Yamagata Breaks 100 m U20 NR, Yanagita 9.97 at National University Individual Championships

At the high school, university and corporate league levels, national championships on the track are at an odd time in the Japanese calendar. After regional championships in May, college students and corporate leaguers don't have their national championship meets until September right after summer mileage base building for ekiden season. High schoolers have their regional meets in June, then their Nationals in August. The National University Track and Field Individual Championships, aka the All Japan University Track & Field Challenge Meeting, happens more when you'd expect, ever mid-June in Kanagawa, but without a team component, no relays, no team scoring, and missing a few events, it's not a major event and doesn't usually bring in much of the main collegiate talent.

Two weeks out from the outright National Championships, this year was an exception at the Individual Championships with seven new meet records. The biggest out of them was in Saturday's women's 100 m. After coasting through her opening heat in the 100 m in 11.68 (+0.8), Fukuoka University 1st-year Aiha Yamagata got people talking with an 11.36 (+3.4) to win her semifinal, under the U20 NR by 0.07 but wind-aided. In the final Yamagata backed that up with an 11.41 (+1.7), 0.06 under the meet record and a new U20 NR by 0.02.

And she wasn't done. Coming back Sunday in the 200 m, Yamagata ran 24.48 (+0.6) and 23.77 (+2.8) to win her heat and semi, then dropped a 23.53 (+1.4) meet record just 0.08 off the U20 NR to win the final. With three years still ahead of her Takahashi looks to have good shots at both that and the 11.32 collegiate record in her.

Other meet records were mostly in women's events:

Akari Funada (Mukogawa Joshi Univ.) cleared the triple jump meet record by 35 cm, jumping 13.48 (+0.5) on her 3rd attempt and going on to go over the old record of 13.13 on her 4th and 5th attempts too.
Women's discus throw U20 NR holder Maki Saito (Tokai Univ.) broke her own MR by almost 2 m, opening with a winning 57.50 m throw and bettering her old 55.66 m MR from last year on her 3rd, 5th and 6th attempts. 2nd-place Honoka Shiroma (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) threw only 47.25 m.
Women's hammer throw collegiate and U20 NR holder Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) threw 64.15 m on her 5th attempt, breaking the 63.44 m MR she set last year and good for the win.
Sota Haraguchi (Juntendo Univ.) was one of two men to set a new MR, clearing 2.23 m in the high jump on his 1st attempt.
Hiroki Kitahara (Niigata Iryo Fukushi Univ.) threw 59.95 m on his 5th attempt in the men's discus throw, bettering the old MR by almost 2 m.

Paris-bound Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) opened with a 10.23 (+1.1) in the men's 100 m heats, then dropped a wind-aided 9.97 (+3.5) in the semifinals. Former NR holder Yoshihide Kiryu's 10.01 MR was out of reach in the final, but Yanagita still ran a career 5th-best 10.13 (+1.4) for the win, a return to form ahead of Nationals after a disappointing May. Yuhi Mori (Daito Bunka Univ.) had a great day, breaking 10.20 for the first time with a 10.13 (+1.9) to win his opening heat, then taking his semi in 10.16 (+0.7), then running 10.19 for 2nd behind Yanagita in the final.

In distance races, Daito Bunka University 2nd-year Sarah Wanjiru added another title to her already extensive resume with a 15:42.8 for the win in the 5000 m, beating Sayuki Ota (Ritsumeikan Univ.) by almost 5 seconds. Only three men started in the 5000 m, with Riki Koike (Soka Univ.) soloing a 13.47.3 that came just 2 seconds short of the MR, while teammates Kosei Shiraishi and Kyosuke Hiramatsu of Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University jogged together to both finish in 14:28. For whatever reason, the 5000 m were the only events to be hand-timed.

Mayu Kawase extended Daito Bunka University's dynasty in the women's 3000 mSC with a 10:20.39 for the win in a very close race against Yuka Komatsu (Tsukuba Univ.), 2nd in 10:22.67. Suzuna Kinoshita (Chuo Univ.) won the women's 1500 m title in 4:25.11. Only two men started in the 3000 m SC, Rintaro Ozono (Kanoya Taiiku Univ.) winning by 6 seconds over Kai Ogata (Kanto Gakuin Univ.) in 8:48.80. Shuta Azuma (Hiroshima Keizai Univ.) won the men's 1500 m in 3:49.40 in a four-way sprint finish.

Heisei Mountaineering Stops Takigahara SDF Base From Scoring 10-Year Streak at Mount Fuji Ekiden

by Koichi Iwasa of DogsorCaravan On Aug. 2 the 51st Mount Fuji Ekiden took place, starting and finishing in Gotemba, Shizuoka and covering 11 stages up to the peak of Mount Fuji and back down. Teams of 6 runners tackle the tough course, each running handling one uphill and one downhill leg with the 6th runner reaching the peak before turning around to head back to the exchange zone where they started. The Heisei Mountaineering Club team took the overall win in 3:50:39, beating 9-time winner Takigahara SDF Base by 2:07 and stopping them from achieving a 10-year victory streak. The independent team division and SDF team division were separated in 2005, and this was the first time that the winning independent team outran the fastest SDF team to take the overall title. The roster that Heisei Mountaineering put together for this year's race raised eyebrows among everyone familiar with the Japanese trail running scene. Handling the 5th and 7th legs was Ruy Ueda , winner of the Fuji M...

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...

Fujisan GX Breaks CR to Win 79th Towada Hachimantai Ekiden

The 79th edition of the Towada Hachimantai Ekiden took place Aug. 1 in Akita. Covering a 5-leg 71.4 km course, the race hosted 14 teams. Yamanashi's Fujisan GX took the overall win in a 3:42:17 course record. The best-placing team from within the prefecture, the Akita T&F Association team made the podium at 6th overall. The women's race was canceled again this year due to lack of participation. 79th Towada Hachimantai Ekiden Akita, 1 Aug. 2026 5 stages, 71.4 km, 14 teams complete results Top Team Results 1. Fujisan GX - 3:42:17 - CR 2. Corporate Select Team - 3:46:24 3. Tokyo Police A - 3:48:00 4. Comodi Iida - 3:48:41 5. Tokyo Police B - 3:50:14 6. Akita T&F Assoc. - 3:57:58 7. Fukushima T&F Assoc. - 4:08:20 Top Individual Stage Results First Stage (13.0 km) 1. Ryota Seki (Tokyo Police A) - 39:47 2. Takuma Nakayama (Fujisan GX) - 40:01 3. Ryota Sato (Tokyo Police B) - 40:02 Second Stage (13.0 km) 1. Yuki Seto (Fujisan GX) - 37:03 2. Shunsuke Watanabe (Comodi ...

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