japan running news

https://www.athletics.com.au/news/kipchoge-leads-unprecedented-mens-field-at-2025-tcs-sydney-marathon/

With prime minister Fumio Kishida  having publicly confirmed yesterday that Japan will begin relaxing its rigid border restrictions as of Mar. 1, the Mar. 6  Tokyo Marathon  followed up its earlier announcement of the domestic elite field for this year's twice-rescheduled race with the full list of international athletes scheduled to compete. Women's and men's world record holders Brigid Kosgei and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya are set to return to Japan after winning the Olympic marathon silver and gold medals in Sapporo last summer, with backing from small but high-quality international fields, the Japanese women-only and men's marathon NR holders and half marathon NR holders, and more. Kosgei will face a solid list of proven winners, including last year's Amsterdam winner Angela Tanui (Kenya), 2019 Berlin winner Ashete Bekere (Ethiopia), 2021 Milan winner Hiwot Gebrekidan (Ethiopia), 2021 Berlin winner Gotytom Gebreslase (Ethiopia), 2020 Marathon Project winner S...

an editorial by Kazuhiro Masuda Nike's recent generations of thick-soled platform racing shoes swept the 2020 Tokyo Marathon , with 28 out of the top 30 placing men wearing them, including international entrants. Of these, 9 including new Japanese national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike) wear wearing the new Air Zoom Alphafly Next% model with a 3.95 cm thick sole complying with new regulations from World Athletics. With 10 Japanese men running under 2:08 in a single race for the first time in history, all 10 were wearing models of the platform shoes. Despite a mix in choice of models, the shoes dominated the market in the race. One after another, thick green, black, pink, and green and orange shoes crossed the finish line in Marunouchi, Tokyo. From winner Birhanu Legese to 30th-place Shuho Dairokuno , 28 men had the Nike shoes on their feet. The other 2 were wearing Adidas and Asics. Wearing the latest model of the Nike shoes for his latest national record, Osako said, ...

Race director Tad Hayano wanted records at the 2020 Tokyo Marathon , and records he got. Despite the withdrawal of almost the entire international women's and men's wheelchair fields, both races saw Japanese athletes solo new course records.  Tsubasa Kina and Tomoki Suzuki  tuned up for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics with new records of records of 1:40:00 and 1:21:52, reaping the rewards of a doubled prize money purse. In the women's marathon, Kenyan-born 2019 Prague Marathon winner Lonah Chemtai Salpeter (Israel) kicked away from a tight pack race at 30 km to win in 2:17:45, a course record and new Israeli national record. With three Japanese men controlling the pace through 30 km the race stayed right on the hot end of the planned 3:17~18/km pace up to that point, burning off competitors including defending champion Ruti Aga (Ethiopia) and Frankfurt Marathon winner Valary Jemeli Aiyabei (Kenya) one by one until it was only Salpeter, two-time Tokyo winner Birhane Diba...

Having already eliminated its mass-participation field and over 90% of its staff and volunteers in a pre-emptive bid to stay ahead of the coronavirus situation, with just a couple of days to go the JAAF confirmed that Sunday's Tokyo Marathon would be a go. 24 hours later race director Tad Hayano kicked off the elite race press conference by talking about the difficult position the event is in but expressing optimism about the different races encapsulated in Sunday's marathon. They'll all be broadcast live in 117 countries around the world. A few words on each of them: Women's Wheelchair This was hit hardest by withdrawals, with seven of the ten women scheduled to compete pulling out including top three-ranked women Manuela Schar (Switzerland), Tatyana McFadden (U.S.A.) and Susannah Scaroni (U.S.A.). That leaves #4-ranked Tsubasa Kina (Japan) in the top spot and ready to take advantage of the wheelchair division prize money being doubled this year with addi...

Ethiopia is pretty far down the road to overtaking Kenya as the world's leading marathon nation, and its presence is heavy in both the women's and men's fields for the Olympic year 2020 Tokyo Marathon . Lacking London's star power the Tokyo fields won't win many nominations for best of 2020, but with loads of World Marathon Majors top three finishers and winners of next-tier gold label marathons they're still fields at a level most other races would love to be able to pull off. On the women's side, with PBs of 2:18:34 and 2:18:46 defending champ Ruti Aga and past winner Birhane Dibaba lead a main of twelve top-tier invited elites, of which nine were born in Ethiopia. The other three, Valary Jemeli Aiyabei , nationality transfer Lonah Chemtai Salpeter , and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , were all born in Kenya. With Tokyo not counting in last-chance Olympic qualification for Japanese women the top entrant from outside those two countries is Japan's Haru...

Headwinds in the last 6.5 km and cold rain throughout kept the really fast times from happening as scheduled, but the 2019 Tokyo Marathon  still brought plenty of surprises. #1-ranked Birhanu Legese (Ethiopia) winning the men's race wasn't one of them. The lead pack blasted most of the first half sub-2:04 pace, only breaking up after rounding the 20 km turnaround. Early casualties included last year's 4th-place Gideon Kipketer (Kenya) and Asian record holder El Hassan El Abbassi (Bahrain), but just after the turnaround national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) and 2018 Berlin Marathon 4th-placer Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) dropped back, Osako stopping shortly thereafter. The remaining six split into two trios. In the front group, defending champ Dickson Chumba (Kenya) fell back from Legese and Bedan Karoki (Kenya/DeNA) approaching 30 km before Legese took off after the final pacer said goodbye. On the way down to the 35.8 km turnaround Legese'...

The 2019 Tokyo Marathon is this Sunday. Storylines and subplots of this year’s race: The Women The Tokyo Marathon has its roots as an elite men-only race. It’s taken twelve years since 18-year-old Hitomi Niiya became its first female winner, for no prize money or recognition (“I got a nice finisher’s medal” she told JRN last week), for the Tokyo women’s race to get up to parity with the men’s. It’s been a slow, step-by-step process, but this year at last parity has been achieved. If anything the women’s field is better than the men’s. Even before the withdrawal of the top two men there were more high-level international women in the field than men, and that’s even more so now. Ethiopian power trio Ruti Aga , Boru Feyse Tadese and Yebrgual Melese all have the skills to better Sarah Chepchirchir ’s 2:19:47 course record and its likely replacement, last year’s 2:19:51 win by Birhane Dibaba , Aga talking 2:18:30 at the pre-race press conference. But with six other women in the f...

Hot on the heels of the London Marathon field announcement, the Tokyo Marathon has put its 2019 elite field into the public sphere. With a new date a week later on March 3rd thanks to the impending Imperial succession Tokyo has at last put together a proper elite women's field at parity with the men's field, one including top-level Japanese women for the first time. Change is slow to come, but with this field it looks like it has arrived. 2:18:34 for 2nd in Berlin last year, Ethiopian Ruti Aga leads 14 women with times 2:23 or better in the last 3 years. Half are Ethiopian, two Kenyan, two Bahraini and three Japanese, with two high-level first-timers, Kenya's Joan Chelimo Melly and Japan's Mao Ichiyama , tacked on. #2 through #4-ranked women Boru Feyse Tadese , Yebrgual Melese and Ababel Yeshaneh all ran 2:19 to 2:20 last year, making the chances of an Ethiopian sweep definitely greater than zero. The structure of Japanese national team selection and marketin...