat. Emmanuel Maru (Toyota Boshoku) was also under 27:10, taking 2nd in 27:09.96. 2023 Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University added another sub-28 runner to its roster as 4th-year Takumi Karasawa took 5th in 27:57.52, with Waseda University 3rd-year Haruto Ishizuka 6th in 27:58.53.

In the B-heat, Yamanashi Gakuin University 2nd-year James Mutok won in 27:50.54, edging Soka University 3rd-year Kamina Leakey by just 0.08. YGU 1st-year Birian Kipyegon was 3rd in 27:51.65.

3000 m was the main event for women at Nittai, with Judy Jepngetich (Shiseido) taking 1st in 8:53.98. 5000 m A-heat winner Maki Izumida (Daiichi Seimei) ran only 16:11.33 for the win. Emmanuel Kipchirchir (SGH) won the men's 5000 m A-heat in 13:32.44, indoor 5000 m NR holder Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) 2nd in 13:34.02. 10000 m Olympian Tatsuhiko Ito (Honda) dropped the fastest Japanese men's 1500 m of the weekend, running 3:42.19 for the win in the fast heat.

Another 4 men were under 28 minutes for 10000 m Saturday at the Hyogo Relay Carnival meet in Kobe. Emmanuel Kiplagat (Mitsuibishi Juko) was fastest in 27:32.07, with just over a 5-second spread back to 4th-placer Benard Kibet Koech (Kyudenko). Top Japanese man Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) was over a minute behind in 28:41.29. B-heat winner Nelson Mubithi Mandela (Obirin Univ.) just missed adding another 27-minute mark to the day's haul, running 28:01.88.

Esther Wangui (Starts) took the women's 10000 m in 32:22.45, with Desta Burka (Denso) and Kazuna Kanetomo (Kyocera) both finishing within 9 seconds of her. Marathoner Yuka Ando (Wacoal) won the women's 5000 m win 15:42.47, Manami Nishiyama (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) taking the 2000 mSC in 6:27.31 and Nozomi Tanaka (New Balance) the 1500 m in 4:09.79. There was no elite-level men's 5000 m on the program, but Olympian Ryoma Aoki (Honda) won the men's 2000 mSC in 5:30.39 by 0.03 over Taisei Ogino (Asahi Kasei), and Ryoji Tatezawa (DeNA) took another easy win in the 1500 m in 3:43.03.

At the National University Individual Championships in Kanagawa, the most notable men's results were in the 1500 m, where Nittai University's Hiroto Takamura led the top 3 under the old MR in 3:43.70. Another meet record happened in the 3000 mSC, where Waseda 4th-year Atsushi Shobu took over a second and a half off his own meet record from last year to win in 8:38.94. Komazawa's Taiyo Yasuhara added another win to the team's 2023 resume, taking the 5000 m title in 13:59.16. Yuito Yamamoto of Josai University claimed the 10000 m title in 29:29.98.

The women's 1500 m title went to Saki Katagihara (Tsukuba Univ.) in 4:24.80, Mayu Kawase (Daito Bunka Univ.) taking the 3000 mSC title in 10:13.78. Times were better in the longer events, where DBU 1st-year Sarah Wanjiru had a great debut with a 15:33.29 MR in the 5000 m, 0.40 under the old record from 2021. Nittai 3rd-year Risa Yamazaki won the 10000 m in 32:40.40.

There's no official 2-mile Japanese NR, but that was the distance event on offer at the Tokyo Spring Challenge meet. Kanta Shimizu (Subaru) won the men's race in 8:35.79, with Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) scoring the women's win in 9:42.44.

© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee


Comments

Most-Read This Week

Saku Chosei H.S. Makes It 2 In a Row - National High School Ekiden Boys' Race

While the girls' race was a blowout by 2022 champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , the boys' race at Sunday's National High School Ekiden was a tense battle of turnover that saw all of the final top four teams take a stab at leading. 2023 3rd-placer Yachiyo Shoin H.S. handled the first 2 of the 7 stages in the 42.195 km race, with lead runner Rui Suzuki delivering a bold run on the 10.0 km First Stage that produced the fastest-ever time by a Japanese runner on the stage, 28:43, and put Yachiyo Shoin 29 seconds out front. Last year's Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu Suzuki ran Yachiyo Shoin down to put 2023 champ Saku Chosei H.S. into 1st on the 8.1075 km Third Stage, but Genta Sugano of last year's 8th-placer Sendai Ikuei H.S. had other plans and took the lead on the 8.0875 km Fourth Stage. Smiling and fist pumping to the crowd almost the entire way, Taketo Tsukada of last year's 6th-placer Omuta H.S. moved up from 3rd to 1st by 2 seconds over Saku Chosei on the 3.0 k...

Japan Post Holds Off Sekisui Kagaku to Win Queens Ekiden National Title

  Japan Post  was back on top at the Queens Ekiden corporate women's national championships Sunday in Sendai, holding off last year's winner Sekisui Kagaku  over the second half of a race that came as close as 1 second to take 1st with a final margin of victory of 27 seconds. Sekisui Kagaku was out fast with a win on the 7.0 km opening leg by Erika Tanoura  and a new CR for the 12:56 second leg by Yuma Yamamoto , 17 seconds better than her own CR from last year. Last year's 4th-placer Shiseido  briefly led on the 10.6 km third leg with an excellent 33:17 stage win from Rino Goshima , but behind her Japan Post's Ririka Hironaka  returned from her latest injury problems to pass Sekisui Kagaku's Sayaka Sato  and hand off 6 seconds ahead. New recruit Caroline Kariba  ran Shiseido down on the 3.6 km fourth leg and put Japan Post 22 seconds ahead of Sekisui Kagaku, but a duel of marathoners between JP's  Ayuko Suzuki  and Sekisui's Hitomi Niiy...

Nagano Higashi Girls Lead Start to Finish to Win National High School Ekiden

2022 National High School Ekiden girls' champion Nagano Higashi H.S. was back in force after a 5th-place finish last year, leading start to finish to win this year's national title Sunday in Kyoto. Lead runner Airi Mashiba kicked it off with a 19:30 stage win on the 6.0 km opening leg, something that head coach Fumio Yokouchi said later that he hadn't been expecting. That ended up being Nagano Higashi's only individual stage win in the 5-leg, 21.0975 km race, but the rest of its team ran well enough to hold a lead that was never less than 11 seconds but never more than 21. Last year's 4th-placer Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. spent most of the race in 2nd, but over the second half of the race Sendai Ikuei H.S. , 2nd last year by just 1 second, came from further back to run Kunei down on the anchor stage thanks in big part to a critical stage win on the 4th leg by Tsubomi Tezuka that put anchor Aoi Hosokawa in position to catch Kunei's Mizuki Oda . Nagano Higashi ...