japan running news

Australians Isobel Batt-Doyle and Haftu Strintzos turned in record-breaking performances to win the McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania. Running with a private male pacer, NR holder Batt-Doyle dusted the field with the fastest half marathon ever by an Australian woman on Australian soil, a 1:08:46 CR that put her 2 and a half minutes ahead of runner-up Genevieve Gregson . Last year's runner-up Yumi Yoshikawa was almost a minute back from Gregson in 3rd in 1:12:03, but was almost run down by club runner Ayaka Shimoyamada . Starting slow in her international debut, Shimoyamada moved up from 7th over the 2nd half of the race to finish 4th in 1:12:06, kicking hard in the home straight to try to catch Yoshikawa and momentarily blacking out after finishing. Kaho Onishi was 7th in 1:12:45 in her own international debut. The men's half had pacing set at 2:53/km to try to deliver the first-ever sub-61 half marathon on Australian soil. CR holde...

Last year's McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania, Australia shaped out into a great Australia vs. Japan dual meet , with Jessica Stenson outrunning Yumi Yoshikawa to take the women's title in a 1:09:51 CR, and Teikyo University school record holder Teruki Shimada executing a tactically brilliant race to drop Isaac Heyne , then-NR holder Brett Robinson , and Teikyo teammate Jinya Ozaki for the win in 1:01:12, just a second off the Australian all-comers record. Marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan took that record down to 1:01:08 at the Gold Coast Half a month later, but its chances of surviving this weekend aren't looking good. Shimada leads last year's top 4 back to Launceston this year, and there's a lot of tough new competition. 2025 National Corporate Half winner Tsubasa Ichiyama , Australia's Haftu Strintzos , new Teikyo record holder Yuta Asakawa and American Ethan Shuley have all run faster that Buchanan's rec...

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...

With great conditions at what organizers billed as the highest-label half marathon in the southern hemisphere, the only half marathon in the south with a World Athletics Elite Label or better, Japan's Teruki Shimada and Australian Commonwealth Games champ Jessica Stenson broke the men's and women's course records at the McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon Sunday in Tasmania. The men's race start list read like a rematch of February's Marugame Half Marathon, with most of the 10 fastest men in the race having run there. On the Australian side was an interesting lineup of marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan , half marathon NR holder Brett Robinson , and road 10 km NR holder Sam Clifford , with Teikyo University duo Shimada and Jinya Ozaki and Rikkyo University pair Kento Baba and Hiroto Kuniyasu leading the Japanese contingent in their collective international debuts. Baba, who ran 1:00:26 to finish 2 seconds ahead of Buchanan, was taske...

https://www.launcestonrunningfestival.com.au/news/world-class-runners-to-chase-records-and-50-000-prize-pool-on-june-1 Entry list highlights with PBs: Men Brett Robinson (Australia) - 59:57 Tsubasa Ichiyama (Japan/Sunbelx) - 1:00:22 Kento Baba (Japan/Rikkyo Univ.) - 1:00:26 Andy Buchanan (Australia) - 1:00:28 Teruki Shimada (Japan/Teikyo Univ.) - 1:00:56 Hiroto Kuniyasu (Japan/Rikkyo Univ.) - 1:01:30 Ryuichi Yoshioka - (Japan/Honda Tochigi) - 1:01:38 Jinya Ozaki (Japan/Teikyo Univ.) - 1:00:42 Kento Otsu (Japan/Chuo Hatsujo) - 1:01:43 Ed Goddard (Australia) - 1:02:01 Joel Tobin-White (Australia) - 1:02:03 Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/Shin Nihon Jusetsu) - 1:02:10 Liam Adams (Australia) - 1:02:15 Isaac Heyne (Australia) - 1:02:27 Liam Boudin (Australia) - 1:02:32 Ryan Gregson (Australia) - 1:03:00 Women Leanne Pompeani (Australia) - 1:09:01 Jess Stenson (Australia) - 1:09:04 Yumi Yoshikawa (Japan) - 1:09:32 Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh (Mongolia) - 1:10:32 Milly Clark (Australia) - 1:10:48 Sa...

With less than 4 weeks to go the organizers of the Dec. 3 Fukuoka International Marathon have announced this year's elite field. And here it is. The field is set up to try to help top Japanese man Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima), who fell and dropped out during last month's Olympic marathon trials, to 2:05:50, where he'll take the third spot on the Paris Olympic team away from trials 3rd-placer Suguru Osako (GMO). Hosoya ran 2:06:35 in the Miracle at Lake Biwa in 2021, but although he's been pretty stable since then he hasn't been able to get under 2:08 again. Abebe Negewo Degefa (Ethiopia) is the only athlete in the field to have gone under 2:05:50 in the last 3 years, with Kenyans Bethwel Yegon and Abel Kirui , 5th last year at age 40, both at the 2:06 level. Beyond that it looks like a solid 2:07 race with 6 men including last year's 2nd through 4th-placers Vincent Raimoi (Suzuki), Michael Githae (Suzuki) and Australian NR breaker Brett Robinson . An in...

American women now own the course records at both Australia's ASICS Half Marathon and Gold Coast Marathon. With expert pacing from local great Ben St. Lawrence , former U.S. marathon NR holder Keira D'Amato negative split a 1:06:39 national record and Australian all-comers record to win the women's race in the half marathon Saturday. With a group of sub-elite men in town St. Lawrence took D'Amato through the first two 5 km splits in 15:52 and 15:55, just off pace for the 1:06:52 NR with a 1:07:03 projection. From there they incremented ever so slightly faster, with 15:49 and 15:45 splits to put D'Amato at 20 km in 1:03:22 and a 1:06:51 projected finish time. Just holding what she had would have put her under the record, but D'Amato went hard over the last 1.0975 km, covering it in 3:17, or 2:59/km pace. And with that, she had a new NR and the fastest-ever time by a woman on Australian soil to her name. "The crowd support was great," she said post-rac...

Australia's ASICS Half Marathon and Gold Coast Marathon are almost always big draws for elite-level Japanese runners, offering up better weather than to be found domestically this time of year, a faster course, and international racing experience without the jet lag. Saturday's half marathon has four Japanese women and three Japanese men on the entry list, plus a lot of familiar home-grown faces. Former U.S.A. marathon national record holder Keira D'Amato is the top name in the women's race with a best of 1:07:55. Australians Ellie Pashley and Isobel Batt-Doyle are regulars in Japan, Batt-Doyle having set her 1:09:27 PB at Marugame this year and Pashley having run her marathon best in Nagoya in 2019. D'Amato said at the pre-race press conference that she hopes to take a shot at the American record of 1:06:52, and Batt-Doyle said she would be giving it a PB effort. One step down from them in the 1:10-1:11 range are four Japanese women, Kaede Kawamura , Chiharu Ik...

https://goldcoastmarathon.com.au/2023/06/14/2023-asics-half-marathon-elite-field-reveal/

Like you'd expect, marathons and ekidens were the main stories of 2022 on JRN. But 2 of the 3 most-read this year were about track 10000 m, one that speaks to another area of the incredible depth here, and another that organizers would probably like to forget about. This was 2022 as JRN readers saw it. Thanks for reading, and please consider subscribing in 2023 . 1. Aoyama Gakuin Breaks Own Course Record for Sixth Hakone Ekiden Win in Eight Years - Jan. 2-3 After opening a lead of almost a kilometer on the first day of Japan's biggest race , Aoyama Gakuin University turned that into a margin of over 3 km to win the 98th Hakone Ekiden in course record time. 3 of the 10 stages saw new course records , with incredible depth on almost every one of them. Preview . 2. JAAF and NHK Apologize for Camera Crew Interfering With Men's 10000 m National Championships - May 9 After an oblivious camera crew walked onto the track as the race was still happening, clotheslining Shinji Mita...

Japan had not one but two top-level men's marathons happening at the same time today. Conditions were a little too windy at the rescendent Fukuoka International Marathon to produce the kind of times organizers were hoping for, but there was still a great race up front. Almost dead-even on 3:00/km pace the entire way despite a building headwind from around 11 km to 18 km and again from 25 km to 32 km, and a strong tailwind from 32 km to the track finish, by 35 km a lead pack of 30 dwindled down to just 2021 winner Michael Githae (Suzuki), debuting teammate Vincent Raimoi (Suzuki), 40-year-old double world champ Abel Kirui (Kenya) and Ethiopian Israeli Maru Teferi . Teferi didn't really break it apart as much as he held steadier than everyone else. From 30 to 35 km he clocked 15:01 and from 35 to 40 km 14:59, while the other three slowed to the 15:17~15:23 range on the way to 40 km. Teferi kept that pace all the way to the end, winning in a PB 2:06:43 that broke his own Israe...

As Australia's Village Roadshow Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon returned for the first time since 2019, Lindsay Flanagan became its first American winner female or male, taking 6 seconds off the course record and over 2 minutes off her PB to take 1st in 2:24:43. Accompanied by dedicated male pacers and a large group of men in a race that never saw a lead women's group congeal, Flanagan went through halfway in 1:11:59 and then sped up even further, clocking her two fastest 5 km splits of the race, 16:52 and 16:47, from 20 to 25 km and 25 to 30 km. The effects of that came down on her after 30 km as she slowed beyond 3:30/km, but with a rally over the last km she held on to crack Ruth Chebitok 's 2018 CR of 2:24:49. Post-race Flanagan and her coach, Australian NR and Oceania AR holder Benita Johnson , were elated, having just met each other in person a few days before the race after a year of online coaching. Like Flanagan, 2nd-placer and local favorite Lisa Weightman , the...

Australia's Village Road Show Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon is set to return next weekend for its first full-on in-person edition since 2019. The elite fields for its half marathon and marathon division are smaller than usual but full of top domestic talent with some international support from the U.S.A., Japan, and elsewhere. A familiar face in Japan, Eloise Wellings leads the women's half marathon, her PB of 1:09:29 set at the Marugame Half in 2016. Earlier this year she ran a marathon best of 2:25:10 in Nagoya and 1:10:42 for 4th at the Gifu Seiryu Half, setting up a good head-to-head race with Jessica Stenson , 2:25:15 in Perth last fall and with a 1:10:59 best in Marugame in 2018. Brett Robinson leads the men's half marathon with a 59:57 NR for the win in Marugame in 2020. Tim Vincent is his strongest competition on paper with a 1:01:43 on the aided Rome-Ostia Half course earlier this year, but Joel Tobin-White , 1:02:03 in Marugame 2019, Commonwealth Games-boun...

At least six runners broke five national records at today's fast and deep Marugame Half Marathon . The ambitious Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) kicked off the women's race by taking a swing at the 1:06:38 Japanese women's national record set two weeks ago in Houston by Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku), with Namibian national record holder Helalia Johannes close behind. Ichiyama dropped off after the turnaround near 10 km, leaving Johannes to run on alone to a new record of 1:08:10, 2:20 under the record she set just last April. Ichiyama faded to 5th in 1:08:56, run down by 2019 Sanyo Ladies Half winner Charlotte Purdue , South Korean Kyun Sun Choi , and Australian Sinead Diver on the return trip. Purdue took 2nd in 1:08:23, with Choi close behind in a national record 1:08:35 for 3rd over Diver, 2:39 off the 2009-era South Korean record. Succeeding where Ichyama fell short, Andrea Seccafien took 3 seconds off the Canadian national record set in Houston by Natasha Wodak , fini...

by Brett Larner Up against a relatively anonymous team fielded by course record holder and three-time defending champion Kenya , the Japan team fought hard over the final two of the day's six stages to come up with its first International Chiba Ekiden win since 2009, covering the 42.195 km course in 2:05:53 for the win with an all-star team of three men and three women.  But it was anything but a one-dimensional race, at least half a dozen countries bringing top-quality teams that made for an exciting race of turnover the entire way. #1-ranked collegiate runner Kenta Murayama led off for Japan but fell behind the talented front pack midway and finished only 6th on the 5 km First Stage.  Jake Robertson (New Zealand) did most of the work against Lucas Bruchet (Canada), Tadashi Isshiki (Japan Univ.) Florian Orth (Germany), Egor Nikolaev (Russia), Tyler Pennel (U.S.A.) and Brett Robinson (Australia), all staying side by side through most of the stage before Robinson k...