Skip to main content

Five New Meet Records at 102nd Kanto Regionals

 

Rain and wind through most of the weekend meant conditions weren't great for the 102nd Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships at Kanagawa's Sagamihara Gion Stadium, but five athletes still managed to deliver new meet records, three in long distance events.

In Thursday's D1 women's pole vault, 1st-year Mitsuki Kobayashi (Nittai Univ.) had a solid debut with a meet record 4.06 m. Kobayashi was the only athlete to make it over 4.00 m, clearing it on her second attempt. She then passed on 4.05 m, the meet record set two years ago by Nittai's Jun Maekawa, to give 4.06 m a shot. Kobayashi cleared that on her second attempt too, walking away the new MR holder.


Also Thursday, 1st-year Sarah Wanjiru (Daito Bunka Univ.) won the D1 women's 10000 m by over 30 seconds, lapping everyone in the race except runner-up Risa Yamazaki (Nittai Univ.). In her debut at the distance Wanjiru ran 32:17.19, almost four seconds under the previous record of 32:20.76 set by Masami Ishizaka in 1990, 14 years before Wanjiru was born.

Wanjiru was back Sunday to win the D1 women's 5000 m, a rare double by a 1st-year athlete. Wanjiru was less than 5 seconds off the MR, winning in 15:48.03, but with 1st-year Haruka Ogawa (Rikkyo Univ.) 2nd in a PB 15:55.78 it was a closer race than the 10000 m. Mariya Noda (Daito Bunka Univ.) was 3rd in 16:06.41, making it a 1st-year sweep of the podium.

In Saturday's D2 men's long jump, 4th-year Hiroki Sakka (Surugadai Univ.) had two big wind-aided jumps on his first two attempts, going 7.77 m (+2.7) and 7.87 (+2.5). But it took until his last attempt for him to get over last year's 7.71 m MR with a legal wind, jumping 7.76 m (+1.2). That tied what D1 LJ winner Riku Shindome (3rd yr., Kokusai Budo Univ.) jumped for the win with a +3.3 m/s wind assist on his fourth attempt.


In Sunday's D1 men's half marathon, yet another 1st-year, Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.), took 4 seconds off the year-old MR with a win in 1:02:16. On a 1.58 km lap course Kipyegon ran down the lead group in the D2 men's race, which started 6 minutes earlier, then pulled away to enter the stadium alone for the half lap to the finish. When he crossed the line nobody were there to stop him, so Kipyegon kept going full speed for another lap of the track, gesturing to officials in confusion about where the finish line was. Even so, he finished his extra 400 m just ahead of 7th, 8th and 9th placers Ren Yamaguchi (3rd yr., Nittai Univ.), Kazuki Ishii (4th yr., Juntendo Univ.) and Taichi Murakami (4th yr., Toyo Univ.), and only stopped when he noticed that they did.

Members of Komazawa University's 2023 Hakone Ekiden winning team took the top two spots in the D2 men's half marathon, 4th-year Yuto Akahoshi putting his experience at March's NYC Half Marathon to use for the win in 1:03:24 and 2nd-year Takuma Yamakawa 2nd in 1:03:27 after a very slow 30:27 first 10 km before Kipyegon caught them.


The other meet record came in Sunday D2 men's 3000 mSC. After winning their heats Saturday, Aoyama Gakuin University teammates Hibiki Obara, a 4th-year, and Asahi Kuroda, a 2nd-year, went 1-2 in the final. Obara broke Masatoshi Kikuchi's 2006 MR by over 6 seconds with a new record of 8:36.09, with Kuroda PBing in 8:38.44 for 2nd, also under the old MR. Both times were far ahead of D1 men's 3000 mSC winner Atsushi Shobu (4th yr., Waseda Univ.) who ran 8:44.06 to claim his last Kanto Regionals title. The fastest man on the D2 final entry list, Kento Uchida (4th yr., Rikkyo Univ.) was a DNS after spraining his ankle after the last barrier in his qualifying heat.


In other highlights:
  • A +3.1 m/s wind meant fast times in the D1 men's 100 m final Friday, with 2nd-year duo Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) and Naoki Inoue (Waseda Univ.) going 1-2 in 10.09 and 10.10. 4th-year Shota Nakamura (Toyo Univ.) was 3rd in 10.13. Nakamura and Yanagita also ran 3rd and 4th to help Toyo University win the D1 men's 4x100 m final Friday.
  • The D1 women's 100 m final also had strong tailwinds, the +3.3 m/s reading pushing winner Haruka Taji (4th yr., Chuo Univ.) well under the official MR in 11.41 and 2nd-placer Yuna Miura (4th yr., Tsukuba Univ.) equal to the record in 11.59. Taji was 2nd in Sunday's D1 women's 200 m final in 24.05 (+4.7), with 2nd-year Riko Yamakoshi (Waseda Univ.) winning in 23.81.
  • Likewise for the D1 women's 100 mH final Friday, where winner Rei Honda (4th yr., Juntendo Univ.) was under both the meet and collegiate records in 13.13 but had a +2.5 m/s tailwind.
  • 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (4th yr., Juntendo Univ.) outran a solid D1 men's 5000 m field including 5000 m H.S. NR holder Hiroto Yoshioka (1st yr., Juntendo Univ.) and 10000 m winner James Mutok (2nd yr., Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) for the win Sunday in 13:45.52. Mutok had run 28:02.80 to win the D1 men's 10000 m on Thursday.
  • 3rd-year Kenji Madero (Josai Univ.) won the D2 men's 100 m/200 m/4x100 m triple, taking the 100 m in 10.17 (+4.0) and running 2nd on Josai's 4x100 m winning team on Friday, and the 200 m in 20.97 (+3.4) on Sunday. Josai University also took the D2 men's 4x400 m Sunday in 3:11.50.
  • Another Josai athlete, 2nd-year Victor Kimutai, took the D2 men's 5000 m/10000 m double. Kimutai won the 10000 m Thursday in a PB 28:24.57 by less than a second in a sprint finish against Nelson Mandela Mbithi (2nd yr., Obirin Univ.) and Leakey Kamina (3rd yr., Soka Univ.), then 14:06.19 for 4th in his 5000 m qualifying heat the next day. After a day off Saturday he was back for Sunday's 5000 m final, winning it too in 13:53.92 in another three-way sprint finish with a separation of less than a second over Steven Muchini (1st yr., Soka Univ.) and Masaya Tsurukawa (3rd yr., Aoyama Gakuin Univ.).

© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
53 comments
Read more