Weekend Road and Track Roundup

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.

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...

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