japan running news

The JAAF announced the men's and women's half marathon teams today for this fall's World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen: Women Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon) - 1:09:14 (1st, 2026 Osaka Half) Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:09:20 (1st, 2026 Nat'l Corp. Half) Rina Shimizu (Noritz) - 1:09:22 (2nd, 2026 Osaka Half) Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:09:23 (3rd, 2026 Osaka Half) Men Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 1:00:22 (4th, 2026 Marugame Half) Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:26 (5th, 2026 Marugame Half) Neo Namiki (Subaru) - 1:00:29 (6th, 2026 Marugame Half) Daisuke Sato (Chuo Univ.) - 1:00:40 (7th, 2026 Marugame Half) Mile and 5 km teams, if any, will be decided after June's National Track and Field Championships. © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved

The last weekend of the academic and fiscal year saw at least 5 meets with good results domestically and abroad. Kicking things off Friday was the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne, where Tomohiro Shinno and Naoto Hasegawa took 1st and 3rd in the men's high jump, both of them only clearing 2.18 m along with 2nd-placer Roman Anastasios . 12 other Japanese athletes were in action on the second day of the meet on Saturday, where 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura ran 3:42.84 for 6th in the men's 1500 m. Nagiya Mori had a better one in the men's 3000 m with a 7:45.40 for 4th. Both Yota Mashiko and Rui Suzuki cleared 8:00 too, Mashiko's 7:53.84 the 2nd-fastest ever by a Japanese-born high schooler. Abigail Fuka Ido and Nagisa Takahashi both placed 3rd in their events, Ido going 23.85 (-0.9) in the women's 200 m and Takahashi clearing 1.82 m in the women's high jump. 8 Japanese men were at The TEN in California to run 10000 m. In the B-heat won by Edward Marks in ...

A big group of Japanese men ran the Berlin Half Marathon on Mar. 29. The top finisher among them, Hikaru Tsujihara (Koku Gakuin Univ.) ran 1:00:33 for 11th, the 8th-fastest time ever by a Japanese-born collegiate runner. The time improved his PB of 1:00:51 from last year's Marugame Half by 18 seconds. Tsujihara went on from that performance to set a CR on last October's Izumo Ekiden 4th leg, then was 9th on the 2nd leg at the National University Ekiden and 4th on the Hakone Ekiden 's 4th leg. Tsujihara's KGU teammate Yuta Asano was 12th in 1:01:12, a PB by 15 seconds over his time at this year's Marugame. Hikaru Ogawara (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was 20th in 1:01:30, another PB by 44 seconds ahead of his time in Marugame last year. Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Logisteed) was 32nd in 1:02:51, Kosei Atomura (Koku Gakuin Univ.) 39th in 1:03:16, Aito Sato (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) 42nd in 1:03:40, and Itsuki Takaishi (Koku Gakuin Univ.) 43rd in 1:04:03. Japanese-born Collegiate...

The East Asia Half Marathon Championships took place Mar. 29 in Yangzhou, China. Taiga Hirayama won the men's gold medal in 1:02:50 by a margin of 49 seconds over 2nd place. A native of Tochigi, Hirayama graduated from Utsunomiya H.S. and Tsukuba University before joining the Konica Minolta corporate team in 2024. He won the Jan. 25 Osaka Half Marathon in a PB of 1:00:50, then came back 2 weeks later to win the National Corporate Half Marathon in another PB of 1:00:44 on Feb. 8. Kokoro Nakachi (Sysmex) was 4th in the women's race in 1:12:46. First held in 2023, this was the second time the East Asia Half Marathon Championships have been held. Japanese athletes took the men's and women's silver medals at the previous edition, but Hirayama's win was Japan's first gold. source article: https://www.rikujyokyogi.co.jp/archives/203306 translated by Brett Larner

The lead group took a shot at sub-2:10 in the men's race at the Fukui Sakura Marathon , with a group of 7 going through halfway in 1:04:40 before things started to come apart. By 25 km it was down to 4, and at 30 km only Koki Sato and Hiromasa Ishikawa were left, hitting it in 1:32:09, 2:09:37 pace. Neither could hold that til the end, but Sato held on best as he broke the tape in 2:11:07, a PB by 6 seconds and a new Fukui CR. Ishikawa took 2nd in 2:12:24 in his debut, with amateur Yudai Fukuda 3rd in 2:13:16. Fuka Fukunaga had a solo run in her debut, hitting halfway in 1:16:55 with a 50-second lead over local Momoko Yao and turning that into a win by 2:10 in 2:37:00. Mai Arizuka moved into 3rd just before 30 km and stayed there til the end, running 2:43:33. Runners from NTT Nishi Nihon swept the men's 5 km top 5, all under the old CR with Haruki Minatoya winning in 13:43. Bears runners took the top 3 in the women's 5 km, Saki Matsui getting the win in 16:23. Fuk...

On Mar. 25 the JAAF announced Japan's marathon team lineups for this fall's Nagoya Asian Games. Yuya Yoshida (GMO) and Ichitaka Yamashita (Mitsubishi Juko) make up the men's team, with Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) and Mikuni Yada (Edion) representing Japan in the women's marathon. Each country can field up to 2 men and 2 women per marathon team at the Asian Games. The top-ranked male and female athletes in the 2025-26 MGC Series rankings were given first priority, with the second slots going to people with high-level performances in the 2025-26 MGC Series. Yoshida ran 2:05:16 to win the 2024 Fukuoka International Marathon, and at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon ran an excellent 2:06:59 to take the top Japanese spot in the race and in the MGC rankings. After having run the Tokyo World Championships marathon last fall this will be his second-straight marathon national team in a major international championships. Yamashita ran 2:06:18 at February's Osak...

Hayashi Morozumi , 59, has stepped down as head coach at Tokai University following its 12th-place finish at this year's 102nd Hakone Ekiden. Morozumi will serve in an executive advisory role to Noriaki Nishide , 51, who moves up from the Tokai coaching staff to take on head coach duties. Morozumi came to at his alma mater Tokai in 2011 after serving at head coach at Nagano's Saku Chosei H.S. , where the team won the 2008 National High School Ekiden anchored by future marathon NR holder Suguru Osako . In 2019 Morozumi led Tokai to its first-ever Hakone title, making him the only coach to win both the biggest high school and college titles in his career. When Morozumi became head coach at Saku Chosei in 1995 he personally drove a bulldozer to build a cross-country loop at the school, combining his innovative coaching theory with deep passion to build the Saku Chosei program from zero to national championships in just 13 years. Along with Osako, now 34, some of his key proteges ...

3 Japanese women and 7 men competed at this weekend's World Athletics Indoor Championships in Kujawy Pomorze, Poland, and out of those 5 made their finals. NR holder Nozomi Tanaka was in the 3000 m final, where she was 13th of 14 finishers in 9:07.77 in a race where it took 8:58.18 to get into the medals. Neither Mako Fukube nor Chisato Kiyoyama made the women's 60 mH final, 100 mH NR holder Fukube making the semifinals where she was 7th in SF3 in 8.06 but Kiyoyama eliminated in the first-round heats with an 8.15 for 7th in H5. Fukube was actually faster in the heats, tying her PB with an 8.02 in H6 to move on to the semis. On the men's side, Shusei Nomoto came in hot in the 60 mH, tying his PB of 7.57 to make the semis and then running a 7.49 NR for 3rd in SF3 to make the final on time. There he ran 7.49 again, 0.06 out of the medals in 6th. Teammate Ryota Fujii ran 7.81 for 6th in his opening round heat and didn't make the semifinals. Allon Tatsunami Clay was a...

The national corporate federation announced on Mar. 16 that beginning with the 71st edition of the New Year Ekiden men's national championship race on Jan. 1, 2027, teams will have a choice of stages that non-Japanese team members are eligible to run. The lengths of some stages will also be changed. Teams competing in the New Year Ekiden are restricted to fielding one non-Japanese athlete, and since 2009 foreign athletes have been restricted to running the event's shortest stage, the so-called "International Stage." Until 2023 that was the race's 2nd leg, but since 2024 it has been on its 7.6 km 4th stage. The federation had already announced the introduction of a seeded bracket like other major ekidens to improve the competition by creating deeper racing for place, not just for the lead, over the 2nd half of the race. Teams will now be able to choose whether to position their non-Japanese athletes on the 4th or 6th legs, increasing the opportunities for Japanese...

2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics 5000 m finalist Miyuki Uehara , 30, announced on her Instagram account on Mar. 18 that she had given birth to a baby boy, her first child. "At 3:56 a.m. on Mar. 17 I gave birth to a healthy, 50 cm, 3023 g baby boy," she wrote. "His name is Saku." On Oct. 6, 2024 Uehara had used Instagram to announce her engagement, then on Dec. 25 the same year that she had gotten married. She ran 2:39:55 to win the women's race at the Kagoshima Marathon in March, 2025, and retired from competition after that race. source article: https://www.sponichi.co.jp/entertainment/news/2026/03/18/articles/20260318s00041000417000c.html translated by Brett Larner

Japan is sending a team of 3 women and 7 men to this weekend's Kujaway Pomorze World Athletics Indoor Championships in Poland. A quick look at the lineup with best times in last 3 years: Women 3000 m Nozomi Tanaka (New Balance) - 8:33.52 (2025) 60 mH Mako Fukube (NKK) - 8.02 (2026) Chisato Kiyoyama (Ichigo) - 8.09 (2026) Men 60 m Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) - 6.53 (2024) Yoshiki Kinashi (Tsukuba Univ. Grad School) - 6.60 (2026) 800 m Allon Tatsunami Clay (Penn State Univ.) - 1:45.17 (2026) 60 mH Shusei Nomoto (Ehime T&F) - 7.59 (2026) Ryota Fujii (Tottori Sports Assoc.) - 7.71 (2024) High Jump Naoto Hasegawa (Niigata Albirex RC) - 2.30 m (2026) Tomohiro Shinno (Kraftia) - 2.30 m (2026) © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved

We've been in transit back from NYC, where Komazawa University  2nd-year Shunsuke Kuwata turned in t he fastest-ever half marathon by a Japanese man outside Japan , and are catching up on a busy weekend in Japan and elsewhere. Saturday saw 2 new records and 2 international medals. At the rebranded Fukuoka Ohori Road Running race, Ojiro Honda (Tottori Johoku H.S.) took 1 second off the NR in the men's road mile, coming up just short of a sub-4 in 4:00.2. Laura Nicholson (Ireland) won the women's mile in 4:44 by 3 seconds over Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu). Caroline Kariba (Japan Post) had a big win in the women's 5 km, outrunning the more accomplished Medina Eisa (Ethiopia) and Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) to win in 15:15 with Medina 2nd in 15:20 and Akidor 3rd in 15:33. Marathoner Mao Uesugi (Tokyo Metro) was the top Japanese finisher at 4th in 16:11. Kio Furuhashi (Surugadai Univ.) took the men's 5 km in 13:45 by 2 seconds over steepler Ryoma Aoki (Honda), 2n...

When the NYRR changed the United Airlines NYC Half course back in 2018 to more or less its current Boston-style hilly one-way version it seemed like it had been repurposed from a fast course to something more tactical. That went out the window last year with new course records of 59:09 and 1:07:04 from Abel Kipchumba and Sharon Lokedi , and this year's results backed that up. Hellen Obiri ground Lokedi down and took over 30 seconds off her CR, winning in 1:06:33 with Lokedi only 6 seconds off what she ran in 2025 but a distant 2nd in 1:07:10. British road 10 km NR holder Megan Keith rolled up hard late in the race to finish 3rd in 1:07:13 less than 10 seconds off old CR too. The men's race saw a big group of 18 attack the hilly first half on sub-59 pace, American Joe Klecker leading through 5 km in 13:57 and Houston Marathon winner Zouhair Talbi through 10 km in 27:56. Right up in it was Shunsuke Kuwata , a 20-year-old 2nd-year at 2025 National University Ekiden champ Koma...

When the National University Half Marathon was canceled in 2011 after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan 2 days before the race, JRN talked to the New York Road Runners about bringing 2 collegiate runners to the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon the next weekend as a show of support. It wasn't possible to pull it together in the immediate aftermath of the disasters, but a year later we brought 2 young 2nd-years from Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Toyo University , Kento Otsu and Yuta Shitara , who had been the top 2 Japanese collegiate finishers at the Ageo City Half Marathon in November before Hakone. Shitara ran 1:01:48, at the time the fastest-ever by a Japanese man on U.S. soil, with Otsu running a solid 1:03:15. Thanks to that great start the Ageo-NYC partnership became a regular thing, and except for the pandemic it's continued every year since, expanding this year to June's New York Mini 10 km when 2 runners from Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden runne...

Last weekend's Nagoya Women's Marathon and the Tokyo Marathon the weekend before brought the main part of the first year of qualification for the Marathon Grand Championship Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials to be held in Nagoya in October, 2027, to an end. There are still a few races like the Nagano Marathon and overseas World Athletics platinum label races this season where people might qualify, but for the most part we're not likely to see many new additions until August's Hokkaido Marathon, where the qualifying period opened last year. As of right now 16 women and 26 men have qualified, although the first woman to make the cut, Ai Hosoda , announced that she was retiring after Tokyo earlier this month. Out of the 16 women to have qualified so far, Mikuni Yada is the fastest with her 2:19:57 debut at Osaka Women's in January. Including Hosoda that makes 2 qualifiers for the Edion corporate team, but Daihatsu has the biggest share of the field so ...

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...

The Nagasaki Music Fes Marathon is taking a turn for the international. Its producers, the Tokyo Marathon Foundation, have signed a partnership agreement with a Saudi Arabian organization for the promotion and development of running sports. Tokyo Marathon Foundation chair Tadaaki Hayano , said that the contract with the Saudi sports promotion agency will "enhance the city's brand value and have positive impacts on areas including the tourism, accommodations and transportation sectors." Hayano said that the Saudi agency, which produces the Riyadh Marathon, will help with the production of the Nagasaki Music Fes Marathon in Isahaya and Unzen, Nagasaki next January. "The Nagasaki Music Fes Marathon is based on the concepts of "peace" and "irreplaceable things," and is more than just a marathon or sporting event," said Hayano. "We hope to spread this awareness and the concept of "sports for all" beyond our own borders and into Sau...

Conditions weren't fantastic at the Tokyo Marathon , a bit too warm and sunny, a bit too windy, a lot too much cedar pollen in the air, but it was still a record-breaking day. Except for a race-morning DNS from men's NR holder Tomoki Suzuki there weren't any surprises in the wheelchair races, where world record holders Catherine Debrunner and Marcel Hug of Switzerland scored solo wins, Debrunner outgunning training partner and all-time #2 Eden Rainbow-Cooper by 4 minutes and Hug winning by 7 minutes in 1:21:09. The women's marathon was a slow burner, starting behind target pace on track for 2:17:00 at 5 km but ramping up all the way to the finish. CR holder and 2-time defending champ Sutume Asefa Kebede and 2022 champion / former WR holder Brigid Kosgei stayed side-by-side the entire way, shadowed by a pack of Ethiopians that dwindled down to just Bertukan Welde . The projected finish got closer and closer to Sutume's 2:15:55 CR, then past it and into 2:14 te...