Skip to main content

It's Entry List Season

Lots of big meets coming up, and entry lists are promising some top Japanese talent at three of the first major ones.
  1. On Mar. 7 the JAAF announced a team of 12 men and 12 women for the Mar. 30 Belgrade World Cross Country Championships, with senior men's 10 km 3rd-placer Yuta Bando (Fujitsu) the only one of the top-placing athletes at last month's National Cross Country Championships to pass on running Worlds. There hasn't been any announcement of withdrawals by the JAAF, but as of this writing the official entry lists on the Worlds site list only 5 men and 7 women. All four people on the mixed relay team are there including the Louisiana State University-bound Yuya Sawada (Hamamatsu Shiritsu H.S.) and 1500 m NR holder Nozomi Tanaka (New Balance), but senior men's national champ Tomonori Yamaguchi (Waseda Univ.), the entire U20 men's team, and all but U20 women's 4th-placer Chiseno Ikeda (Ritsumeikan Uji H.S.) are missing. It has to be wrong, right?
  2. The Apr. 13 Kanakuri Memorial Meet is the first big outdoor meet on the Japanese calendar, and the men's 1500 m looks like the race of the day. On the list are NR holder Kazuki Kawamura (Toenec), all-time #2 Kazuto Iizawa (Sumitomo Denko), #3 and 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Subaru), #4 and indoor 1500 m NR holder Nanami Arai (Honda), #7 and U20 NR holder Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.) and #8 Keisuke Morita (Subaru). It doesn't get much better than that in a domestic Japanese 1500 m. Tanaka is also in the women's 1500 m here, along with all-time #3 Ran Urabe (Sekisui Kagaku), #6 Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido) and high school star Sherry Drury (Tsuyama H.S.). Bando will turn up in the men's 5000 m alongside Paris Olympics marathoner Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko), 10 mile world best holder Benard Koech (Kyudenko) and 10000 m NR holder Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) among others. Kimura is also entered in the women's 5000 m, where sub-15 talent like Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera) and Naomi Muthoni (Universal Ent.) is sure to dominate.
  3. The Asian U20 Championships happen Apr. 24-27 in Dubai, and Japan is sending 16 girls and 15 boys. Drury will make her international debut in the 1500 m, with sub-9:10 runners Narumi Okumoto (Oita Tomei H.S.) and Nozomi Kondo (Tokai Sagami H.S.) in the girls' 3000 m. The boys' 5000 m is solid, including all-time high school #2 Sota Orita (Suma Gakuen H.S.) and #4 Kaito Iida (Izumi Chuo H.S.). Yota Mashiko (Ishikawa H.S.) is in the 3000 m with a best of 8:05.32, and Kaito Kuroki (Higashi Fukuoka H.S.) is a solid contender in the 100 m with a 10.19 PB from last year.
© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin
Post a Comment
Read more

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi
Post a Comment
Read more

10000 m NR Attempt In the Works Saturday at Hachioji Long Distance - Streaming and Preview

There are a bunch of other time trial meets this weekend and next, but Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance is the last big meet for Japanese men, 8 heats of Wavelight-paced 10000 m finely graded from target times of 28:50 down to 26:59 for the fastest heat. Heat 6 at 17:55 local time is effectively the B-race, with 35 Japan-based Kenyans targeting 27:10 at the front end, and in a lot of cases a spot on their teams at the New Year Ekiden national championship on Jan. 1. Corporate teams are only allowed to field one non-Japanese athlete in the New Year Ekiden, and only on its shortest stage, and getting to that has a big impact on African athletes' contracts and renewal prospects. Toyota Boshoku , Yasukawa Denki , Chugoku Denryoku , Aisan Kogyo , JR Higashi Nihon , Subaru and 2024 national champion Toyota are all fielding two Kenyans, and Aichi Seiko three. For people like Toyota's Felix Korir and Samuel Kibathi , getting as close to the 27:10 target time as they can and
Post a Comment
Read more