japan running news

It's been a busy year, and a record-breaking one that kicked off with a Hakone Ekiden CR by Aoyama Gakuin University and ended with a new men's marathon NR from Suguru Osako . JRN's 10-most read stories of 2025: Tokyo World Championships to Leave Final Decision on Going Ahead in Heat to World Athletics - Aug. 25 After fears of hot conditions were used as a justification to move the Tokyo Olympics marathons to Sapporo, concern was high about the conditions at September's Tokyo World Championships. Ultimately, though, it wasn't much of an issue, with longer distance events being moved slightly earlier in the mornings on which they were scheduled. Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon - Apr. 10 Australian business owner Matthew Inglis Fox who had come to Japan to run the Osaka Marathon was arrested on suspicion of illegally importing cannabis products. After several months of confinement Fox returned to his home...

The Asian Athletics Championships wrapped up Saturday in Gumi, South Korea with a string of record-setting performances. At the top of the list was the men's 200 m final , where Towa Uzawa ran a championships record and PB 20.21 (+0.8) to win gold, putting him at all-time Japanese #4 and all-time Asian #6. Saudi Abdul Abdu I Atafi and India's Animesh Kujur took silver and bronze in 20.31 and 20.32, with veteran Shota Iizuka 4th in a season best 20.66 that put him one step closer to a 14-straight year under 20.50. NR holder Rin Kubo turned in one of the fastest performances of her career so far in the women's 800 m final , just losing out to China's Wu Hongjiao . Wu delivered a meet record 2:00.08 for gold, Kubo just behind her in 2:00.42 for silver and India's Pooja Pooja a few strides back in 2:01.89 for bronze. Ayano Shiomi was 5th in 2:03.59. Yuta Sakiyama came up with a PB 83.75 m throw on his final attempt in the men's javelin , good enough for all-...

The Gumi Asian Athletics Championships rolled on Thursday and Friday. In top Japanese results: Gold medal favorite Rachid Muratake came through in the men's 110 mH final , the only athlete under 13.3 at 13.22 (+0.7) for the win over China's Liu Junxi and Qin Weibo . Yumi Tanaka added a silver to the count in the women's 100 mH final , 2nd in 13.061 (-0.1) in a photo finish with bronze medalist Wu Yanni of China, 13.068. Indian Jyoti Yarraji won gold in 12.96. Kenyan-born Kazakhstani Daisy Jepkemei outran Ririka Hironaka and Mikuni Yada in the women's 10000 m for gold in 30:48.44, but both Japanese women brought A-game. Hironaka's 30:56.32 for silver was her best time since 2023 and a great step back in the right direction after another round of injury and recovery, with Yada's 31:12.21 for bronze a PB by almost 8 seconds. The up-and-coming Yutaro Niinae ran a season best 8:24.41 for silver in the men's 3000 mSC , 3 seconds behind Indian gold medali...

Day two of the Gumi Asian Athletics Championships got started with a pair of Japanese medals in the men's hammer throw . China's Wang Qi built up from an opening throw of 69.80 m, throwing further every attempt until his winning 74.50 m in the last round. Shota Fukuda sat in 2nd at 71.89 m after his second attempt, but teammate Tatsuto Nakagawa overtook him with a final throw of 71.97 m for silver, knocking Fukuda back to bronze. NR holder Misaki Morota took bronze in the women's pole vault , clearing 4.13 m. China's Niu Chunge dominated, tying Morota's NR of 4.48 m for gold, with Xu Huiqin taking silver at 4.23 m. Japan's Akari Osakaya was 6th at 3.98 m. One of Japan's anticipated golds didn't materialize in the men's 400 m , where Qatari Ammar Ismail Y Ibrahim outran NR holder Kentaro Sato for the win in 45.33. Sato held off Sri Lanka's Kalinda Kumarage for silver 45.50 to 45.55, with Fuga Sato 5th in 45.59. But the first Japanese gol...

The Gumi Asian Athletics Championships got moving with a silver in the men's 20 km race walk from #2 ranked Kento Yoshikawa , part of a breakaway trio with China's Wang Zhaozhao and India's Servin Sebasthiyan . The #1-ranked Wang pulled away in the last km to win in 1:20:37, Yoshikawa close behind in 1:20:46 and Sebasthiyan taking bronze in 1:21:14. Ryo Hamanishi was just out of the medals in 4th in 1:21:58. China's Su Lingdan was untouchable in the women's javelin throw with a 63.29 m PB for gold, but Momone Ueda and Sae Takemoto took silver and bronze. Ueda threw a season best 59.39 m on her final attempt, overtaking Takemoto's 4th-round 58.94 m. Another bronze came in the women's triple jump . China's Li Yi beat Uzbekistan's Sharifa Davronova by 6 cm for gold 13.80 m to 13.74 m, with Mariko Morimoto beating Maoko Takashima by 1 cm for bronze. Morimoto was 13.65 m on her 5th jump, but although Takashima came back with a big final attempt...

The 2025 Asian Athletics Championships kick off today in Gumi, South Korea and run through Saturday. Meet schedule, entry lists and results will be on the meet site. Day One streaming is above, with other days here . The top tier of Japanese athletes like Ryuji Miura and Nozomi Tanaka who've already hit their qualifying marks for the Tokyo World Championships are mostly skipping the Asian Championships, giving the next tier of people a chance to get into Tokyo via an area title or score enough world rankings points to have a shot at making the Tokyo quota. From that point of view the race of the day is the men's 10000 m. Between people who've hit the standard, qualifiers via cross country, and area champions, the only person in the quota of 27 on points is 2024 Japanese national champ Jun Kasai . He was scheduled to run but is out with injury. Next in line is India's Gulveer Singh , who missed the standard by just 0.22 with a 27:00.22 at The Ten earlier this season. ...

The 2025 Asian Athletics Championships take place May 27-31 in Gumi, South Korea, a key chance for Japanese athletes to score points to help get them to September's Tokyo World Championships. Japan's team of 35 women and 36 men for the Asian Championships as of April 25 : Women 100 m Midori Mikase (Sumitomo Denko) - 11.37 Aiha Yamagata (Fukuoka Univ.) - 11.41 200 m Arisa Kimishima (DKS) - 23.16 Remi Tsuruta (Minami Kyushu Family Mart) - 23.17 400 m Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) - 52.29 800 m Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) - 1.59.93 Ayano Shiomi (Iwatani Sangyo) - 2:01.93 1500 m Yume Goto (Uniqlo) - 4:09.41 Tomoka Kimura (Sekisui Kagaku) - 4:09.79 5000 m Yuma Yamamoto (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:12.97 Sora Shinozakura (Yokoyama T&F Assoc.) - 15:23.82 10000 m Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) - 30:39.71 Mikuni Yada (Edion) - 31:20.09 100 mH Mako Fukube (NKK) - 12.69 Yumi Tanaka (Fujitsu) - 12.83 400 mH Ami Yamamoto (Fujitsu) - 56.06 Miku Takino (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 56.81 3000 mSC...

Former Komazawa University captain Mebuki Suzuki (Toyota) and 3-time 10000 m national champion Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) ran through rain that started just before the day's last two events to win the 10000 m national titles Saturday in Kumamoto at the Kanakuri Memorial meet. With Kenyan pacers and Wavelight in action both races were steady time trials that ground the fields down to a few legit contenders. In the men's race that was Suzuki, 2024 national champ Jun Kasai (Asahi Kasei) and Suzuki's teammate Yamato Yoshii . Yoshii made an early move to break away, but Suzuki and Kasai reeled him back in by 7200. At 9000 m the pace had slowed to 24:56, on track for 27:42, but Suzuki attacked with a 61-second lap from 9000 to 9400, a pace he held to drop a 2:32 last 1000 m for the win in 27:28.82. Kasai was next in 27:33.52 and Yoshii 3rd in a 27:36.33 PB with the top 8 all breaking 28 minutes. The women's race was down to just 2021, 2022 and 2023 national champion Hir...

Saturday is the first big meet on Japan's outdoor middle and long distance circuit, the Kanakuri Memorial Meet in Kumamoto. This year it's also hosting the 10000 m National Championships , making for an extra-long and extra-quality field overall. Top finishers will pick up places on Japan's team for next month's Asian Championships in South Korea, a key step in earning world rankings points to get onto the home team for September's Tokyo World Championships that makes Kanakuri more valuable than ever. Streaming is scheduled to be here and will run through most of the day, with the meet-closing men's and women's 10000 m having a separate broadcast on NHK BS starting at 19:30 local time. Start lists for most events are here . 10000 m start lists are here . Live results are here . A-heat event previews: Women's 800 m  - 11:00 High schooler Rin Kubo  is the only Japanese woman to have broken 2 minutes, with a 1:59.93 last July. Is she going to get any fast...

Winner of the 2016 Gold Coast Marathon and 4th in the 3000 m steeplechase at the 2011 Asian Championships, Sysmex corporate team athlete Misato Horie has retired following her run at the Feb. 2 Hyogo Prefecture Ekiden. Born in 1987, Horie's best achievement at Seiryo H.S. was making the Kinki Region championships. But after entering Mukogawa Joshi University and starting to run the 3000 m steeplechase she grew into one of Japan's top athletes with an 8th-place finish at the 2008 National Championships. After graduating she joined the Noritz corporate team, where she was 2nd at the 2011 National Championships in what was at the time an all-time Japanese #6 mark of 10:02.24. That put her on the team for that year's Asian Championships, where she placed 4th. 2 years later she took 6th at the 2013 Asian Championships. From 2015 on Horie focused on road racing, winning the 2016 Gold Coast Marathon in a then-CR 2:26:40 and following up with her career PB of 2:25:44 for 2nd ...

Pretty much as expected, last week's Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships, where Japan dominated the medal count , were an easy point grab for a lot of Japanese athletes that boosted their positions in the qualifying quota for August's Budapest World Championships . Which isn't to say that there weren't some great performances, like Sumire Hata 's 6.97 m +0.5 m/s women's long jump NR and Kentaro Sato 's all-time Japanese #2 45.00 in the 400 m. But for a lot of people, the ACC were a last-minute back door into the rankings. If you're not familiar with the qualifying system for Worlds, it basically works like this. Each event has a designated number of qualifying spots, in most cases around 40. World-level champions and people who hit qualifying marks automatically make it. The rest of the quota for a given event is filled up in order of athletes' world rankings score , made up of points earned based on performance level, placing, and competition lev...

The final day of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships kicked off with a gold medal in the men's 20 km race walk from Yutaro Murayama in a close race with China's Kaihua Wang that saw Murayama win by 49 seconds. Bronze medalist Vikash Singh was over 4 minutes behind Wang, while Murayama's teammate Hiroto Jusho dropped out mid-race. Yukiko Umeno took bronze in the women's race in 1:36:18, almost 4 minutes behind winner Liujing Yang . Miyu Naito finished just out of the medals in 4th in 1:37:35. In the evening session, Yuma Yamamoto and Hyuga Endo made it a Japanese women's and men's double in the 5000 m. In the women's race, Yamamoto stayed behind Mongolia's Munkhzaya Bayartsogt and Kazakhstan's Caroline Chepkoech Kipkirui through the early phases, then India's Parul Chaudhary before going to the front. After hitting 4000 m in 12:57.19 Yamamoto went faster and faster to burn Chaudhary off, officially clocking a 2:53.97 last 1000 m t...

Day 4 of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships was the first without a single gold medal going to Japan, but there were still enough silvers and bronzes to go around. Robyn Lauren Brown of the Philippines outclassed the rest of the women's 400 mH final field, taking gold in 57.50. Eri Utsunomiya and Ami Yamamoto made it a Japanese 2-3, Utsunomiya running 57.73 for silver and Yamamoto 57.80 for bronze. Yusaku Kodama also scored silver in the men's 400 mH, running 48.96 behind Qatari winner Bassem Hemeida 's 48.64. Yuki Yamasaki won bronze in the heptathlon with 5696 points, Uzbekistan's Ekaterina Voronina taking gold in 6098 and Swapna Barman silver in 5840. Teammate Karin Odama was 4th in 5487. Another bronze came in the mixed 4x400 m relay, with Japan running 3:15.71 behind India's 3:14.70 and Sri Lanka's 3:15.41. Naoto Hasegawa and Ryoichi Akamatsu both cleared 2.23 m in the men's high jump, Hasegawa finishing 4th overall and Akamatsu 5th. ...

Japan dominated day 2 of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships Thursday, winning 3 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze medals across 10 events. The biggest news was in the men's 400 m final, where Kentaro Sato ran an all-time JPN #2 45.00 for the win and Fuga Sato an all-time JPN #5 45.13 for silver. Both were well back from Asian record holder Yousef Ahmed Masrahi of Saudi Arabia coming into the home straight, but with stunning kicks they pulled up into the medals, in Fuga's case going all the way from 5th to 2nd. Masrahi was in the bronze position in a season best 45.19. Another 1-2 finish for Japan came in the women's 10000 m. Haruka Kokai was part of a breakaway trio with Kenya-born Kazakhstani Caroline Chepkoech Kipkirui and Mongolian NR holder Munkhzaya Bayartsogt , while Momoka Kawaguchi held back in the second group warier of the heat and humidity. On track to break her own NR, Munkhzaya did all the work up front, burning off Kipkirui who ultimately dropped out. ...

The 2023 Asian Athletics Championships started Wednesday in Bangkok, Thailand. Japan's fastest-ever collegiate 10000 m runner Ren Tazawa said pre-race that he would go for a sub-28 win to have a shot at getting into the quota for next month's Budapest World Championships. But while he, teammate Yuto Imae , Kenya-born Kazakhstani Shamrock Kimutai and others gave it a go, it was just too hot and humid to sustain. Tazawa led the entire way except for some early assistance from Imae and a very brief mid-race attack from Kimutai, going through halfway in 14:17.99 and crossing the finish line in 29:18.44. Kimutai was 2nd in 29:31.63, with Imae getting caught by India's Abhiskhek Pal in the last 200 m and knocked out of the medals. Tazawa's gold was the first AAC 10000 m gold for Japan since 1981, which seems surprising, but while his time was over a minute short of what he needed for the Budapest quota there's still a chance he'll make it as area champion. That wo...