A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year:
- Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu, gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri, silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025.
- Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon. Ko Kobayashi from the Shindengen Kogyo corporate team got the win in 2:16:37 by nearly a minute over club runner Natsuki Ishibe. The women's race saw Yukie Nagata get the win by just 17 seconds over Momoko Yao, 2:40:31 to 2:40:48. The top 7 women were all under 2:47, pretty good depth for a 3rd-tier Japanese marathon.
- On the track, Australia's Maurie Plant Meet was the main event. In his last race before joining Waseda University on April 1, Rui Suzuki ran 13:25.59 for 6th in the 5000 m, the 2nd-fastest Japanese high school mark and 3rd-fastest U20 time ever. Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University's Masaya Tsurukawa was 9th in 13:26.23, with Shunsuke Yoshii, Tetsu Sasaki and Tomonori Yamaguchi unremarkable in 13:55.79, 13:59.73 and 14:06.17. Ryoji Tatezawa was last by 5 seconds in the men's 1500 m in 3:48.24. Yudai Nishi and Koki Ueyama were only 6th and 7th in the men's 200 m in 21.00 and 21.01. In women's track events, Nagisa Shimotabira was 13th of 14 in the 3000 m in 9:07.01, while Tomoka Kimura and Yume Goto took the bottom two places in the 1500 m in 4:19.97 and 4:31.21. Like Tatezawa, Kimura was 5 seconds behind the closest finisher ahead of her. At the other end of the spectrum, Japanese women took the top 3 places in the 100 mH, Yumi Tanaka getting the win in 13.11 over Chisato Kiyoyama and Hitomi Nakajima.
- On the field at Maurie Plant, Tomohiro Shinno won the high jump in a middling 2.20 m, with last year's 3rd-place Naoto Hasegawa 5th at 2.16 m and Takashi Eto ;6th at only 2.12 m. Yuki Yamashita was 4th in the triple jump at 15.67 m (-1.8). Yuji Tsutsumi was last in the men's discus throw at 53.62 m, the only athlete not to throw over 54 m. Nagisa Takahashi was a decent 2nd in the women's high jump after clearing 1.86 m. Momone Ueda and Sae Takemoto went 4-5 in the women's javelin throw at 57.65 m and 56.91 m.
- With the 10000 m National Championships coming up in 2 weeks most of the big names gave The TEN a miss this year. Kenta Sekiguchi ran the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, 28:07.46 for 5th in the B-heat, with Shotaro Ishihara 9th in 28:14.50. No Japanese women raced.
- In Yokohama, the Nittai University Time Trials series kicked off its 2025-26 run even though it was still technically 2024-25. Takuma Akiyoshi from the University of Tokyo had the fastest men's 10000 m at Nittai in 28:45.62, one of 6 men there to break 29 minutes. Juntendo University's Riito Ikema had the fastest 5000 m in 13:36.26, less than half a second ahead of Honda's Nanami Arai. Men's times in the 3000 m, 1500 m and 800 m were unremarkable.
- The biggest women's mark went to Nittai's own Miu Saito, who moved up to all-time Japanese #6 in the 3000 m steeplechase and #2 on the collegiate list with a 9:41.57 PB for the win. Corporate leaguer Janet Nyiva edged high schooler Lucy Nduta by 0.35 seconds to win the 5000 m in 15:28.45, with the unattached Sora Shinozakura taking the 3000 m in 9:11.44 after recently quitting the Panasonic corporate team, and Maki Izumida outleaning Kadogo Chebotibin to win the 1500 m in 4:22.36. Saito's Nittai teammate Miko Suzuki won the women's 800 m in 2:13.57.
© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Comments
They alread had a strong young line-up at Hakone and it's good for the movement to have them loading up together with other teams to try and challenge AGU/Komazawa.
Ikema's PB is big for Juntendo as well, Yoshioka didn't develop the way he was supposed to but he's still a good runner they can count on.
They have a couple of other guys developing similarly to Ikema and I think they should have way less problems at Yosenkai compared to last year.