Tameike Breaks Road 5 km NR, Urano PBs in Berlin

The Asian Games were the main event happening over the last week, but there was other news happening on the roads and track in Japan and overseas. Like the road mile and road 10 km, the road 5 km is still a distance where the NR are pretty soft. The men's NR got a bit of a boost at Sunday's Adizero 5k Tokyo Challenge, where Itta Tameike and Riki Koike both went under the 13:30 NR set in May last year, Tameike getting the new NR in 13:25 and Koike right behind in 13:26. Shadrack Kipkemei took the overall win in 13:15, with Tameike 6th behind 4 other Japan-based Kenyans. The Adidas-sponsored event didn't have an elite women's field, with Natsumi Ishizaki winning the women's race in 18:05.

The same day at Waseda University's campus in the western Tokyo suburbs, Raphael Dapash and Naoki Yoshikura raced to the line in the Road of Waseda 5 km, both clocking 13:38 with Dapash officially taking the top spot. Hakone Ekiden Fifth Stage specialist Shinsaku Kudo ran it as a workout, winning the B-race in 13:51 and then doubling in the D-race with another win in 13:44. Waseda didn't put on an elite women's race either.

Overseas, there was a massive contingent of Japanese athletes at the Berlin Marathon. The men were split between the 2nd and 3rd groups targeting 2:57/km and 3:00/km. The 2nd group never really hit that pace, Yuhei Urano hanging on the best with a long surge from 30 km to take 9th overall in a 2:06:09 PB, his third time under 2:07 in his last 4 marathons.

Kenya Sonota and Shunsuke Shikama were 11th and 12th in 2:07:36 and 2:07:44, with Daisuke Uekado coming up from the 3rd group to finish right behind them in 2:07:53 for 13th. Shoma Hosoya and Hidekazu Hijikata were the only other Japanese men under 2:10, Hosoya 18th in 2:08:36 and Hijikata 19th in 2:08:56 in a quick turnaround from his 2:07:20 runner-up finish at the Gold Coast Marathon in July. 5 other Japanese men finished sub-2:20.

The Japanese women in Berlin struggled, top-ranked Rika Kaseda a DNF and Mao Uesugi the top placer at 15th in 2:27:26. Rino Goshima and Ayumi Morita both got under 2:30 in 2:28:57 and 2:29:33 for 20th and 21st, with Natsuki Omori 26th in 2:31:21.

On the track, Niigata's Yogibo Athletics Challenge Cup was low-key this year, a step down from its usual Continental Tour bronze ranking and scaled-back given its date opposite the Asian Games. Festus Kimorwa took the men's 5000 m in 13:20.64 over Kiprono Sitonik, with former 10000 m NR holder Kazuya Shiojiri the top Japanese man at 3rd in 13:27.19. Tamaki Fujimoto won the men's 10000 m in 28:22.38 over India's Harmanjot Singh, who ran a nearly 1-min PB of 28:30.86 for 2nd. Tabitha Njeri Kamau won the women's 5000 m in 15:20.64, Momoka Kawaguchi running 32:27.41 for 1st in the 10000 m.

At Yokohama's Nittai University Time Trials meet the big news Saturday was a 3:36.49 PB for the win in the men's 1500 m by U20 NR holder Keita Satoh in his last race of the season. Having started the year setting a CR on the Hakone Ekiden's anchor stage on only a week of training after an injury in December, Satoh ran his first 1500 m in 4 years in April with a 3:43.19 in Kumamoto, then moved to Flagstaff to train with Mike Smith and his group. In only 5 months Satoh improved by nearly 7 seconds, now sitting all-time Japanese #3 and just 1.07 off the Japanese NR.

Sho Tanabe had a good one in the 800 m at Nittai too, winning with a 1:45.22 PB to come in at all-time Japanese #5 and collegiate #2. Airi Tajima had a solid double, winning the women's 1500 m in 4:10.85 and the 3000 m 4 hours later in 9:08.03. Agnes Mwikali won the women's 5000 m in 15:07.75, Shota Morishita likewise bettering the level in Niigata with a 28:19.57 win in the men's 10000 m. With Sunday dedicated to the men's 5000 m, the fastest heat went to Nehemiah Kipngeno in 13:27.28, Victor Kiptum just back in 13:27.84 for 2nd.

Across town at the Kizuna Record Challenge, collegiate marathon record holder Asahi Kuroda was back in action after an injury kept him out of the Berlin Marathon, winning the fast heat in 13:33.98 in a field made up almost entirely of 2026 Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University students and alumni.

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...

Akasaki PBs in Chicago, Takeuchi 2nd in Perth

Four elite-level Japanese athletes were at the Chicago Marathon Sunday. In the women's race, Yuka Akasaki (Kraftia), 6th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, ran the second-fastest time of her career, 2:23:18 for 11th. Her husband Akira Akasaki (Kraftia), also 6th in Paris and runner-up in Berlin last year, better his PB by 28 seconds with a 2:05:47 for 9th, the fastest time this year by a Japanese man and his second-straight World Marathon Majors top 10 finish. NR holder Suguru Osako (Li Ning) was about 3 minutes off his goal of a new Asian record with a 2:07:34 for 14th, with half marathon NR holder Tomoki Ota (Toyota) struggling a bit to find his feet in his marathon debut, running 2:11:52 for 26th off a 1:02:57 first half. At the Perth Running Festival marathon in Australia, 2025 Warsaw Marathon winner Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) had a great head-to-head race against Kenyan Dominic Ngeno , together through 10 km, then dropping as far as 1:42 behind at one point before...

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."...

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