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Ochiai, Kawamura, Usuki and Mishima Set NR - Golden Week Track Roundup


There was a lot of action on the track over Japan's Golden Week holidays. Highlights:

  • Men's 800 m NR holder Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) broke his own record with a 1:43.90 win.
  • Daigo Usuki (18 Ginko) and Gakuto Mishima (Nippatsu) both broke the NR in the T20 men's 400 m, Usuki getting the win in 49.08 and Mishima 2nd in 49.15.
  • Lauren Bruce (New Zealand) threw a meet record 67.44 m on her final attempt in the women's hammer throw, but even her shortest throw of 64.31 m was over 3 m better than the rest of the field.
  • Kazuki Kurokawa (Sumitomo Denko) got the men's 400 mH meet record with a 48.50 for the win.
  • Women's 3000 mSC NR holder Miu Saito (Panasonic) won the steeple in 9:31.83, the 2nd-best time in her career so far, despite falling. 2nd through 4th all broke 10 minutes.


The top 8 teams at November's National University Men's Ekiden qualify for the next year's edition, with the rest having to run a regional qualifier to get there again. In the Kanto Region, where the top teams inevitably fill the seeded bracket at Nationals, the regional qualifier is a set of 4 track 10000 m races with 2 runners per school in each race. Teams are scored on the total time of their 8 runners, the 7 fastest teams going on to the main ekiden.

9th at Nationals last year, top seed Josai University was eliminated when 4th-year Masato Nakashima was a DNF in Race 3. 10th, 12th and 13th at Nationals, Nihon University, Tokyo University and Daito Bunka University went 1-2-3, with 15th-place Chuo Gakuin University qualifying again in 6th. Kanagawa University and Toyo University both broke into the qualifying bracket after getting shut out last year, Kanagawa 4th and Toyo 5th. Benefitting from Josai getting knocked out, Yamanashi Gakuin University made it in 7th, barely. Its total time of 3:59:55.29 beat 8th-place and top non-qualifier Senshu University's 3:59:55.94 by just 0.65 seconds, 0.08 per runner across the 4 races. Painful.

Richard Etir (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) and Raphael Longisa (Takushoku Univ.) were the fastest individual athletes, Etir winning Race 4 in 27:37.50 and Longisa 2nd in 27:40.05, but neither of their teams qualified. 5th in the same race in a PB 28:05.07, Josai's Yu Shibata had the fastest Japanese time of the day.


Golden Games in Nobeoka - Nobeoka, 4 May
  • Brian Fay (Ireland) won the fastest men's 5000 m heat in Nobeoka, leading the top 8 under 13:20 in 13:13.30. Nagiya Mori (Honda) was the fastest Japanese man of the night in 13:14.18 for 2nd, with Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) 5th in 13:18.16 and Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.) 8th in 13:19.44. After a good build so far this year, Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) was last in 13:57.20.
  • Sapporo Yamanote H.S. 2nd-year Bilith Boi impressed with a 13:18.26 win in the fastest time in the C-heat, running down corporate leaguer Victor Mutai (Chudenko) in the home straight to get the win.
  • Marathoner Yohei Ikeda (Kao) and former 10000 m NR holder Akira Aizawa (Asahi Kasei) both had good comeback races, Ikeda winning the D-heat in 13:29.82 and Aizawa the A-heat in a 13:24.97 PB. American Ethan Shuley ran a PB 13:50.28 for 3rd in the F-heat despite waking up with a cold the day before the race.
  • Caroline Kariba (Japan Post) had another strong win in the women's 5000 m A-heat, beating Daisy Jerop (Josai Kokusai Univ.) by almost 9 seconds in 14:58.11. Rina Kusu (Sekisui Kagaku) was the fastest Japanese woman a 15:33.15 for 5th.
  • Kaho Honda (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) ran a solid 15:44.08 PB to win the women's 5000 m B-heat over corporate league Kenyan Fancy Chepkorir (Kraftia), 2nd in 15:52.28.

Tokyo Speed Race - Tokyo, 6 May

Not a track race per se but held on the large track-shaped Jingu Gaien road loop next to the National Stadium and decked out with Wavelight pacing, the Tokyo Speed Race was a toned-down version of last year's edition with mostly Japanese athletes and a few from elsewhere in Asia. Mixed-race 5 km NR holder Kaede Kawamura (Iwatani Sangyo) won the women's 5 km in 15:39, 7 seconds better than her own record but still 18 seconds off the women-only NR. Waseda University's Shinsaku Kudo came up just short of the 13:30 set by Waseda alum Tomoki Ota (Toyota) last year, winning the men's 5 km in 13:31.


Mito Invitational - Mito, 5 May
  • Maki Saito (Taihei Dengyo) threw a 54.14 m MR to win the women's discus throw.
  • Yuzuki Ishioka (Nittai Univ. AC) tied the women's high jump MR at 1.76 m on her 2nd attempt.
  • Women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota (Art Home) had a low-key win in Mito, clearing 4.20 m on her 1st attempt while runner-up Kanae Tatsuta (Nippatsu) took 2 tries to get there.
© 2026 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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