japan running news

Coming off a seventh-straight win at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden, five-time Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national champion Meijo University led start to finish to win it again for the sixth year in a row Saturday in Shizuoka. Meijo's first four runners, Azumi Nagira , Nanaka Yonezawa , Miyu Yamada and Asuka Ishimatsu all won their stages to give Meijo what was pretty much an unbreakable lead. Undefeated in collegiate ekiden competition up to this point in her career, Meijo 3rd-year Nanase Tanimoto lost to Daito Bunka University 1st-year Sarah Wanjiru by 24 seconds on the 10.5 km Fifth Stage but still handed off to captain Yuka Masubuchi 1:04 ahead. Masubuchi ran a CR 19:27 for her 6.0 km to hand off to anchor Saki Harada on course record pace. On the tough anchor stage, 8.3 km climbing 175 m mostly in its second half, Harada proved the weak link on the team at only 5th-fastest in the field, but while that wasn't enough for Meijo to better its own CR Harada had no ...

There was never any doubt that Meijo University was going to win a fifth-straight national title at today's Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden , but what they really showed was that they have the core of a team that is going to extend its dynasty at least another 3 or 4 years. 1st-year trio Azumi Nagira , Hikaru Kitagawa and Nanaka Yonezawa built up a 43-second lead for Meijo over the first three legs, Yonezawa taking 4 seconds off the CR for hers. 3rd-year Yuka Masubuchi added another 19 seconds to that, setting up 4th-year power duo Yuma Yamamoto and Narumi Kobayashi to deliver it to 2nd-year anchor Nanase Tanimoto to bring Meijo home up the ~170m climb of the final stage. Yamamoto made sure nobody was going to come from behind late in the race, taking Meijo's lead from 1:02 to 2:28 over the 10.5 km fifth leg. Kobayashi has had trouble performing up to her past level this year, but even though she lost 21 seconds she still managed to run the 3rd-fastest time on her stage. ...

Atsushi Haraguchi was the only Japanese athlete in action in a final on day four of the Cali 2022 World U20 Championships , taking 7th in the men's pole vault final. Haraguchi only made one successful clearance, passing on 4.90 m and 5.05 m before making 5.15 m on his second attempt. Passing again on 5.25 m, he took three shots at 5.35 m. Success there would have tied his PB, but Haraguchi missed all three to end up 7th. Anthony Ammirati of France took gold with a 5.75 m clearance, Finland's Juho Alasaari in silver with a 5.60 m U20 NR and Poland's Michal Gawenda bronze at 5.45 m. In qualifying rounds, the men's 4x100 m team of Koki Ikeshita , Hiroto Fujiwara , Shunki Tateno and Hiroki Yanagita led the qualifiers with a season best 39.12, the only team to score an auto-qualifying time. Jamaica was next at 39.24 and Nigeria 3rd at 39.41. Tateno seemed to be in good shape after a DNS in yesterday's 200 m heats, with Yanagita turning in a solid anchor leg run. Ho...

The same day most of Japan's team from the Oregon 22 World Championships made it back home, the Cali 22 World U20 Championships team took off from Tokyo ahead of next week's meet. 9 women representing 5 universities and 3 high schools across 6 events and 25 men from 17 universities and 3 high schools across 15 events are entered . But if the numbers in Eugene were anything to go by it's likely the number of them who make it to the starting line will be smaller.  The women are surprisingly absent from the 3000 m, usually an area of strength for them, but the women's team does include Moe Matsuoka (Chuo Univ.), 4th-fastest U20 worldwide in the 400 mH this year, 10000 mRW top 2-ranked Ai Oyama (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) and Ayane Yanai (Ritsumeikan Univ.), and 2022 worldwide #5 and #6 Momoko Tsuji (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) and Aoi Murakami (Nittai Univ.) in the javelin throw. Notable names among the men's entries include Oregon 4x100 m team member and worldwide #6 jun...

One of the only races to resist the pressure to cancel as Japan's COVID numbers break new ground, the Kitakyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden took place Sunday in northern Fukuoka with top high school, college, club and corporate teams racing a short 27.2 km course through cold rain.  Only 21 of the 40 teams on the entry list started, but among them was defending open division champ Denso . Denso took the lead on the 3.8 km Second Stage with another course record run from CR holder Husan Zeyituna and held on through midway on the 10.4 km Fifth Stage, when anchor Yuka Matsumoto was caught by Nozomi Tanaka of the non-scoring Meijo/Toyota Select Team . The Meijo/Toyota hybrid crossed the line first in 1:28:05, Denso 51 seconds back to score 1st in the open division and claim a 2nd-straight win. But they were actually 3rd across the line. The local Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S. team led the high school division from the start, falling back a bit on the Second Stage but clocking t...

The 40th National Women's Ekiden took place Jan. 16, starting and finishing at Kyoto's Takebishi Stadium and covering 42.195 km in 9 stages. The race having been canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 winner Kyoto took the top spot again in 2:15:05 to strengthen its position as the winningest team in event history with 18 national titles. Fukuoka scored 2nd, with Miyagi taking 3rd. Following up on her superb 31:28 CR on the National Corporate Women's Ekiden 's 10.0 km Fifth Stage in November, Shiseido corporate runner Rino Goshima put the Ishikawa prefecture team out front on the 6.0 km opening leg, beating members of the Tokyo Olympic team and finishing in 18:41, just 2 seconds behind the CR held by 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka . Kyoto's Sakiho Tsutsui was only 9th, but over the next three stages the team worked its way toward the front of the field along with Fukuoka and Miyagi. On the race's Eighth Stage, 3.0 km reserved for juni...