japan running news

Just over three weeks out from the race the Hokkaido Marathon organizers have released the elite field for this year's edition. Scheduled for Aug. 25, Hokkaido was in a tough position this year, just three weeks out from the MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials and a few more from the Doha World Championships. Only three women answered the call, but despite the two higher priority races just around the corner the men's field is decent quality. On the women's side, 38-year-old Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL), a past Hokkaido winner, is the top seed with a 2:28:24 best in Nagoya two years ago. Alongside her are relative newcomers Chika Ihara (Higo Ginko) and Mirai Waku (Univ. Ent.) both with times in the low-2:30 range earlier this year. On the men's side, Japan-based Kenyan Michael Githae (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) leads the way with a 2:09:21 for 4th at Lake Biwa last year. Top-ranked Japanese man Shogo Kanezane (Chugoku Denryoku) was one of the people who came closest...

by Brett Larner The organizers of the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon released the elite field on Jan. 28 for this year's 51st running, scheduled for Feb. 10.  Traditionally an elite developmental race for first- or second-time marathoners, this year's race is capped by 2010 Asian Games marathon silver medalist and 2011 World Championships marathoner Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN).  Kitaoka has been mostly injured since 2010 and will be seeking a return to the kind of form he showed that year.  His main challengers among the marathoners are the Koichi Morishita -coached Kenji Takeuchi  (Team Toyota Kyushu) and Etsu Miyata (Team Fujitsu), a teammate of former national record holder Atsushi Fujita . This year's race is heavy on people making their debuts.  Chief among them are sub-63 men Ayumu Sato  (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) with a 1:02:33 best from last year's Marugama Half and Nittai University grad Kazuya Deguchi  (Team Nissin Shokuhin) with a...

by Brett Larner Video highlights of Day One including Terada's missed handoff. The winner of the highly competitive Second Stage at this year's Hakone Ekiden, Aoyama Gakuin University junior Takehiro Deki  had two big runs in his final tune-up for his planned marathon debut at the Mar. 4 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon.  Running for his hometown Nagasaki team at the Feb. 17-19 Nagasaki Prefecture One-Circuit Ekiden, Deki broke the stage record on both of the two legs he ran.  On the first day of competition he took eight seconds off the record for the 14.0 km Fourth Stage, recording a new mark of 42:07.  On the third and final day of the race Deki again ran 14.0 km, this time taking a solid 33 seconds of the Seventeenth Stage record with an impressive time of 40:49, almost two minutes better than the next-fastest man on the stage.  Thanks in part to his efforts the Nagasaki team won the overall title in the event's 61st year, clocking 21:29:09 for the total 407....

by Brett Larner In its 60th running the historic Kyushu Isshu Ekiden , a ten-day road relay around Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu featuring men's teams from each of the island's nine prefectures, has changed both name and, to a lesser degree, format.  Now called the Grand Tour Kyushu, the race has been scaled back to eight days and, styled more after a cycling race, has a new and heavier emphasis on the day-to-day stage wins and features corporate sponsorship of the individual day stages. Starting in Nagasaki on Oct. 30 and heading counterclockwise to Fukuoka, the Grand Tour Kyushu remains Japan's longest elite-level event.  Always dominant thanks to the presence of a large concentration of corporate teams, Fukuoka, Miyazaki and Nagasaki prefectures have been the main players through the Tour's first four days.  Defending champion Miyazaki got off on the right foot with a win from rookie Kazuya Deguchi  on the first leg of the race, but the team fell...