japan running news

It's the point in the season where Hakone Ekiden-bound university coaches are farming out their squads to half marathons to sort through the contenders to make their 16-runner Hakone entry rosters. Next weekend's Ageo City Half Marathon is the biggest of them, but two key races happened today. In rainy conditions at the Setagaya 246 Half in Tokyo, Shoki Yamaguchi (Soka Univ.) won a sprint finish against sub-60 man Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon), Kuira overtaking Yamaguchi after Yamaguchi had pulled away over the last km but Yamaguchi fighting back on the track. Both clocked 1:01:46, but Yamaguchi succeeded in snagging the win away from Kuira right before the line. In 3rd, Aito Sato led a massive group from 2025 Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin University with a PB of 1:01:57 for 3rd. 5 other AGU runner were under 63 minutes, all but one breaking 62:30 and most in PBs, with Kotaro Suzuki (Chuo Univ.), 8th in 1:02:28, and Yota Aoteki (Hosei Univ.), 10th in 1:02:46 breaking up AGU...

The Ageo City Half Marathon, Japan's major elite-level fall half marathon, was supposed to have happened this past Sunday but was among the many races canceled again for reasons pandemic. But two other half marathons did go off as scheduled, both with fast wins by runners from the Aoyama Gakuin University  ekiden team. The bigger of the two was the Setagaya 246 Half Marathon in suburban Tokyo. AGU's Yuto Tanaka  led teammate Hironobu Nakakura  and 2021 Hakone Ekiden and National University Ekiden champ Komazawa University 's Takumi Karasawa  under 63 minutes, Tanaka winning in 1:02:38 by 6 seconds over Nakakura and 7 seconds over Karasawa. Marathoner Reia Iwade  set a new course record in the women's race, winning in 1:11:25. Far to the north in Iwate at the Miyako Salmon Half Marathon AGU's Aoi Ota  was even faster, winning in 1:02:27. His teammates Masahiro Sekiguchi , Tsubasa Nojima  and Kaisei Nishikawa  all cleared 63 minutes, running 1:02...