japan running news

In a statement on their corporate team's website, Ayumi Hagiwara  and Michi Numata  announced that they are retiring from competition at the end of this month.  Hagiwara, 29, is a native of Shizuoka. At Tokoha Kikugawa H.S. she ran in the National High School Ekiden, handling the First Stage. After graduating she joined the Uniqlo corporate team, then transferred to the Toyota Jidoshokki team in 2017. A track specialist with bests of 15:24.56 for 5000 m and 31:36.04 for 10000 m, in both 2013 and 2014 Hagiwara was 3rd in the National Championships 10000 m. In 2013 she won the bronze medal at that distance at the Asian Championships, and again in 2014 at the Asian Games. On Jan. 30 this year she was 15th at the Osaka International Women's Marathon, finishing in 2:34:14.  In her statement Hagiwara wrote, "Even when I was injured and couldn't run the way I wanted, I always got support and encouragement from teammates and fans. You all really helped me keep going." ...

The organizers of next month's Osaka International Women's Marathon have announced the invited field of 43 for Japan's last remaining purely elite marathon. Like the 2021 race, despite the event's name it's a Japanese-only field with male pacers, kind of inevitably on the first point given Japan's ongoing border fortification but a bit regrettably on the second. For a domestic field it's pretty good, all 17 of the women in it who've run under 2:35 in the last three years having done it either here or in Nagoya. 2020 winner and unlucky Olympic alternate  Mizuki Matsuda  (Daihatsu) is the favorite, with support from Sayaka Sato  (Sekisui Kagaku), the 4th-fastest Japanese woman in 2020 and 2021, 2019's fastest Reia Iwade  (Adidas), and 2021's 3rd and 4th-placers Yukari Abe  (Shimamura) and Mao Uesugi  (Starts).  Six other women in the field have run under the 2:27:00 B-standard for qualification for the 2024 Olympic marathon trials, including curr...

Things have been in a bit of a lull the last week or two with the Tokyo Olympics test event, university and corporate regional championship meets and more out of the way and everyone getting ready for the National Track and Field Championships in Osaka near the end of the month. But there is a lot going on this weekend, even if the leading edge of rainy season means conditions will not exactly be ideal. Friday through Sunday the National University Individual Track and Field Championships happen in Kanagawa, the lesser cousin of September's National University Track and Field Championships without the team scoring. National record holder Ryuji Miura  (Juntendo Univ.) is entered in the 3000 mSC, but with a place at the Olympics already guaranteed there doesn't look to be much reason for him to run except as a training run. 13:40 is the new sub-14, with the entire men's 5000 m A-heat field of 31 having bests under 14 minutes, 15 of them plus another 3 in the B-heat from Aoya...

Like the title says, regional corporate league track and field championships lead this weekend's main action, with every region except Kyushu set to go ahead with its meet despite the proliferation of a new round of states of emergency across the country. Two of the most competitive regions, East Japan and Chubu, will be streaming their meets live, with Kansai likely to join the list. East Japan, whose Day One stream above, runs 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday Japan time and again 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday. The meet schedule and entry lists can be had here . Featuring a lot of the best Japan-based Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes, the men's 5000 and 10000 m look like the best races of the meet, with the 5000 m A-heat also having like Olympic 5000 m team member Yuta Bando  (Fujitsu), newly-minted Olympic 10000 m team member Tatsuhiko Ito  (Honda), and Olympic marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) back in action, hopefully, after scratching from the Lake Biwa Maratho...

Running almost 15 laps of Osaka's Nagai Park behind a pair of male pacers right up to the entrance to the track finish, Mao Ichiyama  (Wacoal) came up two minutes short of Mizuki Noguchi 's 2:19:12 national record but clipped 7 seconds off Noguchi's event record to win Sunday's Osaka International Women's Marathon in a world-leading 2:21:11.  Her Tokyo Olympics marathon teammate Honami Maeda  (Tenmaya) was the only other woman to try to go with her, dropping off NR pace before 15 km but hanging on for an 18-second PB of 2:23:30 for 2nd with the help of another male pacer who stayed with her right to the start of the track finish. Ichiyama only made it through halfway on NR pace before she fell off, but she did manage to rally in the last few km to get under Noguchi's event record, even though Osaka organizers announced post-race that Ichiyama's mark would be listed as a mixed race record alongside Noguchi's women-only record in the hereafter.  Next up ...

On Dec. 22 the Osaka International Women's Marathon announced the elite field for its 40th running on Jan. 31, 2021 at a live streamed press conference. Like Fukuoka, Osaka is going ahead with a reduced domestic field of just 99 entrants and no international athletes. Tokyo Olympics marathon team members Mao Ichiyama  (Wacoal), winner of this year's Nagoya Women's Marathon in a women-only national record of 2:20:29, and trials winner and 30 km national record holder Honami Maeda  (Tenmaya) lead the entry list. With none of Osaka's usual international pacers, Osaka will use male pacers to try to set things up for a shot at Mizuki Noguchi 's 2:19:12 national record. The unsponsored Reia Iwade  is the only other athlete who could realistically try to go with them, and for the rest of the field, which includes last year's 2nd-place Japanese woman Haruka Yamaguchi  (AC Kita), there will be other men to pace at around 2:25. With ten women from 2:25 to 2:29 on the l...

The JAAF has announced the Japanese team for next month's World Half Marathon Championships in Gdynia, Poland. Six of the ten men and women are fresh off PBs at the Marugame Half and National Corporate Half earlier this month, with three of the other four having set new bests since December. Set to be elevated from runner-up to winner of December's Fukuoka International Marathon after the bust of Moroccan El Mahjoub Dazza , Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) leads the men's team with an all-time Japanese #2 1:00:06 in Marugame. Three other men on the team including amateur Takahiro Nakamura (Kyocera Kagoshima) broke 1:01 at the National Corporate Half two weeks ago. The only man on the the team not to have cleared 1:01 yet is 2020 Olympic marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu), who ran a PB 1:01:40 at January's Takanezawa Half. National Corporate Half winner Kaena Takeyama (Daihatsu) is the top-ranked woman with a 1:09:12,  followed by Sara Miyake (Tenmaya), 3r...

After giving World XC a miss, Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) got his outdoor season off to a good start with a 13:33.70 PB for 5th at California's Mt. SAC Relays . His teammate Yuki Nakamura ran only 14:34.97, while the U.S.-based Takeshi Okada (UC Berkeley) ran 9:02.75 for 12th in the 3000 mSC. Toyota Jidoshokki teammates Momoka Kawaguchi and Nao Yamamoto ran the women's 5000 m, Kawaguchi the faster of the two at 15:54.82. Back home, Bernard Kibet (Kyudenko) ran an early season world-leading time of 27:36.24 to win the Hyogo Relay Carnival Grand Prix men's 10000 m, beating the 27:43.34 by Macharia Ndirangu (Aichi Seiko) a day earlier in Hyogo's Asics Challenge men's 10000 m, at the time also a world-leader. Kibet's teammate Shohei Otsuka was the fastest Japanese man of the weekend at 28:25.42 in the Asics Challenge race. Women's Grand Prix 10000 m winner Rosemary Monica Wanjiru (Starts) came up short of a world-leading time but was just a fe...

Stanford Invitational - Japanese Results Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, U.S.A., 3/29/19 complete results Women's 10000 m Invite 1. Emily Sisson (New Balance) - 30:49.57 2. Molly Huddle (Saucony) - 30:58.46 3. Allie Ostrander (Boise State Univ.) - 32:06.71 ----- 6. Ayumi Hagiwara (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 32:09.87 8. Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) - 32:15.47 23. Misaki Hayashida (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 33:04.12 Men's 10000 m Invite 1. Conner Mantz (Brigham Young Univ.) - 28:18.18 2. Clayton Young (Brigham Young Univ.) - 28:18.50 3. Gilbert Kigen (Univ. of Alabama) - 28:20.28 ----- 10. Jun Nobuto (Mazda) - 28:35.55 11. Kiseki Shiozawa (Tokai Univ.) - 28:37.15 16. Junnosuke Matsuo (Tokai Univ.) - 29:07.79 Women's 5000 m Invite 1. Jessice Hull (Univ. of Oregon) - 15:34.93 2. Shuang Shuang Xiu (CAA) - 15:36.48 3. Carrie Dimoff (Bowerman TC) - 15:36.32 ----- 10. Yuna Wada (Meijo Univ.) - 15:47.04 Men's 5000 m Invite 1. Kyle Mau (Univ. of In...

2014 Incheon Asian Games women's 10000 m bronze medalist Ayumi Hagiwara (Toyota Jidoshokki) has finally emerged from a long, dark tunnel. Running her first half marathon in five years this February she broke her PB by one second. "I feel as though I've managed to get the hands moving a little on a watch that had stopped," she said, measuring her words thoughtfully. Hagiwara graduated from Shizuoka's Tokoha Kikugawa H.S., joining the Uniqlo corporate team where she was coached by Hideo Suzuki who had previously led World Championships medalist Reiko Tosa to success in the marathon. With her Asian Games bronze and a run that helped the Japanese national team win the 2014 International Chiba Ekiden she quickly gained attention. But when injury struck she was forced to cancel her planned marathon debut, and things started to fall apart. She had a disastrous run in the 10000 m at the 2016 National Championships and failed to make the Rio Olympic team. When her...

by Brett Larner Corporate and university meets led the way in the first of three straight weekends of regional track action.  At the Chubu Region Corporate Track and Field Championships Kenyan Rodgers Chumo Kemoi (Team Aisan Kogyo) led the top three under 28 minutes, winning in 27:54.19. Returning to the track after a quality 2:10:39 debut at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, Minato Oishi (Team Toyota) was the fastest Japanese man in the race, running 28:31.28 for 4th. Silas Laikong (Team Aichi Seiko) won the Chubu men's 5000 m in 13:45.59, but the fastest time of the weekend came at the season's first Shizuoka Long Distance Time Trials meet, where Ethiopian teammates Abiyot Abinet and Yeneblo Biyazen (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) went 1-2 in 13:36.08 and 13:36.20. Downhill specialist Yuji Onoda led a large contingent from Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University , 3rd overall in 13:58.05. The women's 3000 m in Shizuoka also saw teammates sweep the front...

by Brett Larner The 99th edition of the Japanese National Track and Field Championships kick off Friday, June 26 at Niigata's Big Swam Stadium.  Of the disciplines to be contested at Nationals, 36 athletes in 16 events come in holding IAAF qualifying marks for August's Beijing World Championships, 5 of them having met the JAAF's tougher selection standards, and with the JAAF letting others chase marks up until Aug. 2 there are plenty of chances for others to get on board if they can navigate the JAAF's baffling selection process and finish in the upper places. The withdrawal of big names like wunderkind sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) and 20-time hammer champ Koji Murofushi (Mizuno) means that Kei Takase (Fujitsu) will be one of this year's biggest draws.  Coming in ranked #1 in both the men's 100 m and 200 m with fresh PBs of 10.09 and 20.14 this spring, Takase is the only athlete in a running event to have cleared the JAAF standard, essentially ...

by Brett Larner click here for 2014 men's rankings Back in 2010 JRN interviewed Tsutomu Akiyama , one of the people originally responsible for bringing Kenyans into the high school and collegiate running circuits.  One of the topics at the time was the then-recent move towards restricting non-Japanese athletes to the shortest stages in ekidens to minimize their impact on the races, and in particular the implications for women's running, where at the National Corporate Women's Ekiden African athletes run only 3.6 km instead of the longest stage, 10.9 km, where all the best Japanese athletes run.  At the time Akiyama said, "That kind of idea of restricting runners is incredibly wrong. It’s going to lead to a weaker environment for Japanese women. If we bring a slower runner from Kenya and they train together with the Japanese runners, all the Japanese runners will get stronger from having a more competitive attitude. With just a 3 km stage it’s the same thing as s...