japan running news

The Nagano Higashi H.S. girls pulled off a perfect repetition of their start-to-finish win at last year's National High School Ekiden , taking the lead on the first leg again this time and never letting go. Opening runner Nami Kawakami won the 6.0 km First Stage by 2 seconds in 19:06, 2nd runner Haruna Tabata extended it to 12 seconds, and 3rd runner Airi Mashiba added another 30 seconds to the lead with a massive 9:06 CR for the 3.0 km leg, beating every Kenyan on the stage and everyone who had run it before. Nagano Higashi's last 2 runners Yui Honda and Rena Imai both lost some ground, but with both of them still running the 3rd-fastest times on their stages there wasn't really any risk of anyone catching them. Imai brought Nagano Higashi home in 1:06:30 for the 21.0975 km course, just missing the overall CR by 4 seconds but still a dominant performance from an all-Japanese lineup. 3rd last year, Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. got off to a slow start but spend the ...

Following the track 5000 m held last weekend to pick the lineup for the U20 teams at January's Tallahassee World Cross Country Championships, the JAAF has announced its complete team lineup . The senior men's team features sub-28 runners Ryuto Igawa and Daiki Ozawa , with 31-minute women Momoka Kawaguchi and Wakana Itsuki lead the senior women's squad. The U20 men's team features 6 sub-14 high schoolers led by Haruki Niizuma with a 13:35.33 best, while at 15:27.28 Mei Hosomi leads a U20 women's team made up of a mix of high school runners, collegiate athletes and corporate leaguers. The complete team lineup with track 5000 m / 10000 m bests: Senior Men's 10 km Ryuto Igawa (Asahi Kasei) - 27:39.05 Daiki Ozawa (Fujitsu) - 27:55.74 Hiroto Yoshioka (Juntendo Univ.) - 28:08.02 Yuma Shimoo (NTN) - 28:27.52 Senior Women's 10 km Momoka Kawaguchi (Uniqlo) - 31:57.81 Wakana Itsuki (Kraftia) - 31:58.59 Sora Shinozakura (Yokohama T&F Assoc.) - 32:24.50 Mitsu ...

Japan's National Cross Country Championships happened Saturday in Fukuoka, maybe the earliest selection race in the world for next January's World XC Championships in Florida. The senior men's 10 km lived up to the hype with a 4-way race between 3000 m SC NR holder Ryuji Miura , 10000 m NR holder Kazuya Shiojiri , sub-28 man Ryuto Igawa and Hakone Ekiden downhill specialist Aoi Ito . It came down to a sprint finish between Miura and Igawa, with Miura getting the win 28:24 to 28:25 and Shiojiri a few steps back in 28:29. Considering that the National Corporate Road 10 km Championships two weeks ago were won with a time over 29 minutes, times were fast overall with the top 6 under 29 minutes. The senior women's 8 km was a pack race most of the way, with one of the favorites Momoka Kawaguchi pulling away for the win in 26:25. 6th-place Wakana Itsuki was only 10 seconds behind 2nd-placer Sora Shinozakura , who clocked 26:31, showing what a close race it was. Anna Suzuki...

Sunday's National Women's Ekiden brings together the country's top distance runners from junior high school to the pros, all running for their home prefectures. NHK will broadcast the race live , commercial-free and nationwide starting at 12:30. local time. A quick guide to the top teams and athletes on each stage. Hosts Kyoto hold the record for most wins with 18 national titles, and they're expected to face tough competition from Osaka , Nagano , Kanagawa and Chiba . 2nd the last two years, this time around Kyoto's lineup features two members of Ritsumeikan University , the winner at this season's Morinomiyako Ekiden and Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden. Yumi Yamamoto ran in last year's U20 World Championships and set a new CR on her leg at the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden, and she, teammate Tomo Muramatsu , and Kaede Kawamura , winner of December's Sanyo Ladies Road Race 10 km, give Kyoto's chances a big boost. 2023 winner Osaka has World Championsh...

2022 National High School Ekiden girls' champion Nagano Higashi H.S. was back in force after a 5th-place finish last year, leading start to finish to win this year's national title Sunday in Kyoto. Lead runner Airi Mashiba kicked it off with a 19:30 stage win on the 6.0 km opening leg, something that head coach Fumio Yokouchi said later that he hadn't been expecting. That ended up being Nagano Higashi's only individual stage win in the 5-leg, 21.0975 km race, but the rest of its team ran well enough to hold a lead that was never less than 11 seconds but never more than 21. Last year's 4th-placer Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. spent most of the race in 2nd, but over the second half of the race Sendai Ikuei H.S. , 2nd last year by just 1 second, came from further back to run Kunei down on the anchor stage thanks in big part to a critical stage win on the 4th leg by Tsubomi Tezuka that put anchor Aoi Hosokawa in position to catch Kunei's Mizuki Oda . Nagano Higashi ...