japan running news

Silver two years ago , Japanese NR holder Jumpei Yamaguchi took gold at the IAU 100 km World Championships Saturday in Bengaluru, India. Defending gold medalist Haruki Okayama was bronze this time, with Toru Somiya just over 2 minutes behind Okayama in 4th. Japanese women were shut out of the medals, 24-hour world record holder Miho Nakata placing highest at 4th. Complete report and results here: https://www.irunfar.com/2024-iau-100k-world-championships-results photo © 2024 Tarzan Aqzawa, all rights reserved

The 100 km ultramarathon World Championships took place in Germany on Aug. 27. Japanese national team member Haruki Okayama (27, Comodi Iida) went in with the fastest time in the world this year, the favorite for the gold medal. And he ran like it, winning in 6:12:10, less than 3 minutes from the world record. Okayama is a non-elite, someone who dreamed of running the Hakone Ekiden but couldn't make his university's team, someone who ran with a corporate team as an ordinary employee. Where did this miracle breakthrough come from? Sportswriter Masato Sakai talked to him before Berlin about his "never give up no matter what" attitude and training. In the world of sports, where ability is everything, there's a man who came all the way from the bottom to stand atop Japan. His name is Haruki Okayama. In 10 years he's gone from being turned away by one of the old school Hakone Ekiden universities teams to representing Japan on its national team. Aug. 27 was the d...

Relative newcomers Haruki Okayama and Jumpei Yamaguchi ran big PBs to take the top two spots in the men's race at the IAU 100 km World Championships Saturday in Berlin. 2018 world champ Hideaki Yamauchi was a last-minute scratch after testing positive for COVID-19, leaving Okayama, Yamaguchi and world record holder Nao Kazami to take things out hard in a quintet with Brazilian Felipe Silva and French athlete Guillaume Ruel . Ruel soon broke away to open a lead of around 2 minutes by halfway. Behind him, a South African trio caught up to the Japanese group, prompting Yamaguchi to take off in pursuit of the lead. On every 7.5 km lap he closed around 30 seconds on Ruel, finally coming within 20 seconds at around 70 km. But just as he was about to take the lead, Yamaguchi ran into trouble, at exactly the time that Okayama drove by hard to move into 1st instead of him. Running the 100 km distance for only the second time, by 77.5 km he had almost a minute lead over Ruel and never ...

The IAU 100 km World Championships are this Saturday in Berlin, Germany, and Japan has sent strong teams with every woman under 7:40 and 2 of the 3 men under 6:20 for the 100 km distance. 2018 gold medalist Hideaki Yamauchi (Hamamatsu Hotniks RC) is out after testing positive for coronavirus, but world record holder Nao Kazami (Aisan Kogyo) remains to lead the men. The fastest non-Japanese athlete on the entry list is American Rajpaul Pannu at 6:28:31. Considering that 3rd Japanese man Junpei Yamaguchi (Eldoreso) has run 6:22:35 it looks like the potential for a Japanese men's podium sweep is there, but things are never that easy. 2018 bronze medalist Mai Fujisawa (Sapporo Excel AC) and 7:27:46 runner Miho Nakata (Chiba T&F Assoc.) lead the women. Only three other women in the field, European record holder Dominika Stelmach (Poland), Radka Churanova (Czech Republic) and Camille Chaigneau (France), have broken 7:30, giving Nakata a good shot at an individual medal if ...

Higashiura resident and Aisan Kogyo employee Nao Kazami , 35, will represent Japan at the September 8 IAU 100 km World Championships ultramarathon in Croatia. An amateur runner with a regular full-time job, Kazami set the 100 km world record in June. "I'm ready for the next challenge," he says. "I'm not satisfied with just the time. I want to win the title too." The term ultramarathon refers to any race longer than the standard 42.195 km distance. On June 24 at the 33rd Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon Kazami beat the world record for the distance which had stood unbroken for 20 years by 4 minutes and 19 seconds. That performance was enough to earn him a place at the World Championships. It was only his second time to finish a 100 km race. Born in Tokyo, Kazami began to run long distance while in junior high school. He went to ekiden powerhouse Komazawa University but never made its starting team for any of the major competitions. After graduating in...

by Brett Larner @JRNHeadlines pic.twitter.com/uqE9UrqAYw — John O'Regan (@johnoregan777) November 29, 2016 Hideaki Yamauchi become the fourth Japanese man in the last ten years to win the IAU 100 km World Championships , coming from three minutes behind to outrun South Africa's Bongmusa Mthembu , Italian three-time world champion Giorgio Calcaterra and others to win Sunday's race in Los Alcazares, Spain by nearly six minutes.  Yamauchi's winning time of 6:18:22 was the fifth-fastest ever for the 100 km distance , making him the all-time #4 man worldwide just behind world record holder Takahiro Sunada .  Yamauchi's teammates Kaitaro Toike and Yoshiki Takada took 8th and 23rd, giving Japan the team silver medal by a slim margin behind South Africa.  The U.S.A. team took bronze on the strength of two top five finishes. No Japanese women scored individual medals, but with a 5-6-7 finish separated by only 17 seconds the trio of Mikiko Ota , Aiko Kanematsu ...

by Brett Larner complete results coming shortly Sunny skies and warm temperatures greeted the 29th running of the world's fastest ultra, Hokkaido's Lake Saroma 50 km and 100 km Ultramarathon .  Predicted temperatures over 25C meant probable slow times on the course that hosts both the men's and women's 100 km world records, but that did not stop defending men's 100 km winner Hideo Nojo (New Balance) from going for it.  An opening split of 36:03 for the first 10 km put him right on the cusp being on track to break 6 hours, but while that was clearly not going to be sustainable Nojo pushed on ahead of Takahiro Sunada 's 6:13:33 world record pace until nearly halfway before the heat got the better of him.  Slowing to close to 45 minutes per 10 km by 70 km, Nojo rallied late in the race and went back under 40 minutes for the final 10 km to take the win in 6:40:15, three minutes slower than his winning time last year but a world lead by seven and a half minutes....