japan running news

The Japanese fiscal and academic years run April through March, so most changes to teams' lineups happen then. With changes to regulations over team transfers after a national government investigation of potential anti-trust violations by the National Corporate Federation there's no shortage of transfers between teams. A quick look at some of the changes to the top corporate teams this year: Women Shiseido retiring  - Naruha Sato, 25 - 10000 m 31:52.43  transfer out - Wakana Kabasawa, 24 - 5000 m 15:24.79 Sekisui Kagaku new recruit  - Yuma Yamamoto, 22 - 3000 m 8:52.19, 5000 m 15:16.71 new recruit  - Akari Matsumoto, 18 - 3000 m 9:11.96 new recruit  - Yuna Arai, 22 - 10000 m 32:11.08 Japan Post new recruit  - Kokone Sugimori, 18 - 3000 m 9:10.01, 5000 m 15:34.54 new recruit  - Kae Gyu, 22 - 3000 m 9:14.29 Edion new recruit  - Kana Mizumoto, 18 - 3000 m 9:05.03 Daihatsu new recruit  - Aiko Hosoya, 18 - 3000 m 9:13.09 new recruit  - ...

2:08:45 marathoner Chihiro Miyawaki , 31, tweeted on Feb. 19 that if he doesn't qualify for the Olympic marathon trials at next month's Tokyo Marathon he will quit the Toyota corporate team. "At the Mar. 5 Tokyo Marathon, if I don't make the qualifying bracket for the MGC Race then I will be leaving the Toyota team," he wrote. "I'm not calling it a retirement because I haven't been training for the Tokyo Marathon like it's my retirement race. I'm prepared to be on the starting line at the MGC Race, and I'm not running Tokyo just to put a punctuation mark on my career. I'll be running this race as the culmination of what I've accomplished so far, and I hope that you'll all cheer for me." The official marathon trials for the 2024 Paris Olympic team, the MGC Race is scheduled to take place in Tokyo on Oct. 15. Miyawaki joined Toyota after graduating from Chukyo H.S. In 2011 he ran his PB of 27:41.57 for 10000 m, at the tim...

Things are in kind of a strange situation this December when it comes to Japanese marathons. When the Fukuoka International Marathon announced it was shutting down after last year's 75th race the Hofu Yomiuri Marathon two weeks later was quick to move to Fukuoka's traditional first-Sunday-of-December date for 2022. When the announcement came of Fukuoka's return it was like a game of musical chairs, with both races trying to cram into the same day. As a result you've got a pretty serious split when it comes to domestic entries. Fukuoka has its traditional small international field to justify its name, veteran Abel Kirui (Kenya) facing off against a trio of 2:06 men, past winners Yemane Tsegaye (Ethiopia) and Michael Githae (Kenya/Suzuki), Marugame Half winner Brett Robinson (Australia), the debuting sub-60 half marathoner Vincent Raimoi (Kenya/Suzuki) and more. The domestic field has three men at 2:08 and six at 2:09, Daiji Kawai (Toenec) leading the way with a ...

Chihiro Miyawaki age: 28 sponsor: Toyota graduated from: Chukyo H.S. best time inside MGC window: 2:08:45, 8th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon PB: 2:08:45, 8th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 13:35.74 (2011) 10000 m: 27:41.57 (2012) half marathon: 1:00:53 (2012) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) 8th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon, 2:08:45 – PB 11th, 2017 Chicago Marathon, 2:13:32 other major results: 12th, 2019 Hakodate Half Marathon, 1:03:31 25th, 2017 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:16:51 11th, 2015 National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, 1:02:18 15th, 2014 Tokyo Marathon, 2:11:50 3rd, 2013 Kumanichi 30 km, 1:29:51 – PB 4th, 2012 National Corporate Championships 10000 m, 27:41.57 – PB tie 1st, National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, 1:00:53 – PB 3rd, 2011 Hachioji Long Distance Meet 10000 m A-Heat, 27:41.57 – PB Miyawaki is one of the three men in the field who didn’t go to university. He had the skills to have been one of the top Hako...

The JAAF held a press conference on June 3 to announce the women's and men's fields for Japan's 2020 Olympic marathon trials , the Sept. 15 MGC Race . Following the announcement last week of the Japanese marathon teams for this year's Doha World Championships the complete entry lists for the MGC Race feature just 12 women and 31 men, of whom at least two will score places on the ultra-prestigious home soil marathon teams for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. With Daiji Kawai (Toenec) also named alternate for the Doha team the men's list could shrink to 30 if anyone in the Doha lineup gets injured, and there is a good chance that some people won't make it to the starting line. On the women's side nothing has been seen this year of Hanami Sekine , one of two runners from the Japan Post team to make the entry list, since a lackluster run at December's Corporate Women's Time Trials 10000 m. Mizuki Matsuda , also one of two Daihatsu runners on the list, h...

A Bank of America Chicago Marathon press release The Bank of America Chicago Marathon announced today that reigning Boston Marathon champion and “citizen runner” Yuki Kawauchi and 2016 Olympian and Nike Oregon Project runner Suguru Osako will join the elite competition as they both seek to become the first Chicago Marathon champion from Japan since Toshihiko Seko took the crown in 1986. "I'm really happy to have the chance to race in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon and the Abbott World Marathon Majors," Kawauchi said. "I'm looking forward to running the same race where Toshinari Takaoka set the former national record and so many other great Japanese athletes have run well. My results in the other American Abbott World Marathon Majors races, Boston and New York, were pretty good, and I'll do everything I can to line up in Chicago ready to produce good results there too." “Yuki and Suguru are exciting additions to our elite field,” said ...

This isn't going to be a race recap. Past Tokyo Marathon champs Dickson Chumba of Kenya and Birhane Dibaba of Ethiopia running smart races, working hard after 30 km to each score a second Tokyo title, Dibaba negative splitting her way to a 2:19:51 PB just 4 seconds off the course record and Chumba running away to win in 2:05:30. London World Championships bronze medalist Amy Cragg living up to her pre-race vow to make the top three in PB time, taking 3rd in 2:21:42. Cancer survivor Satoru Kasuya delivering his best performance since almost dying five years ago, an emotional 2:14:37 for 30th. What this is about is today, the day, the one that's been coming. Yuta Shitara getting it right, strong, unafraid, in control when he needed to be, finding what he needed when it counted, breaking the 16-year-old Japanese national record in 2:06:11 and winning a million dollar bonus for it. But not just him. Hiroto Inoue , just as strong, just as in control, never giving up e...

Qualifying action for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships continued Sunday with the combined Chubu and Hokuriku regional ekidens . Running both an A and a B team with only the A team having a chance of going on to race on New Year's Day, Toyota destroyed the field as it took 1st and 3rd overall. After a slow start the A-team's Chihiro Miyawaki broke the course record on the 11.5 km Third Stage, covering it in 32:55 to move into the lead. Toyota A-team runners won the last three of the race's seven stages, winning by more than three minutes over closest competition Aisan Kogyo as they broke the overall course record with a new mark of 4:05:35 for the 83.5 km event. Toyota's B-team finished just 16 seconds behind Aisan Kogyo, showing just how much of a stranglehold Toyota has on the Chubu Region. YKK was the top team from the tiny Hokuriku Region, finishing 9th overall in 4:13:34 but moving on to the New Year Ekiden. In Kyoto, ...

Japanese men lined up at three major overseas races Sunday. At the Netherlands' Eindhoven Marathon, 2:07:39 marathoner Masato Imai (Toyota Kyushu), coached by 1992 Barcelona Olympics marathon silver medalist Koichi Morishita , was ranked 3rd in the field on PB but ran only 2:17:00 for 10th after fading from the lead pack early in the second half. At Boston's B.A.A. Half the race was hurt by the late withdrawal of aggressive sub-61 half marathoner Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) with illness. In his absence Suguru Osako (NOP) and Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu), the latter a former teammate of Murayama's at Komazawa University , sat in the lead pack throughout the race without exerting pressure despite a very slow pace. Two-time defending champ Daniel Salel (Kenya) made it three in a row, easily outkicking Osako to win in 1:04:31, Osako next across the line in 1:04:42 and Nakamura 4th in 1:04:50. Two other Japanese men were non-factors, Ken Yokote (Fujitsu) 7th in 1:05:57 an...

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/World-Record-Holders-Defending-Champs-Among-International-Elites-for-40th-Anniversary-Bank-of-America-Chicago-Marathon-440714673.html

http://www.sendaihalf.com/news/#id218 translated and edited by Brett Larner We regret to announce that special invited athlete Reia Iwade (Team Noritz) has withdrawn from the May 14 Sendai International Half Marathon due to pain in her right ankle. Other notable withdrawals are listed below: Men Daichi Kamino (Konica Minolta) - illness Chihiro Miyawaki (Toyota) - illness Yuichiro Ueno (DeNA) - illness Keita Baba (Honda) - illness Kazuki Yamashita (Komazawa Univ.) - injury Makoto Ozawa (Sekino Kosan) - injury Kazuki Muramatsu (Sumitomo Denko) - other Benjamin Ngandu (Fujitsu) - illness Hiroaki Sano (Honda) - illness Hiroki Miura (Sumitomo Denki) - other Alexander Mutiso (ND Software) - illness Shota Kawano (Heisei Kokusai Univ.) - other Hinata Abe (Heisei Kokusai Univ.) - other Women Reia Iwade (Noritz) - injury Haruna Maekawa (Juhachi Ginko) - injury Miharu Shimokado (Shimamura) - team transfer Kotomi Takayama (Sysmex) - injury

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 click here for women's field listing As strong as its women's field looks, the men's field for the Feb. 5 Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon is something else.  The half marathon is the sweet spot of Japanese training, the distance that the top university men focus on for the Hakone Ekiden and the best corporate men at the New Year Ekiden national championships.  The official half marathon Japanese national record is 1:00:25 by Atsushi Sato at the 2007 World Half Marathon, but it's pretty common to see the top men running that kind of time on the longest half marathonish-length stages at both Hakone and New Year.  If they all got together, focused, and put the same intensity and drive into a serious half marathon the national record would surely fall, and maybe even the hour mark.  This year's Marugame looks like the best chance to date for that to happen. Up front: 59:01 man Kenneth Kipkemoi and once-upon-a-time sub-59 man Atsedu...

by Brett Larner Earlier this year when Oregon-training then-future 3000 m national record holder Suguru Osako (Team Nissin Shokuhin) ran in a U.S. track meet its webcast announcer, talking about Osako's PBs, said in a mocking tone of voice, "Who runs track in November?"  The answer, of course, is just about every elite Japan-based runner. November is full of track time trial meets that coaches use to assess fitness within their rosters ahead of the mid-December to mid-January national championship ekiden season.  One of the biggest happens on Saturday, the Hachioji Long Distance time trials meet in Tokyo's western suburbs featuring seven men's 10000 m heats packed with much of the top talent in the country.  The A-heat features 18 of the best Japan-based Africans paced by sub-27 man Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC), young sub-28 Japanese athletes Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota), Keita Shitara (Team Konica Minolta), Yuta Shitara (Team Honda) and Tetsuya Yoroizaka (T...

http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/event/tokyomarathon/list/CK2014022002000195.html translated and edited by Brett Larner Running from City Hall to Tokyo Big Sight, the Tokyo Marathon takes place on Feb. 23.  A part of the world's ultimate series, the World Marathon Majors, and the biggest marathon in Asia, Tokyo attracts the best from around the world.  Highly anticipated to be the "golden boy" of the buildup to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, 22-year-old Chihiro Miyawaki  (Team Toyota), already all-time Japanese #4 for the half marathon and #7 for 10000 m, will make his marathon debut in Tokyo.  Having gone straight into the jitsugyodan corporate team world after graduating from high school without passing through the Hakone Ekiden he is something of a secret weapon, but on the streets of the Japanese capital he is now ready to throw off the veil. Miyawaki's gentle, meek smile conceals the tenacity of an underdog's soul.  He is a runner with a modern, m...

by Brett Larner Another busy weekend is on the way, with the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon and Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon leading at least five elite road races nationwide. Despite a padding of aging veterans and the withdrawal yesterday of two A-list athletes, Beppu-Oita still sports what may be the best field in its 63-year history, from a domestic standpoint at least as good as what Tokyo has put together this year.  The fastest Japanese marathoner of 2013 with a 2:08:00 in Tokyo and a vocal critic of Beppu-Oita course record holder  Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref. Gov't), Kazuhiro Maeda  (Team Kyudenko) is back in Beppu for the first time since 2011 looking to eclipse the 2:08:15 record Kawauchi set last year.  His best competition comes form Mongolian national record holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir , a high-volume marathoner who beat Kawauchi to win the Hofu Yomiuri Marathon in 2:09:00 seven weeks ago.  If things go well and Bat-Ochir is full...

by Brett Larner With just a month until the race date, the Tokyo Marathon organizers have released the men's and women's entry lists for Tokyo's second edition since working its way into the World Marathon Majors. Compared to the London and Boston fields it is the very model of a minor Major marathon with Kenyans, Ethiopians and even an Eritrean, but though the best have gone elsewhere the depth and quality are there to bring some overseas interest and make this field one of the best Japan has ever seen. Tadesse Tola  (Ethiopia) leads the way among the men with a sub-2:05 best from Dubai last year, tailed closely by two-time world champion Abel Kirui  (Kenya) who returns to Tokyo after a DNF in 2008, Sammy Kitwara (Kenya) and three other men who have broken 2:06 in the last two years.  2011 World Jr. XC champion Geoffrey Kipsang  (Kenya), past Tokyo winners Michael Kipyego (Kenya) and Viktor Rothlin  (Switzerland) and five other internationals make up the ...

by Brett Larner Sunrise over Japan's northeast coast, 1/1/14. Photo by Mika Tokairin. For the second year in a row Konica Minolta came out on top of the corporate men’s circuit, winning the 58th running of the seven-stage, 100 km New Year Ekiden national championships in Maebashi, Gunma by a margin of nearly a minute and a half over last year’s runner-up Toyota Kyushu and by more than three minutes over 2012 national champion and course record holder  Nissin Shokuhin . Things started slowly for Konica Minolta as 5000 m and 30 km national record holder Takayuki Matsumiya , winner of last year’s anchor stage, was only 15th on the 12.3 km opening leg and 17 seconds back from stage winner Tomoya Onishi (Team Asahi Kasei), who led start to finish except for brief challenge late in the stage by Ryo Kiname (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki). Kenyan ringer Paul Kuira craftily moved Konica Minolta up to 3rd behind leaders Edward Waweru (Team NTN) and Leonard Barsoton (Team Nis...