japan running news

Pre-Rio de Janeiro Olympics edition of the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships.

Snow and cold impacted road races across Japan over the weekend, but at the top level almost every event went off as planned. In his marathon debut, Shota Yamazaki (Yakult) downed two-time defending champ Ryoichi Matsuo and debuting training partner Takumi Honda of the locally-based New Year Ekiden national champion Asahi Kasei corporate team to take the top spot at the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon in a three-way sprint finish. Shaking off first-timer Keisuke Tanaka (Fujitsu) late in the race, Yamazaki did all the work in the lead trio with the Asahi Kasei duo hanging off both of his shoulders. Hitting a bridge with 750 m to go Honda surged into the lead with Matsuo following. Yamazaki fell back, looking behind him with 500 m to go and seeming to have settled for 3rd. At 400 m to go Matsuo went to the front and looked to be on track to become only the second man to win Nobeoka three times, but as the pair rounded the final corner Yamazaki came back with a kick that left both...

On Jan. 23 the JFE Steel men's corporate team announced the hiring of former Kanebo head coach Kumimitsu Ito , 63, as its new head coach effective Feb. 1. During his days as an athlete Ito was named to the 1980 Moscow Olympic team prior to Japan's boycott of the Games. At the 1986 Beijing Marathon he ran 2:07:57 for 2nd, breaking the then-national record along with winner Taisuke Kodama . As a coach he led Toshinari Takaoka to set the current Japanese national record of 2:06:16 in the marathon. Takaoka later succeeded him as head coach at Kanebo. JFE Steel's roster features 12 athletes including Kenyan Charles Ndirangu , a graduate of Sera H.S. , and Yudai Okamoto , an Okayama Kogyo H.S. and   Chuo Gakuin University graduate. This season the team failed to qualify for the New Year Ekiden national championships for the first time in 42 years. Hired as head coach in 2014, Takashi Matsuyama , 44, will step down from his position on Jan. 31. source article:   http://w...

The Fukuoka International Marathon has released the elite field for its 71st running on Dec. 3. For the home ground men it's the first main chance to hit the tough qualifying standards for Japan's new 2020 Olympic Trials race , the MGC Race scheduled for late 2019. Rio Olympian Satoru Sasaki (Asahi Kasei) tops the domestic list at 2:08:56, with  Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) and Sasaki's teammates Takuya Fukatsu and Fumihiro Maruyama (both Asahi Kasei) close behind with recent 2:09 times. Expectations are high for Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project), 3rd in Boston this year in 2:10:28 in his marathon debut, and at least as high for two prominent Japanese first-timers, former Hakone Ekiden uphill Fifth Stage superstar Daichi Kamino (Konica Minolta) and Keita Shitara (Hitachi Butsuryu), twin brother of half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda). Last year's winner Yemane Tsegay (Ethiopia) returns off a DNF at August's London World...

by Brett Larner Cooler than usual temperatures meant a return to faster times at Sunday's Sendai International Half Marathon , where former Sera H.S. star Charles Ndirangu (Team JFE Steel) led the top six under last year's winning time to take the top spot for the first time in 1:01:44. Ritsumeikan University grad Hanae Tanaka (Team Daiichi Seimei) got her own first-time Sendai title, winning in 1:11:07. A world record-pace 2:46 opening km shook off most of the Japanese competition, quickly leaving the Kenyan quartet of Ndirangu, Paul Kuira (Team Konica Minolta), Muthoni Muiru (Soka Univ.) and Joseph Onsarigo (Team Nasu Kensetsu) up front tailed by newlywed Takuya Noguchi (Team Konica Minolta). In the chase pack, defending champ Masato Imai (Team Toyota Kyushu) and two members of Japan's London World Championships marathon squad, Kentaro Nakamoto (Team Yasukawa Denki) and Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't). Noguchi and Onsarigo were off the leaders near...

by Brett Larner The four-ring circus surrounding selection for the Japanese men's London World Championships marathon team pitches its final tent this Sunday at the 72nd edition of the  Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon .  Coming fresh in the wake of last weekend's record-breaking Tokyo Marathon Lake Biwa may seem like a lesser afterthought, but for certain Japanese men and for the fans it's everything. Up front there's a quality international field led by 2015 Beijing World Championships bronze medalist Munyo Solomon Mutai (Uganda), 2015 Tokyo Marathon winner  Endeshaw Negesse  (Ethiopia), 2015 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon winner  Tewelde Estifanos  (Eritrea), 2014~15 Madrid Marathon winner  Ezekiel Kiptoo Chebii  (Kenya), 2013 Lake Biwa winner and Daegu World Champs silver medalist  Vincent Kipruto  (Kenya), and, in his debut, Japan-based Charles Ndirangu (Kenya/Team JFE Steel), the former successor to Bedan Karoki as the king of Hir...

by Brett Larner The Mar. 5 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon , Biwako for short, is the last of the four races used to choose the three members of the Japanese men's marathon team for August's London World Championships.  Two of the three members of last summer's Rio de Janeiro Olympic team top the list of Japanese men in the race, Satoru Sasaki (Team Asahi Kasei) with a 2:08:56 in Fukuoka 2015 and Suehiro Ishikawa (Team Honda) with 2:09:25 last year at Lake Biwa. The pair are the only Japanese athletes in the field with recent sub-2:10 times, a few steps ahead of six 2:10-11 men including the high-potential Tadashi Isshiki (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) and Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota).  Four others led by 2014 Asian Games silver medalist Kohei Matsumura (Team MHPS) have broken 2:10 in the past but would need a solid comeback to factor.  With the possible exception of Matsumura one of the five debuting sub-63 half marathoners may be more likely to end up in the front-end acti...

by Brett Larner This time of year there are multiple high-level races in Japan every weekend, this one being no exception.  Sunday's Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon is one of the main developmental races for Japanese men, the place where future Olympic marathoners including  Hisanori Kitajima , Kentaro Nakamoto , Shinji Kawajima and Shigeru Soh  made their marathon debuts. Last year's winner Ryoichi Matsuo (Team Asahi Kasei) returns to face debuting 1:01:25 half marathoner Shota Hattori (Team Honda) and teammates Kenta Matsumoto and Kenta Matsubara (Team Toyota), training partners of Minato Oishi whose successful debut at last Sunday's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon saw him land 4th in 2:10:39. In parallel to Nobeoka, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) will run his first marathon of 2017 at the Ehime Marathon .  Kawauchi's goal is to run 2:13, three minutes under the current Ehime course record.  His main competition is Waseda University fourth-year ...

by Brett Larner Although many events in Kyushu were cancelled as a series of major earthquakes and aftershocks hit the Kumamoto and Oita areas, track season went ahead as usual in the rest of Japan despite high winds and rain that kept times relatively slow.  Some highlights at home and abroad: Former Sera H.S. ace Charles Ndirangu (Team JFE Steel) delivered the fastest 5000 m of the weekend, running 13:40.34 to win the Chugoku Corporate Time Trials meet's fastest heat.  High schooler Joel Mwaura (Kurashiki H.S.) was the only other runner under 14 minutes, running 13:48.20 for 2nd. The lone entrant in the women's 5000 m at the Chugoku meet, Sera's Yuka Mukai ran a solo 15:58.62. Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) was the only Japanese man to break 14 over the weekend, winning Friday's Oregon Relays 5000 m in 13:45.39. Masaru Aoki (Team Kanebo) narrowly missed joining him, running 14:00.47 to win the Challenge Meet in Kumagaya 5000 m A-heat. 17-year-old Hyug...

by Brett Larner video by toyosina2008 Outdoor track season got moving early with two big meets on April 2nd. At the Setagaya Time Trials meet in Tokyo's Kinuta Park, 17-year-old Hyuga Endo (Gakuho Ishikawa H.S.) kicked hard over the last lap to outrun three members of 2016 Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University , all of whom ran PBs, and all other competition and go under 13:50 for 5000 m for the first time.  A day after the start of his senior year of high school Endo won the fastest 5000 m heat in 13:48.13, moving up from #9 to #7 on the all-time Japanese high school lists .  AGU's Kazuki Tamura and Yuki Nakamura took 2nd and 3rd in PBs of 13:50.43 and 13:52.29, with Hakone Sixth Stage winner Yuji Onoda joining them under 14 for the first time in 13:56.87.  One other high schooler, Ryunosuke Omori (Sano Nittai Prep H.S.) scored his first sub-14, running 13:54.25 for 5th just behind Kenyan Silas Kingori (Team SGH Group).  Kenyan Rosemary Monica W...

by Brett Larner Strong winds made for tough conditions and slow times at most of the weekend's main races.  The newly-formatted X-Run Chiba , a retooling of the longstanding Chiba International Cross-Country Meet, saw Yusuke Nishiyama (Komazawa Univ.) emerge on top of the day's longest race, the university men's 12 km.  Nishiyama outkicked Kenta Ueda , son of Yamanashi Gakuin University head coach Masahito Ueda , by 5 seconds to take the win in 37:48.  Maki Izumida (Rikkyo Univ.) had an even closer win in the university women's 6 km, running 20:54 to beat Ai Hosoda (Nittai Univ.) by just 3 seconds.  Rodgers Chumo Kwemoi (Kenya/Team Aisan Kogyo) won the men's 8 km by nearly a minute in 25:05, Yuki Kanehira (Team Sysmex) joining him at the top of the women's 8 km podium in 29:04.  With the junior high school races now serving as the National Junior High School Cross-Country Championships Maebashi Fujimi J.H.S. easily dominated, taking both the boys' and...

by Brett Larner The National Corporate Half Marathon Championships are Japan's premier half, producing more quality times over its 43-year history than any other half marathon worldwide.  This year's 44th running on Feb. 14 counts as the final men's and women's selection race for the 2016 World Half Marathon Championships team and has fields as good as ever lined up.  The men's field includes last year's course record-breaking top two Charles Ndirangu (Team JFE Steel) and Macharia Ndirangu (Team Aichi Seiko), 2014 3rd-placer Sota Hoshi (Team Fujitsu), 2013 runner-up Johana Maina (Team Fujitsu) and 2012 winner Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota), along with Rio Olympics marathon team contender Satoru Sasaki (Team Asahi Kasei) and fellow 2:08 marathoners Kentaro Nakamoto (Team Yasukawa Denki) and Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Team NTN). The women's field is split between the half marathon and 10 km distances again this year, making for two smaller but equally comp...

by Brett Larner Championship ekiden season has come and gone, but Sunday saw high-level action at two popular and long-running ekidens at opposite ends of Japan.  In western Japan, course record-setting 2015 National High School Ekiden champion Sera H.S. of Hiroshima definitively took the win at the 79th Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden , beating Mazda , Chugoku Denryoku , JFE Steel , Chudenko and other corporate team competition with ease.  Sera third-year Paul Kamais opened a lead of over two minutes with a course record 42:04 for the 15.1 km First Stage, and from there Sera never lost the top position.  Mazda came the closest, closing to within 3 seconds by the end of the Fourth Stage, but a Fifth Stage win by Sera's Taiju Nakashima put them back out front with a margin that Sera's remaining two runners held onto until the end.  Sera covered the seven-stage, 84.4 km course in 4:07:29, the best-ever by a high school team, with Mazda ending up nearly two minutes back ...

A quick summary of this weekend's major action.  Click any for detailed results and coverage. Suguru Osako (Team Nissin Shokuhin) set a 13:28.00 indoor 5000 m national record at the Millrose Games in New York. Charles Ndirangu (Kenya/Team JFE Steel) ran a 1:00:18 debut to break the National Corporate Half Marathon course record.  Masato Kikuchi (Team Konica Minolta) tied the 20 km Japanese national record of 57:24 but missed the half marathon NR by 7 seconds as he took 3rd in 1:00:32.  Michi Numata (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) won the women's half marathon in 1:09:27, while Yuika Mori (Team Yamada Denki) won the 10 km in a course record 32:26. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) ran 2:15:06 to win the Kochi Ryoma Marathon a week after running 2:15:16 in Nobeoka, his first time tackling back-to-back marathons.  Kawauchi set new world records with 35 career sub-2:16 marathons and 37 sub-2:17s. Collegiates Shin Kimura (Meiji Univ.) and Saori Noda (Osaka Gaku...

by Brett Larner A week after winning a muddy Chiba XC, Charles Ndirangu (Kenya/Team JFE Steel) was back for his half marathon debut at the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships.  The successor to 2015 Kenyan national XC champion Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC) at Hiroshima's Sera H.S. , Ndirangu sat near the rear of the lead pack through a relatively conservative 14:29 opening split on the 30 m uphill first 5 km.  As the downhill started Masato Kikuchi (Team Konica Minolta), the top non-African at last year's World Half Marathon Championships who ran an all-time Japanese #5 1:00:57 two weeks ago in Marugame, began to push the pace, covering the next 5 km in 14:19.  Ndirangu temporarily lost contact with the lead group in Kikuchi's wake but came back in a hurry, surging at 11 km to go to the front and break up the pack. Initially only Kikuchi and his teammate Keita Shitara (Team Konica Minolta), who likewise ran a PB 1:01:20 in Marugame two weeks ago, followed, but...

http://www.iaaf.org/news/report/ndirangu-buckman-chiba-cross-country 1:02:03 half-marathoner Takashi Ichida (Daito Bunka Univ.) was among the many who enjoyed running today's Chiba International Cross-Country Meet. 多分この写真が、三度目のヘッドスライディング。ﾐ(o_ _)o こんな天候でのレースも、大切ですね。 写真撮ってくださった方、ありがとうございます😂✋ pic.twitter.com/ohlt4SgiMx — 市田 孝 (@TAKA_supra) February 8, 2015 Also noteworthy but not included in the above IAAF article was that Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu , the younger sister of 2014 World Youth Olympics 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Musembi Takamatsu , won the junior high school girls' 3 km race with an outstanding last kick to overtake two competitors in the home straight.

by Brett Larner Despite weeks of heavy rains that brought fatal landslides across the Hiroshima region, the 2014 Hiroshima Cross-Country Meet went ahead as planned under relatively good conditions.  Charles Ndirangu (Team JFE Steel), a graduate of the local Sera H.S. ekiden program that previously produced the likes of sub-27 man Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC) and 2012 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Joseph Gitau (Team JFE Steel), had an easy time adding a win to his resume, finishing more than 30 seconds up on the rest of the men's 8 km field in 24:24.  Little-known Shogo Kanezane (Team Chugoku Denryoku) outran the rest of the Japanese field for 2nd, at 24:55 the only Japanese man to go under 25 minutes. His teammate Kaido Kita filled out the podium in 25:01.  The top man from the third corporate team at the meet, Chudenko's Naoya Hashimoto , was 6th in 25:16 in the midst of the chase pack's blanket finish. 2014 Hiroshima XC Meet Men's 8 km Hiroshima, 8/23/14 ...

by Brett Larner Alongside Bedan Karoki 's Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon course record , Murayama twins Kenta and Kota 's Kanto Regional University Championships 10000 m double victory and Yoshihide Kiryu 's 10.05 national university record , four of the six regional corporate leagues held their track and field championships over the weekend.  Moscow World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) fronted the corporate regionals' best race with a world-leading 27:16.75 to win the Kyushu region  men's 10000 m over the Koichi Morishita -coached Kenyan Jeremiah Karemi  (Team Toyota Kyushu), 2nd in 27:41.81, and Ethiopian Melaku Abera  (Team Kurosaki Harima), 3rd in 27:42.35. Four of the eight Japanese men to have run sub-2:10 marathons so far this year were also in the race,  Masato Imai  (Team Toyota Kyushu), 2nd in 2:09:30 at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, topping the group 5th overall in 28:34.75.   Kohei Matsu...

by Brett Larner videoes by Ekiden News 2014 World Half Marathon Championships bronze medalist Sally Chepyego Kaptich  (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) returned to competition this weekend, dominating the women's Grand Prix 10000 m with a world-leading 31:28.07 just a few seconds off her best at the 62nd edition of the Hyogo Relay Carnival in Kobe. Ayumi Hagiwara (Team Uniqlo), one of the big hopes for the next generation of Japanese women, was next across the line in 31:50.85 just ahead of collegiate road 10 km national record holder Kasumi Nishihara  (Team Yamada Denki) who cleared 32 for the first time in 31:53.69.  2014 Marugame Half Marathon winner Eri Makikawa  (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) just missed making it four under the 32 minute mark, running a sizable PB of 32:00.25 for 4th.  19-year-old half marathon junior national record holder Reia Iwade  (Team Noritz) cleared her goal of a sub-32:30 debut, running 32:24.38 for 8th. Newcomer William Malel Sitonek ...

by Brett Larner National championship ekiden season may be through, but across the country smaller regional and local ekidens continue.  Biggest among the dozen or so noteworthy ekidens this weekend was the 77th running of the Chugoku Yamaguchi Ekiden .  A moderate-length event at 7 stages and 84.4 km, Chugoku Yamaguchi featured six top corporate league teams from the central Japan region along with local universities and clubs.  Despite a one-two punch of 2012 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Joseph Gitau  (Kenya) and former Sera H.S. star Charles Ndirangu  (Kenya) the JFE Steel  team could not hold off rivals Mazda , the lead turning over twice during the course of the race before Mazda anchor Kenji Yamamoto , a member of Toyo University 's 2012 Hakone Ekiden course record-setting team, ran down JFE Steel's Yuki Moriwaki  to give Mazda the win by 20 seconds in 4:08:54.   Chugoku Denryoku , the top-ranked team in the region after finishi...