Skip to main content

Weekend Track and Road Update


Kanto Regionals were the big domestic meet this weekend, but there were other important results here and overseas. At the Xiamen Diamond League meet:
  • 110 mH NR holder Rachid Muratake (JAL) was 2nd in 13.13 (+0.5) behind winner Jamal Britt (U.S.A.) in 13.07.
  • The only other Japanese athlete in Xiamen, women's javelin throw NR holder Haruka Kitaguchi (JAL) was 7th at 60.08, down from her performance last week at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix Meet in Tokyo and eclipsed by the brilliant all-time #2 71.74 m throw by China's Ziyi Yan.
4 Japanese athletes ran at the Sound Running L.A,.Track Fest meet, 3 of them graduates of Kyoto's Rakunan H.S. like Kanto Regionals D1 men's 5000 m winner Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.).
  • The only non-Rakunan guy there, Hibiki Obara (GMO) ran only 8:33.21 for 9th in the men's 3000 mSC A-heat. Daichi Shibata (Chuo Univ.) was last in the same heat in 8:49.91.
  • Itta Tameike (SG Holdings) had a great run in the men's 5000 m B-heat, breaking 13:20 for the first time with a 13:19.24 PB for 3rd.
  • Relegated to the C-heat in the men's 1500 m, U20 NR holder Keita Sato (Nike Swoosh TC) continued his improvement since moving to Flagstaff last month, going under 3:40 for the first time since 2021 with a 3:39.59 for 5th after being pushed to longer distances in university. Sato led the move to pass the debuting Cooper Lutkenhaus mid-race, something that cost him in the last 300 m but ensured that the C-heat stayed a sub-3:40 race. Next up Sato races the 1500 m at next month's National Championships.
Two corporate league regions held their spring track and field championship meets. In the Kansai Region:
  • 3 sprint veterans, Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko), Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) and Naoki Inoue (Osaka Gas) broke the 2007-era meet record held by the great Nobuharu Asahara, Koike getting the win in 10.06 (+1.4), Tada 2nd in 10.10 and Inoue next in 10.15. Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) won a separate non-scoring race in 10.02 (+2.6).
  • Aiko Iki (Osaka Gas) won the women's 200 m with a 23.41 (+1.6) MR. Women's 100 m MR holder Midori Mikasa (Sumitomo Denko) set a new MR of 11.39 (+0.7), with Iki coming back to tie Mikasa's old record of 11.53.
  • Yugo Shikata (4 Directions) set a 1:48.48 MR in the men's 800 m, over 1 second off his own MR from last year.
  • Lucy Nduta (Ehime Ginko) took almost 10 seconds off Kayako Fukushi's 2002 MR in the women's 5000 m, winning in 15:15.60. Marathoner Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) was 2nd in 15:42.54 after having won the 10000 m a day earlier in 32:25.48.
  • Satsuki Umehara (Sumitomo Denko) beat her own 400 mH MR by over half a second in 57.46.
  • Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu) took down another old MR by half a second, winning the women's 3000 mSC in 9:59.61.
  • The Iwatani Sangyo women set a new 4x400 m MR of 3:51.87.
  • A 1996-era MR fell in the women's triple jump, Akari Funada (Niconiconori) winning with a 13.44 m (+2.2) on her 4th attempt, her best legal attempt of 13.11 m (+1.8) clearing the old MR of 13.06.
  • Takuto Sano (Biwa Seikei AC) threw 16.97 m on his first attempt in the men's shot put, beating the old MR by 14 cm.
  • A new transplant to the Kansai Region this season, Nanaka Kori (Niconiconori) better the women's discus throw MR from 1992 with a 58.17 m 2nd attempt, and doubled with a shot put win in 14.96 m.
  • Tatsuto Nakagawa (Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) and Shota Fukuda (Sumitomo Denko) both crushed the men's hammer throw MR of 67.10 m from 1989, Nakagawa dropping a 72.38 m 5th attempt and Fukuda coming close to that with a 72.01 m final attempt but taking 2nd.
  • Tomoki Matsuoka (Universal Field) set a 46.90 MR in the men's 400 m.
  • Women's 400 m winner Shizuha Moriyama (Ichigo) also set a MR of 53.17 on top of winning the 200 m in 23.83 (+2.6).
  • Emmanuel Kiplagat (Mitsubishi Juko) pulled off a solid double, winning the 1500 m in 3:41.92 and setting a 13:28.98 MR in the 5000 m.
  • Festus Kimorwo (Kurosaki Harima) outkicked teammate Kiprono Sitonik to go 1-2 in the men's 10000 m in 27:38.32 and 27:39.22, with Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) cracking 28 minutes in 27:59.10 for 3rd.
  • Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera) turned in the performance of the meet in the women's 10000 m, lapping the entire to field to win by almost a minute and a half in a 30:34.33 MR.
  • Rintaro Ozono (Togami Denki) broke the men's 3000 mSC in 8:46.41.
  • Yuka Komatsu (Kraftia) also took the women's 3000 mSC in 10:25.29.
  • The Athlete Link men set a 39.83 MR in the 4x100 m, with 2nd-placers Global Arena also under the old MR in 40.18.
  • Taisei Aibara (Miyazaki Sports Assoc.) threw a 74.74 m MR to win the men's javelin throw by 8 cm over 2nd-placer Tatsuki Minami (Fustar), who also cleared the old MR.
The Setagaya Time Trials meet in Tokyo was relatively low-key this time around, with the performance of the day being a 13:37.62 win in the men's 5000 m A-heat by Shunpei Tomita (Logisteed).

Tomita's teammate Kiyoto Hirabayashi was the top Japanese finisher at the high-altitude Bolder Boulder road 10 km in the U.S., taking 9th overall in 30:14. Japan's all-time top 2 marathoners Suguru Osako (Li Ning) and Kengo Suzuki (Kemmy) were also in the race, Osako 14th in 30:38 and Suzuki 17th in 31:08. Elsewhere on the roads, Yudai Fukuda (Ishikawa T&F Assoc.) ran the Ottawa Marathon, finishing 13th in 2:14:34.

© 2026 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

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...
8 comments
Read more

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...
1 comment
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more