japan running news

The Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon was a strictly amateur race on the women's side, Chika Yokota running a 2:43:45 PB for the win. But with 6 spots at the L.A. Olympics marathon trials on the line all the Japanese men were obsessed over getting their places reserved early. 2 first-half falls knocked Ethiopian Abe Gashahun and 2024 Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon winner Yota Ifuku out of the race, but the rest of the field rolled on steadily just under 3:00/km. The pace crew took them to 30 km in 1:29:45, 2:06:15 pace, and at that point there were still 20 in it including the home soil favorites Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda . Inside the last 10 km Ethiopian Getachew Masresha went to the front, followed initially by the debuting Takato Suzuki but let go by the rest of the pack. Once Masresha was about 10 seconds ahead Kuroda, the collegiate record holder and CR breaker on the Hakone Ekiden's legendary uphill Fifth Stage a month ago, picked it up in pursuit. After Kuroda ran ...

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km....

Japan's mass participation world took another step back toward pre-pandemic normality with at least 30,000 finishers in four big marathons over the long weekend. On Thursday's national holiday, course record holder Tomomi Sawahata added another Gunma Marathon win to her resume in 2:47:13, 10 minutes slower than her CR but enough to better 2nd-placer Mai Arizuka by 1:12. Yuji Shibukawa led the 9,747 finishers with a 2:22:12 win in the men's race. In her first marathon since winning August's Hokkaido Marathon and qualifying for Japan's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials next year, Haruka Yamaguchi broke her own course record at the Chiba Aqualine Marathon with a 2:39:26 for the win, her 3rd-straight win in Chiba Aqualine's four runnings to date. Takashi Mino won the men's race in 2:25:07, with a total of 14,994 people starting the race. Yamaguchi will run next weekend's East Japan Women's Ekiden. The Toyama Marathon had 12,068 finishers, two-tim...

Although the official new coronavirus case count 7-day average for the entire country of Japan has dropped below 200, about 1/5 that of New York City which hosted its marathon this past weekend , marathons as far away as the Mar. 13, 2022 Shizuoka Marathon are still citing pandemic risks and announcing fresh cancelations. Despite that, some of Japan's marathons have bucked the trend of timidity and are bringing large-scale races back. The Oct. 31 Kanazawa Marathon was the first, with 9,457 finishers and winning times of 2:17:03 by Junichi Ushiyama  and an excellent 2:35:52 PB by 47-year-old Mai Fujisawa .  On the Nov. 3 public holiday, the Gunma Marathon in Maebashi returned for its 31st running. 3,408 people finished, Taku Fujiwara  winning the men's race in 2:23:14 and Tomomi Sawahata  winning for the fifth time in a course record 2:37:02. The same day as New York, 8,880 people finished the 6th edition of the Toyama Marathon within its 7-hour limit. Hiroki Suga...