Weekend Road and Track Streaming and Preview

With championship ekiden season right around the corner there aren’t many weekends this time of year that aren’t busy ones in Japan. This one is another one. Saturday is the 85th Tango University Ekiden in Kyoto, the 8-stage, 74.4 km season-ender for Kansai Region university teams.

This year a few of them had the chance to run the Hakone Ekiden qualifier in October to try to achieve the hopeless task of beating even one Kanto Region team for a spot at the 100th Hakone in January, but with none achieving that goal they’re back for their own regional championship. It’s an interesting situation as some teams like Ritsumeikan University and Kantaiheiyo University just made the challenging Hakone qualifier - National University Ekiden double, and others like Kwansei Gakuin University opted to focus everything this season on a Tango win. And this time there’s actually a Kanto Region interloper in the form of powerhouse Aoyama Gakuin University, making a special one-time appearance at Tango without counting in the standings. Streaming is scheduled to start here at 8:20 a.m. Saturday local time.

The main race on Sunday is the legendary Ageo City Half Marathon in Saitama, the race that virtually all Hakone-bound teams except Aoyama Gakuin use to thin down the ranks of contenders on their roster for the final Hakone lineup. Hundreds of collegiate men run times that would win a lot of other half marathons, with the top two Japanese collegians earning an invitation to March’s United Airlines NYC Half in a program set up by JRN. The race has become a go-to in Asia for people looking to break a national record, and this year marathoner Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh will be taking a shot at the Mongolian women’s NR as a tune-up for December’s Taipei City Marathon. Streaming will be on the Teletama Youtube channel starting 9:00 a.m. local time Sunday. As always, JRN will be on-site in Ageo from the lead car.

Also Sunday at Tokyo’s National Stadium, hundreds of other collegians will be running a series of 10000 m time trials put on by Hakone organizers KGRR. Just a few years ago it was a big enough deal for someone to break 29 minutes that the KGRR offered scholarship money to anyone who did it at this meet, but it’s a sign of how much things have changed that the fastest men’s heat is set to go at 27:45 pace this time. There are also 3 women’s heats along with the 10 men’s heats, so expect fast times there too. Streaming starts above at 11:15 a.m. Sunday.

Less of an elite race, especially since the pandemic hit, the Kobe Marathon Sunday actually features a decent men’s field with current sub-2:10 runners Hamza Sahli (Morocco), Wilfred Kimitei (Kenya), Barnaba Kipkoech (Kenya) and Junichi Tsubouchi (Japan/Kurosaki Harima). The women’s field is weaker, with no internationals and only two Japanese women who have run under 2:40, late-career veterans Misato Horie (Sysmex) and Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita).

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...

World Marathon Majors Japanese Entries

We're back from a short summer break. A week and a half out from the first race of the season's four World Marathon Majors races, here's a look at Japanese athletes scheduled to run. Everything right now is about qualifying for the MGC Race, the official trials race for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to be held in the fall of 2027 in Nagoya. The JAAF makes no mistake about wanting to keep its top people racing domestically where it can get a share of revenue from the TV broadcast and race operations, so anyone who decides to race overseas has to do it in a WA platinum label race and hit either 2:06:30 or 2:23:30, regardless of place, course or weather if they want to make the trials. At the same time concessions are make for domestic races, like for example the late-August Hokkaido Marathon where up to 3 men and 3 women can qualify if they go 2:12:00 or 2:32:00. As a result, you get things like last year where amateur runner Yudai Fukuda made the trials by finishing 3rd Jap...

Nakajima Breaks 100 mH NR Twice, Kitaguchi Returns - August Track Roundup

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...

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