Kawano Wins 35 km RW Bronze - Budapest World Championships Day 6 Japanese Results

Day 6 of the Budapest World Championships started with Japan getting onto the medal board for the first time as one of its best individual chances came through. All three Japanese men in the 35 km race walk went out with the lead group and stayed there until just past 20 km, where 2021 50 km national champion Satoshi Maruo lost contact. 2023 35 km national champ Tomohiro Noda lasted another 8 km before dropping, leaving last year's Oregon silver medalist Masatora Kawano in contention for another medal as the pack dwindled. By 31 km it was down to just Kawano, last year's 4th-placer Brian Pintado of Ecuador, and 20 km gold medalist Alvaro Martin of Spain.

Kawano dropped back with 2 km to go, Martin pulling away to take a second gold in a 2:24:30 national record and Pintado getting onto the medal stand with a 2:24:34 area record for silver. Kawano finished with a 2:25:12 SB for bronze, Japan's first medal of any kind in a World Championships that looks set to produce its most-ever top 8 placings. Noda added to that count with a 6th-place finish in 2:25:50, with Maruo taking 13th in 2:29:52.

Another top-8 came in the simultaneous women's 35 km RW as Serena Sonoda worked together with Peruvian Evelyn Inga throughout the race and ended up 7th in 2:46:32, almost 8 minutes behind gold medalist Maria Perez of Spain. Masumi Fuchise clocked a PB 2:52:57 for 14th. Veteran Kumiko Okada was a late scratch shortly before the race due to lower back pain.

In qualifying rounds, Japan's two men in the 5000 m heats had almost identically ineffectual results even though they ran opposite races. 2023 National champion Kazuya Shiojiri stayed at the back of the pack throughout the race with Norwegian 1500 m medalists Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Narve Gilje Nordas, but when they moved up into qualifying territory Shiojiri stayed where he was, ultimately finishing 18th of 21 in his heat in 13:51.00 with two of the people behind him having been involved in a hard fall. It was exactly the kind of performance his Fujitsu teammates Yuta Bando and Hiroki Matsueda turned in at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago.

Indoor 5000 m NR holder Hyuga Endo went for a more active effort in Heat 2, keeping himself in the top 8 from the start. But when the race really got going he dropped, finishing 17th of 22 in 13:50.49. Last year in Oregon he was 13th in his heat in 13:47.07, so despite having prepared for Budapest in St. Moritz it was a step backward that didn't bode well for next year's Paris Olympics.

The men's 200 m semifinals were delayed by an accident involving a collision between two athlete transport carts, one of which had veteran Shota Iizuka and other Heat 1 entrants on board. Heat 1 was bumped to the end, with Heat 2 going off first and Heat 3 second. In Heat 3, Asian champion Towa Uzawa ran 20.33 -0.4 m/s for 5th. Iizuka needed to beat the 20.21 run by Heat 3 4th-placer Joseph Fahnbulleh of Liberia, meaning an improvement on the 20.27 he ran in the heats which was already the fastest he had run since 2016. It wasn't to be, as Iizuka ran 20.54 -0.1 m/s for 5th.

Complete Day 6 results here.

Rui Aoki and Shunsuke Kuwata Making U.S. Debut at United Airlines NYC Half

When the National University Half Marathon was canceled in 2011 after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan 2 days before the race, JRN talked to the New York Road Runners about bringing 2 collegiate runners to the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon the next weekend as a show of support. It wasn't possible to pull it together in the immediate aftermath of the disasters, but a year later we brought 2 young 2nd-years from Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Toyo University , Kento Otsu and Yuta Shitara , who had been the top 2 Japanese collegiate finishers at the Ageo City Half Marathon in November before Hakone. Shitara ran 1:01:48, at the time the fastest-ever by a Japanese man on U.S. soil, with Otsu running a solid 1:03:15. Thanks to that great start the Ageo-NYC partnership became a regular thing, and except for the pandemic it's continued every year since, expanding this year to June's New York Mini 10 km when 2 runners from Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden runne...

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...

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...

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