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Showing posts with the label Akane Yabushita

Nobeoka, Kawauchi's 2017 Marathon Debut, National Corporate Half and More - Weekend Preview

by Brett Larner

This time of year there are multiple high-level races in Japan every weekend, this one being no exception.  Sunday's Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon is one of the main developmental races for Japanese men, the place where future Olympic marathoners including Hisanori Kitajima, Kentaro Nakamoto, Shinji Kawajima and Shigeru Soh made their marathon debuts. Last year's winner Ryoichi Matsuo (Team Asahi Kasei) returns to face debuting 1:01:25 half marathoner Shota Hattori (Team Honda) and teammates Kenta Matsumoto and Kenta Matsubara (Team Toyota), training partners of Minato Oishi whose successful debut at last Sunday's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon saw him land 4th in 2:10:39.

In parallel to Nobeoka, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) will run his first marathon of 2017 at the Ehime Marathon.  Kawauchi's goal is to run 2:13, three minutes under the current Ehime course record.  His main competition is Waseda University fourth-year Yohei Suzuki, a 1:02:1…
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Ritsumeikan Closes Year With Win at New Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden

by Brett Larner

Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University closed out Japan's last elite race of 2013 with a national title at the new Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden, a relaunch of the short-lived National University Women's Invitational Ekiden Championships previously held in Tsukuba, Ibaraki.  First-year Nanako Kanno got Ritsumeikan off to a good start on the 6.6 km First Stage and from there Ritsumeikan led the entire race, five of its seven women winning their stages.  Senior Akane Yabushita brought the team home on the challenging Seventh Stage, 7.7 km with 166 m elevation gain, the team covering the 43.4 km course in 2:21:48.

Ritsumeikan's nearest competitor, Kagoshima's Kanoya Taiiku University, was over two minutes behind, 2nd in 2:23:58.  Top-ranked Kanto Region school Daito Bunka University took 3rd in 2:24:44.  On the individual level only Minami Nakaarai (Osaka Gakugei Univ.) and Sairi Maeda (Bukkyo Univ.) were able to make dent in Ritsumeikan's armor, winning …
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Ritsumeikan University Takes Eighth National University Women's Ekiden Title

by Brett Larner

Defending national champion Ritsumeikan University added an eighth title to its legacy Oct. 27 in Sendai, winning the 31st National University Women's Ekiden Championships after leading start to finish.  First Stage runner Natsuki Omori got things off by winning the 6.4 km opening leg by a second over Ayumi Uehara of Matsuyama University despite a fall midway through the stage, and from there the Ritsumeikan women never looked back.  Ritsumeikan runners won five of the day's six stages, only Juntendo University's Nanaka Izawa spoiling their day with a win on the 9.2 km Fifth Stage.

With the Kansai region typically seen as the center of collegiate women's distance running, four of this year's top ten schools were from the Kanto region, better known for the strength of its men's programs.  Daito Bunka University was the top Kanto school, 2nd overall on the strength of quality runs from its identical twins Eri and Mari Tayama. Coached by Keiichi …
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Ritsumeikan University Wins Record-Setting Seventh National Title

http://mainichi.jp/sports/news/20121029k0000m050036000c.html

translated by Brett Larner

 With 28 teams on the starting line for the six-stage, 38.6 km National University Women's Ekiden Championships on Oct. 28 in Sendai, defending national champion Ritsumeikan University celebrated the championships' 30th anniversary by running 2:06:05 to take a record-setting seventh national title.  Rival Bukkyo University was relegated to the runner-up position for the second-straight year, 1:05 behind Ritsumeikan, while Tsubuka University was 3rd in its first Nationals appearance in nine years, making the seeded top six for the first time in ten years.

Ritsumeikan sat in 4th at the end of the First Stage, 13 seconds behind the lead before junior Akane Yabushita took over with a stage-best run to put Ritsumeikan into the lead.  The team sustained the lead through the Third Stage and was unchallenged all the way to the finish.  After starting the Second Stage in the lead. Bukkyo senior Shiho …
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Bukkyo Over Ritsumeikan at Kansai University Women's Ekiden

by Brett Larner

The women's ekiden season kicked off with a matchup between the two top university teams in the country, Kyoto's dynamic pair Bukkyo University and Ritsumeikan University.  Ritsumeikan, missing aces Michi Numata and Hanae Tanaka, dominated the first half by winning the first three stages, including new records on the First and Third Stages by members Mutsumi Ikeda and Risa Takenaka.  Down 50 seconds at the start of the Fourth Stage, 2010 national champion Bukkyo's fortunes turned around thanks to a stage record run by ace Hikari Yoshimoto, and thanks to stage win by anchor Shiho Takechi and the absence of Ritsumeikan's Numata and Tanaka Bukkyo pulled away to a comfortable win nearly a minute and a half up on their rivals.

Bukkyo and Ritsumeikan are both so far ahead of any other school that their B-teams beat the next-strongest school, Kyoto Sangyo University.  Ritsumeikan's B-squad Fifth Stage runner Ikumi Natsuhara actually won her stage by nearl…
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Osako, Murayama Win National University 1500 m and 5000 m

by Brett Larner



At the 2011 Japanese National University Track & Field Championships in Kumamoto, Waseda University sophomore Suguru Osako added further evidence to back up the argument that he is Japan's best all-around university distance runner.  Consider everything he has done in the last 10 months:
An Asian junior area record 1:01:47 in his half marathon debut to win last November's Ageo City Half Marathon with the largest-ever margin of victory at the world's deepest half marathonA solo 1:02:23 win with another commanding margin of victory on the 21.4 km First Stage at January's Hakone Ekiden, equivalent to a 1:01:31 half marathonA 13:31.27 PB for 5000 m in May, the fastest in several years by a Japanese university runnerA 10000 m gold medal at last month's World University GamesAt the National University Championships he ran a PB 3:45.06 to win the 1500 m national title over teammate and 1500 m specialist Tatsuro Okazaki (Waseda Univ.), giving Osako domin…
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Nishihara and Yoshimoto Lead Bukkyo to National University Women's Ekiden Title

by Brett Larner

Led by stage record performances by its pair of aces, 2010 national university 5000 m Kasumi Nishihara and national 10000 m collegiate record holder Hikari Yoshimoto, Bukkyo University won the 2010 National University Women's Ekiden on Oct. 24, covering the six-stage, 38.6 km distance in a new course record time of 2:02:44. Perpetual rivals Ritsumeikan University were second in a strong 2:04:20 after trailing Bukkyo from the start.

Bukkyo's Chinami Mori started things off with a 14-second lead over Ritsumeikan on the 5.8 km First Stage, and from there Bukkyo's next three runners progressively extended the lead to 1:18 thanks in large part to Nishihara's 28:56 stage record on the 9.1 km Third Stage. Ritsumeikan's Akane Yabushita managed to make a dent with a 12:38 stage record on the 4.0 km Fifth Stage, but anchor Yoshimoto delivered the win in style as she outran Ritsumeikan anchor Machiko Iwakawa by 50 seconds, running a new stage record of 25:14 for…
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Shota Iizuka Lives Up to Expectations With First-ever Japanese World Junior 200 m Gold

by Brett Larner

click here for photos of Iizuka winning gold

In May Japan Running News introduced the world to Chuo University freshman Shota Iizuka with a video of his stunning anchor run in the Kanto Regionals 4 x 100 m relay. Now he's holding Japan's first-ever World Junior Championships gold medal, taking the men's 200 m in 20.67 by a margin of 0.22 after winning both the heats and semi-finals. Iizuka also delivered another solid 4 x 100 m anchor leg earlier in the afternoon to move the Japanese team on to the final with a win in its heat. Whether he can single-handedly carry the relay team to another gold medal is questionable, but his 200 m gold secures his place as the man to watch in Japanese sprinting.

Overall it was the best day of World Juniors so far for the Japanese team. Men's 400 m hurdler Takatoshi Abe brought his best, running a PB 49.46 for silver after leading the heats and semi-finals with season-best times. Abe missed gold by only 0.16 behind Trinidad…
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