Japan Dominates Half Marathon - World University Games Day 6 Japanese Results

Japan didn't quite pull off a sweep of the men's and women's half marathon at the 2025 FISU World University Games, but it was pretty close. In the men's race Waseda University's Shinsaku Kudo, the fastest man in the race with a best of 1:00:06 from Marugame this past February, led start to finish, keeping it around 62-flat pace before finishing in a WUG record 1:02:29. Turkey's Ramazan Bastug spent most of the race in a small chase pack with Ryuto Uehara (Koku Gakuin Univ.) and Kento Baba (Rikkyo Univ.) before dropping them both for silver in 1:02:35. Uehara was just behind in 1:02:39 for bronze, with Baba missing out on the medals in 1:02:44 for 4th.

In the women's race China's Xiuzhen Ma had to deal with the Japanese trio of Makoto Tsuchiya (Ritsumeikan Univ.), Mariya Noda (Daito Bunka Univ.) and Ayaka Maeda (Kansai Univ.). And she did, running a PB 1:12:48 for gold over Tsuchiya by 10 seconds. Noda scored the bronze medal in 1:13:16, with Maeda, a replacement for Aoi Takahashi (Josai Univ.), 2 seconds behind in 4th. Both the women's and men's teams took the gold medals in team scoring.

The men's 5000 m final didn't have any Japanese athletes in it, but what a wild race. France's Arthur Gervais won gold in 15:02.00, in a men's 5000 m, with 0.47 separating the medalists, 0.93 separating the top 6, and 4.37 seconds separating the top 14. If you can find video of it watch it to see the crazy last lap. There were no Japanese women in the 5000 m final either, where Julia David-Smith made it a French double with a 15:34.57 PB for the win off a 60-second last lap. Daito Bunka University's Sarah Wanjiru was 10th in 15:46.26.

Aoi Murakami (Nittai Univ.) was 4th in the women's javelin throw final, throwing 56.28 m on her 3rd attempt and coming up only 45 cm short of bronze. Turkey's Esra Turkmen came up with a 59.90 m PB on her final attempt, moving up from bronze into gold. In the men's triple jump final Yuto Adachi (Fukuoka Univ.) jumped 16.16 m (+1.3) on his opening attempt, ultimately finishing 7th. Australian Conor Murphy took gold at 16.77 m (+1.2). Tetsu Sasaki (Waseda Univ.) was also 7th in the men's 3000 mSC final in 8:41.53, 6 and a half seconds out of the medals with Luxembourg's Ruben Querinjean running a WUG record 8:18.46 for gold.

In qualifying rounds, Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) made the women's hammer throw final with a 65.89 m throw that put her at 7th among the qualifiers. In the men's 800 m semifinals, both Sota Okamura (Kanoya Taiiku Univ.) and NR holder Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) missed the final, Okamura 3rd in SF2 in 1:48.67 and Ochiai a disastrous last in SF1 in 1:51.70 after leading the first lap in 52.83, only 21st out of the 24 competitors in the semis. It's too soon to call his decision to go to the long distance-specialty Komazawa a mistake, but with results like this you have to feel like at some point he's going to start questioning that decision.

The FISU World University Games wrap Sunday.

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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