japan running news

In his second pro season, junior and collegiate men's 10000 m racewalk national record holder Daisuke Matsunaga (Fujitsu) stepped up with his biggest performance yet, becoming the first Japanese man to break 38 minutes and coming in with a near miss on the world record to win the 10000 m racewalk in a national record 37:58.08 at Saturday's Hokuren Distance Challenge Kitami meet . A 2017 graduate of Toyo University, throughout the race Matsunaga had support from younger Toyo athletes Koki Ikeda and Masatori Kawano who ended up 2nd and 3rd 40 to 50 seconds back. Currently ranked 4th in the world over 20 km, Matsunaga may be just what Japan needs for Tokyo 2020: a legit gold medal contender in athletics. Speaking of Tokyo 2020, the JAAF is desperate to get some women under 15 minutes for 5000 m before, something only national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) has ever done. As a step toward that objective, for the second year in a row the Hokuren Distance Challenge fe...

Most of Japan's distance runners retreat north to Hokkaido for the summer to escape the heat and put in mileage for ekiden season. The four-part Hokuren Distance Challenge series gives them the chance to add some quality into the mix, whether for chasing standards, padding their resumes, or general development. The main focus of the first part of the 2018 series, held in the town of Abashiri, was on 10000 m for women and 5000 m for men. In cold and rain times weren't especially fast, Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) continuing a solid first season in the corporate leagues with a win in the women's 10000 m A-heat in 32:35.74 and Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) taking the B-heat in 32:55.13. Women also had the option for 3000 m, with Marta Mokaya (Oita Tomei H.S.) beating Ann Karindi (Toyota Jidoshokki) 8:56.40 to 8:59.12. Kenyan Nicholas Kosimbei (Toyota) fronted the men's 5000 m A-heat in 13:33.97, with Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) taking the top Japanese spot at ...

Japan's National Track and Field Championships are happening this weekend in Yamaguchi. Somebody is always being selected for something at Nationals, and this year it's the Jakarta Asian Games . Most of the action will be streamed live on the JAAF site Friday through Sunday, with some breaks for the major events which will only be shown on TV. In three of the biggest events the defending champs are absent. 100 and 200 m winner Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Univ. of Florida) and 10000 m champ Suguru Osako (NOP), both U.S.-based, having bowed out with injury in Sani Brown's case and purportedly to prepare for the Chicago Marathon in Osako's. In the 100 m and 200 m the door is open for the other members of Japan's medal-winning relay squad to take home a national title, national record holder  Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) the #1 seed in the 100 m and Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) ranked #1 in the 200 m. The men's 10000 m is surprisingly weak this year, with no Japa...

With a roster somewhat depleted of top-level talent Japan took no gold but managed to pick up five silver and nine bronze medals at the July 6-9  Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, India. Japanese women scored the majority of the medals, taking three silver and eight bronze medals to the men's count of two silver, one bronze. Women's 10000 m national champion Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) and men's 110 m hurdles national champ Shunya Takayama (Zenrin) were the only athletes already named to Japan's London World Championships team to participate. Matsuda took the bronze medal in the 10000 m behind Daria Maslova (Kyrghizstan) and national championships 5th-placer Yuka Hori (Japan), while Takayama missed out on bronze by 0.04 seconds as he took 4th in 13.65 (-0.6 m/s). With none of the Japanese medalists clearing London standards at the Asian Athletics Championships there were no additions beyond Matsuda and Takayama to the London team from among those wh...

Over 20,000 fans packed Osaka's Yanmar Stadium Nagai Saturday to try to catch a piece of history on the second day of the 101st Japanese National Track and Field Championships . After a red-hot round of men's 100 m heats and sufficiently fiery semi finals led by 18-year old Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Tokyo T&F Assoc.) and backed by Rio Olympics 4x100 m relay silver medal trio Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.), Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) and Aska Cambridge (Nike) plus 20-year-old newcomer Shuhei Tada (Kwansei Gakuin Univ.) there was an expectation in the air for Japan's first sub-10 clocking almost as heavy as the approaching storm front. With conditions improving throughout the late afternoon and into the early evening ahead of the 8:38 p.m. start time for the 100 m final all signals looked go.  Then, in the last km of the women's 3000 m SC two events before the 100 m, a few drops of rain. A light drizzle during the men's 400 m final. Then, in the ten minutes be...

by Brett Larner click here for Day One results and report Men's 1500 m world junior record holder Ronald Kwemoi (Team Komori Corp.) turned in the performance of the day on day two of competition at the 2015 National Corporate Track and Field Championships , running a 3:37.54 meet record to win the 1500 m over rival David Njuguna (Team Yakult) and #1-ranked Japanese man Kota Murayama (Team Asahi Kasei).  The Toho Ginko women's team came up just short of the 44.97 meet record in the women's 4x100 m relay set six years ago by Toho Ginko predecessor Natureal , winning in 45.00.  Toho Ginko's second runner Asami Chiba and anchor Mayumi Watanabe featured on both the record-setting Natureal team and today's lineup.  Another meet record near miss came in the women's javelin, where defending champion Risa Miyashita (Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. Staff) came up just 0.20 m short of the record she set last year, winning in 56.47 m. Some disappointment came in t...

by Brett Larner Entry lists are out for the 99th Japanese National Track and Field Championship s, June 26-28 in Niigata, doubling this year as the main selection event for the Japanese team for the 2015 Beijing World Championships.  Highlights of distance event entries are below.  Both the men's and women's 10000 m look set to be exceptionally good races.  Look for a detailed preview and explanation of the Worlds team selection criteria next week. 99th National Track and Field Championships Niigata, June 26-28, 2015 click here for complete entry lists Men's 10000 m William Malel (Kenya/Honda) - 27:25.56 Yuki Sato (Nissin Shokuhin) - 27:38.25 Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) - 27:38.31 Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei) - 27:38.99 Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) - 27:39.95 Chihiro Miyawaki (Toyota) - 27:41.57 Yuta Shitara (Honda) - 27:42.71 Akinobu Murasawa (Nissin Shokuhin) - 27:50.59 Keita Shitara (Konica Minolta) - 27:51.54 Yuki Matsuoka (Otsuka Seiyaku) ...

by Brett Larner Following up last week's Cork City Sports meet in Ireland that saw a sizeable group of mostly collegiate Japanese women in the 3000 m, Japanese men got started on their annual European track junket at meets in the Netherlands and Belgium.  2014 Waseda University graduate Suguru Osako (Team Nissin Shokuhin) was due to run the two mile at the Diamond League Glasgow meet, but with the cancellation of that distance he instead headed to the Netherlands' Runnersworld Track Meeting , where he ran 8:02.11 for 2nd in the 3000 m as a tuneup for next weekend's KBC Nacht meet in Belgium, where he and rival Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) will run 5000 m. Also tuning up for the KBC Nacht was a large group of young corporate league runners and 2014 Asian Games track team member Kota Murayama (Josai Univ.) in the 1500 m at Belgium's Guldensporenmeeting .  Led by former Japanese university 10000 m record holder Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei), 2nd overal...

by Brett Larner videos by aoshin0507 Two-time Olympic medalist, three-time World Championships medalist and national record holder Koji Murofushi  (Mizuno), 39, added an historic twentieth-straight men's hammer throw national title to his list of accomplishments, easily winning the 2014 Japanese National Track and Field Championships in Fukushima with a throw of 73.93 m.  Murofushi could have stopped after his opening throw and still won, runner-up  Hiroki Ako (Tottori T&F Assoc.) throwing 67.60 m, but with the Federation's A- and B-standards for this fall's Asian Games beckoning he continued on, building slightly on his distance over his next few throws before peaking at 73.93. Twenty-straight national titles, taking Murofushi all the way back to 1995, a time when this was the biggest hit in the land.  A true one-of-a-kind. Murofushi wasn't the only national record holder to come out on top on the second day of the National Championships.  Battlin...

Fukushima, 6/6-8/14 click here for complete entry lists in Japanese marks given are best within qualification period / PB Men's 100 m Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) 10.01 / 10.01 Ryota Yamagata (Keio Univ.) - 10.11 / 10.07 Takumi Kuki (Waseda Univ.) - 10.19 / 10.19 Asuka Cambridge (Nihon Univ.) - 10.21 / 10.21 Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) - 10.22 / 10.22 Masashi Eriguchi (Team Osaka Gas) - 10.24 / 10.07 Naoki Tsukahara (Team Fujitsu) - 10.31 / 10.09 Men's 200 m Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) - 20.21 / 20.21 Kei Takase (Team Fujitsu) - 20.34 / 20.34 Akiyuki Hashimoto (Waseda Univ.) - 20.35 / 20.35 Shota Hara (Jobu Univ.) - 20.41 / 20.41 Ryota Yamagata (Keio Univ.) - 20.41 / 20.41 Kenji Fujimitsu (Team Zeirin) - 20.48 / 20.38 Shinji Takahira (Team Fujitsu) - 20.50 / 20.22 Men's 400 m Yuzo Kanemaru (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 45.46 / 45.16 Hiroyuki Nakano (Aichi T&F Assoc.) - 45.62 / 45.62 Nobuya Kato (Waseda Univ.) - 45.69 / 45.69 Kazuya Watanabe (Mizuno) - 45.71 / 45...

by Brett Larner videos by Ekiden News and tuyoshi55244 Japan's outdoor track season got underway on Saturday with the rainy 23rd edition of Kumamoto's Kanaguri Memorial Meet.  Teammates  James Mwangi  and Edward Waweru  of the NTN corporate team got the season off to a good start with a 1-2 finish in Heat 4 of the men's 5000 m, Mwangi leading the way with a 13:25.56 a full ten seconds ahead of Waweru.  Japan-based Kenyans and Ethiopians took 11 of the top 13 places, with the only Japanese runners to get into the middle of things both running PBs to get there.  Second-year Keisuke Nakatani  of three-time defending National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University  ran a sizable best of 13:48.99 for 8th, a time that ranks him 2nd on the Komazawa squad behind only World Half Marathon Championships team member Kenta Murayama .  Sub-28 and sub-1:02 as a collegiate, Yuta Shitara  made a good debut in the Honda uniform by knocking...