Szbrucek, Taya and Niizuma Dominate on National Sports Festival Day 1

Fresh off last weekend's U20 National Championships, Anna Szbrucek (Ushiku H.S.) and Rei Taya (Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S.) were back in the junior women's 2000 mSC to start off the first day of the 2025 National Sports Festival in Shiga. Szbrucek, born in Japan to Slovakian and Bulgarian parents, won the 3000 mSC at the U20 Nationals in 9:57.11, while Taya set an U18 NR of 10:06.59 in the same race. Here Szbrucek dominated, winning in 6:27.03. Taya was 2nd in 6:33.11 to break both the U18 NR of 6:36.81 and the U20 NR of 6:35.84. 3rd placer Mone Kakuchi (Nagano Higashi H.S.) was under both records too, and if there were an official steeplechase high school record for girls Szbrucek would now have two of them to her name.

The U20 boys' 5000 m was also at a high level, with the top 13 all breaking 14 minutes. In a sprint finish Haruki Niizuma (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) outran James Karuri (Aomori Yamada H.S.) for the win 13:35.33 to 13:35.85, with Kaito Shudo (Kurashiki H.S.) getting 3rd in 13:44.74. 4th through 6th were all under 13:50, 7th to 9th under 13:55, and the next 4 under 14:00, Felix Muthiani (Yamanashi Gakuin H.S.) just getting there in 13:59.52 for 13th.

Compared to those races the senior men's 3000 mSC was relatively tame, with Yasunari Kusu (Ami AC) taking the win by 5 seconds in 8:27.35 over Sanetada Ono (Tokai Univ.). 3-time steeplechase Hironori Tsuetaki (Fujitsu) was 11th in 9:14.95, then disappointed fans by withdrawing from the men's javelin throw where he had surprisingly been entered to make his throwing debut.

In other finals:

Maoko Takashima (Craftia) set a meet record 13.64 m (+0.9) to win the senior women's triple jump.
Raika Murakami (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) also took the meet record in the senior women's hammer throw with a 66.22 m throw for the win on her third attempt.
Hyogo Watanabe (Niigata Iryo Fukushi Univ.) outgrew Hitoshi Okumura (Senko) by 1 cm to win the senior men's shot put at 17.94 m.
Shota Kita (Hozen H.S.) won the junior men's hammer throw with a last-round 64.60 m throw.
Keigo Nakamura (Kandai Hokuyo H.S.) cleared 2.15 m on his first attempt, giving him the junior men's high jump title.
Mayu Fujimoto (Seiryo H.S.) closed with a 5.89 m (+0.3) jump on her last attempt, overtaking leader Miyu Onishi (Niihama Higashi H.S.) by 5 cm to win the junior women's long jump.

The National Sports Festival continues through Tuesday.

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...

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