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Kariba Breaks 1500 m High School Record, Drury Runs Fastest-Ever Time by 10th Grader
After an easy win in her heat on the first day of the National High School Track and Field Championships in Sapporo, defending girls' 1500 m champ Caroline Kariba (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.) dominated the final Thursday with a new high school national record of 4:06.54. In the early going Kariba had company from Jecinta Nyokabi (Hakuho Joshi H.S.), Pauline Wanjiku (Teikyo Nagaoka H.S.) and Sherry Drury (Tsuyama H.S.), but by the end her final margin of victory over Nyokabi was over 7 seconds. With Nyakobi 2nd in 4:13.93 Drury was close behind in 3rd in a PB of 4:15.50, the fastest time ever by a Japanese-born 10th grader. Given that the old record was set by current NR holder Nozomi Tanaka, you can imagine the kind of media reaction.
In the boys' 1500 m final, Koshiro Tanimoto (Omuta H.S.) took the final in a home straight sprint finish again Koki Terada (Koku Gakuin Kugayama H.S.), 3:48.72 to 3:49.06. This year's 800 m U20 Asian champion Hironori Tachizako (Kagoshima Josai H.S.) was 3rd in 3:49.49.
The other big result in the first two days of the meet came in Thursday's boys' hammer throw final. Mauna Asari (Moriya H.S.) broke the meet record with a 66.74 m throw on his 4th attempt, winning by almost 5 m. Complete results are available here. The National High School Championships continue through Sunday.
Amazing times all round for the Girls 1500m and Sherry Drury keeps improving little by little. I hope she is sheltered from the media attention and can cope with the pressure. To beat Tanaka's time is a wonderful achievement.
Any news on Seira Fuwa? I've not heard boo from her camp. Hopefully, it is a good sign and she is training well away from the media spotlight. I just hope she is not injured or still recovering from injury.
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."...
Australia's Gold Coast Marathon is back for its 45th running with title sponsorship from longtime partner ASICS. Two-time winner Rodah Tanui is the top name in the women's race with a 2:23:14 in Copenhagen two years ago, with her strongest competition coming from Olympian Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , who set a Mongolian NR of 2:26:32 in Tokyo last year. Zerihun Alemtsehay and Caroline Kilel both have recent sub-2:30 times, and debuting Ethiopian Tegest Ayalew looks to have a sub-2:30 in her too. Pacing is planned to be a 1:12:00 first half, an ambitious goal for pretty much everyone except maybe Tanui. Up front in the men's race are a solid trio of 2:07 runners made up of Ethiopians Gizealew Ayana and Japan-based Derese Workneh , and Kenyan Mathew Samperu . The top tier of Japanese men come in at the 2:08 level, including Mizuki Higashi , Yuki Takei , and Ryoma Takeuchi , a pacer at Gold Coast last year. Past winner Yuki Kawauchi has only run under 2:20 once in 2024 a...
Things have really been coming up fast the last year or so in Japanese distance running, but even so this year's New Year Ekiden really felt like the era has changed. GMO took the lead on the second of the race's 7 legs and went on to take over 2 minutes off the overall course record for the 100.0 km course, winning its first national title in 4:44:00. En route 6 of the 7 legs had new CR, a lot of them with multiple people breaking them, and the only leg that didn't, the 12.3 km First Stage, saw Shunpei Tomita of Logisteed run 34:23, only 7 seconds off the CR held by sub-27 Kenyan Martin Mathathi . The level at the collegiate Hakone Ekiden keeps going up up up , and that showed here as 3 of the new stage CR were set by guys in their first season in the corporate leagues who were some of the biggest stars at Hakone last year. Aoyama Gakuin University grad Aoi Ota sneaked in 1 second ahead of Toyota 's Jin Yuasa to set a 46:00 CR on the 15.9 km Fifth Stage. Collegi...
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Any news on Seira Fuwa? I've not heard boo from her camp. Hopefully, it is a good sign and she is training well away from the media spotlight. I just hope she is not injured or still recovering from injury.