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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.
On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges. Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...
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."...
An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...
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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.