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Kanakuri Memorial Meet and 10000 m National Championships Preview and Streaming

Saturday is the first big meet on Japan's outdoor middle and long distance circuit, the Kanakuri Memorial Meet in Kumamoto. This year it's also hosting the 10000 m National Championships, making for an extra-long and extra-quality field overall. Top finishers will pick up places on Japan's team for next month's Asian Championships in South Korea, a key step in earning world rankings points to get onto the home team for September's Tokyo World Championships that makes Kanakuri more valuable than ever. Streaming is scheduled to be here and will run through most of the day, with the meet-closing men's and women's 10000 m having a separate broadcast on NHK BS starting at 19:30 local time.

Start lists for most events are here. 10000 m start lists are here. Live results are here. A-heat event previews:

Women's 800 m - 11:00
High schooler Rin Kubo is the only Japanese woman to have broken 2 minutes, with a 1:59.93 last July. Is she going to get any faster? Only one way to find out. Her nearest competition in Kumamoto is Ayano Shiomi, 2:01.93 also last July for all-time JPN #5, with all-time #8 Ai Watanabe, 2:02.39, also on the list.

Men's 800 m - 11:15
NR holder Ko Ochiai is in the meet in his debut in the Komazawa University uniform, but in what's probably a sign of things to come he's already being pushed into a longer distance, the 1500 m. In his absence the top seed is all-time JPN #10 Sota Okamura, 1:46.38. Former NR holder Sho Kawamoto is also in the race but hasn't run under 1:47 since 2023.

Women's 3000 mSC - 13:10
Miu Saito has been coming up through the ranks, with a 9:41.57 two weeks ago that bumped her up to all-time #5. Here she'll be making her debut in the Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo uniform, facing off against all-time #3 Yuzu Nishide and #4 Manami Nishiyama. 

Men's 3000 mSC - 13:30
No sign of NR holder Ryuji Miura, who's set to announce a sponsor change, but it should be a good head-to-head between all-time JPN #5 Ryoma Aoki and #6 Yutaro Niinae, 8:20.09 to 8:20.36. #10 Hibiki Obara, 8:25.07, is also in the race and could give them a scare for making the Asian Championships team. 

Women's 1500 m - 14:00
NR holder Nozomi Tanaka, all-time #5 Yume Goto and #9 Chikako Mori face Kenyans Teresiah Muthoni, Esther Muthoni, Rose Wangui, Jecinta Nyokabi and Margaret Ekalale. Only Tanaka has broken 4 minutes, but both Muthonis are close enough to give her a run for it.

Men's 1500 m - 14:40
A pretty good field by Japanese standards, with 3 of Japan's 4 all-time fastest, Kazuki Kawamura at 3:35.42, Kazuto Iizawa at 3:35.62, and Nanami Arai at 3:36.63. South Sudan's Abraham Guem and Ochiai are in it too, along with sub-3:40 men Masato Saiki, Keisuke Morita and Yusuke Takahashi.

Women's 5000 m - 15:50
Lots of good Kenyans here like sub-15 women Agnes Mwikali and Tabitha Njeri, but they've all in the slow heat at 14:50. NR holder Tanaka is in the fast heat apparently as a pacer, with Wakana Kabasawa the top seed there at 15:20.94 and former NR holder Ririka Hironaka trying to make a comeback from her latest round of injuries. Paris Olympian Yuma Yamamoto is in it too.

Men's 5000 m - 16:10
30 Kenyans are entered, but for whatever reason, as in the women's, the powers that be put all but one of them in the two slower heats, leaving 13:13.63 man Emmanuel Kipchirchir to run with the top tier of Japanese men, Keita Sato, Kotaro Shinohara, Nagiya Mori, Masaya Tsurukawa, Hyuga Endo and Ren Tazawa. Sato, who made a comeback from 10 months of injury with a stellar CR run at the Hakone Ekiden in January, hopes to break the NR of 13:08.40, but with pacing set at only 8:05 through 3000 m he's going to have to do some heavy lifting to get anywhere near that.

Men's 10000 m - 19:35
Fun and games in store, with 4 of Japan's all-time top 5, Kazuya Shiojiri, Tomoki Ota, Jun Kasai and Mebuki Suzuki all in the race. Shiojiri set the 27:09.80 NR at the December, 2023 National Championships with Kasai following up to win the May, 2024 National Championships in 27:17.46 and Ota 2nd in both races. Ota's fresh off a 59:27 NR in the half marathon at Marugame in February, so fingers crossed that 2025 keeps on being his year.

Women's 10000 m - 20:15
A pretty weak field for a National Championship race, really, with only 11 Japanese women and Kenyan pacer Margaret Akidor. Hironaka is entered here too, but apart from her there's nobody else from Japan's all-time top 10 list, with only Miyaka Sugata and Nanaka Izawa having cleared 31:45 and only Kazuna Kanetomo under 32:00 inside the qualifying window.

© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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Anonymous said…
I think they wanted to keep the Kenyans out of the Asian Champs trials ("A" races) so that they're "true run" races for the Japanese athletes.
April 12, 2025 at 2:12 AM
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