Four New Meet Records on National Sports Festival Day 2

4 meet records fell on the second day of the 2025 National Sports Festival in Shiga. In the junior men's pole vault, Naoya Inoue (Anan Hikari H.S.) was the only one to go higher than 4.80 m, and massively so. Inoue cleared 5.32 m on his 3rd attempt, setting a new MR and beating his closest competition by 52 cm.

800 m NR holders Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) and Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) duly took the 800 m wins here in MR time. Kubo won the junior women's race by over 3 seconds in 2:01.72, with Ochiai winning the senior men's race in 1:45.20. The men's race was actually decently competitive, with Mikuto Kaneko (Arcyell) and Hiroki Minamoto (NTN) going 1:46.25 and 1:46.47, and the top 4 all going under the old MR. Ochiai's success while still a teenager seems to be motivating other Japanese men in what is probably Japan's weakest track event.

The other meet record came in the junior men's 100 m B-final, where Sekito Matsushita (Shizuoka H.S.) ran 10.35 (+0.8) for the win. More to come in the A-finals, with both Kai Sugano (Tokyo Nogyo Daini H.S.) and Sorato Shimizu (Seiryo H.S.) ran faster than Matsushita in the semifinals.

In other results on Day 2:

Issa Matsumoto (Morimura Gakuen H.S.) took the junior men's javelin throw in 63.49 m on his 2nd attempt.
Koki Hasebe (Gifu Shogyo H.S.) won the junior men's long jump by 5 cm in 7.19 m (+1.5) on his 5th attempt.
Ai Oyama (SDF Academy) won the senior women's 10000 m race walk in 44:59.44, almost a minute up on the chase pack.
Haruka Osako (Somayq) threw 15.36 m on her 2nd attempt, in the end enough to win the senior women's shot put by 50 cm but fouling on her last 3 attempts.
The junior men's triple jump went to Satoshi Inoue (Tamano Konan H.S.) with a 15.63 m (+1.4) on his 5th attempt, enough to overtake longtime leader Fukutaro Isoyama (Nishinomiya Higashi H.S.). Isoyama came back with his biggest jump in the final round but couldn't retake the top spot, ending up 2nd at 15.52 m (+0.5).
Yuzuki Yokoyama (Shiritsu Kashiwa H.S.) had an easy win in the junior women's 100 m B-final, running 11.69 (+0.3) to finish 0.21 up on Aoi Hashimoto (Kanazawa Izumigaoka H.S.).
Keeping on with what's already a long season, Tokyo World Championships team member Yuta Sakiyama (Ehime T&F Assoc.) won the senior men's javelin throw with a last attempt of 80.43 m that made him the only man over 80 m.
The 300 m was on the menu across all age groups. Haru Barogun (Ichikawa H.S.) took the junior women's race in 38.16, Worlds team member Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) the senior women's race in 37.10, Kenji Tojima (Shiritsu Funabashi H.S.) the junior men's race in 32.76, and Kenki Imaizumi (Uchida Yoko AC) the senior men's race in 32.61.

The National Sports Festival continues through Tuesday.

Osaka Marathon Preview

The Osaka Marathon is Sunday, one of Japan's biggest mass-participation races and the next stop on the calendar for its elite marathoners hoping to qualify for the L.A. Olympics marathon trials in the fall of 2027. Last year it snowed mid-race, but this year is looking warmer than ideal given the season, with sunny skies, almost no wind, and temps forecast to be 11˚ at the start and rising to 19˚ by the time the winners are finishing. NHK is broadcasting Osaka with a heavy emphasis on the men's race, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it from overseas. There's also official streaming on Youtube starting at 8:30 a.m. local time, although it doesn't look like it's the same as what NHK will be showing. Given Osaka's history at the elite level as the continuation of the men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, the women's field is small relative to the men's, just enough to tick World Athletics' label requirements and with almost no do...

Arao Becomes 1st Man in 40 Years to Score Back-to-Back Ome Road Race Wins

30 km is an under-appreciated distance, and both of Japan's big races at that distance happened Sunday. At the Ome Road Race in western Tokyo's mountains, Sydney Marathon 6th-placer Masato Arao (ND Software) became the first man since the great Kunimitsu Ito in 1985-1986 to win back-to-back years. Arao, who finished 39th of 40 on his leg at the New Year Ekiden last month, stayed in the pack through 20 km before going on the attack, putting over a minute on New Year Ekiden Sixth Stage CR breaker Yudai Shimazu (GMO). Sub-1:31 winning times are rare on the tough and hilly Ome course, but Arao's 1:30:54 almost equaled his 1:30:50 from last year, making him the first Japanese man ever to do it twice and second only to CR holder Ezekiel Cheboitibin . Next up Arao races the Tokyo Marathon, where he is targeting sub-2:06. Shimazu was 2nd in 1:31:58 and Yuta Nakayama (JR Higashi Nihon) 3rd in 1:32:07. Cheboitibin was only 9th, running almost 8 minutes off his CR in 1:36:42. Shi...

Nagoya Women's Marathon Elite Field

Last year's top 3 Sheila Chepkirui , Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba are back for this year's Nagoya Women's Marathon on Mar. 8, but things are being set up more for it to be a race between Chepkirui, 2:17:49 in Berlin 2023, Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda , 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024. Aynalem has the freshest sub-2:20 of the 3, with neither Chepkirui nor Maeda having done it in 2 years. Maeda's only recent result is a 1:10:07 from Houston last month, but when she ran her NR she didn't have any kind of tuneup race to indicate her fitness so it's probably best not to read too much into that. If it goes out as a 2:18 race those are the only 3 who can probably hang with it. If it turns out to be more of a 2:20 race like when Chepkirui won in 2:20:40 last year then there's a group of 7 at the 2:20-2:22 level who will be in the picture, including Chumba, Selly Chep...

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