japan running news

by Brett Larner photo by Tsukasa Kawarai video by Ekiden News 1500 m junior world record holder Ronald Kwemoi (Team Komori Corp.) made his claim to longer distances Saturday at western Tokyo's Hosei University , dominating his competition over the last lap to win his 10000 m debut in 27:33.94 at the Hachioji Long Distance meet. Lacking some of the electricity of last year's Japanese national record shot , 24 athletes from four countries lined up in Hachioji's A-heat, some tuning up for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships, others chasing the 27:45.00 standard for the 2017 London World Championships. Normally reliable as a pacer, despite a perfect 2:46.00 opening kilometer Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC) struggled to keep it steady after just 3000 m. Some of the field went ahead of him for several laps before he rallied to take the field through 5000 m in 13:56.50, four seconds off target. The pack stuck with him for another 2000 m b...

by Brett Larner photos by Kazuyuki Sugimatsu videos by Ekiden News The 232nd edition of 2013 Hakone Ekiden champion Nittai University 's regular time trial meet series was the biggest on record.  After a Saturday dedicated to distances ranging from 800 m to 10000 m, Sunday dawned early for 45 heats of 5000 m, 42 for men and 3 for women, the first starting at 7:30 a.m. and the last at 9:20 p.m.  Mass-producing quality, the 5000 m heats averaged 42 runners each with the two largest having 48 finishers.  Late in the day the heats were beginning every 15 minutes like clockwork.  Performances were equally deep, with the women's 5000 m A-heat seeing the most women ever under 16:30, 38, and the men's 5000 m A-heat with 30 under 14:05 falling just short of the record of 33. The performance of the weekend went to 20-year-old Meiji University junior Genki Yagisawa , a former high school star who has so far struggled to live up to expectations on the university e...

Mittwoch, Switerland, July 17, 2013 click here for complete results 1. Cornelius Kangogo (Kenya) - 7:42.51 2. Evan Jager (U.S.A.) - 7:43.36 3. David Torrence (U.S.A.) - 7:43.48 4. Chris Derrick (U.S.A.) - 7:44.01 5. Daniel Huling (U.S.A.) - 7:44.42 6. Diego Estrada (Mexico) - 7:47.77 7. Gideon Gathimba (Kenya) - 7:48.74 8. Moses Mukono Letoyie (Kenya) - 7:51.71 9. Hicham Sigueni (Morocco) - 7:59.01 10. Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Japan/Team Asahi Kasei) - 7:59.82 11. Ryo Kiname (Japan/Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) - 8:01.66 12. Andreas Kempf (Switzerland) - 8:15.08 13. Shinobu Kubota (Japan/Komazawa Univ.) - 8:15.66

by Brett Larner It's less than 24 hours until the world's greatest 20 km race : the 87th Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai . A chance for Tokyo-area schools that did not score one of the ten seeded spots at January's prestigious Hakone Ekiden to qualify for one of nine second-tier places, the Yosenkai features dozens of universities fielding their twelve best runners in one mass race. Winning times are usually in the 58-59 minute range and have more than once dipped into 57 minute territory. Last year's race was the most competitive 20 km in history , with 163 runners breaking 1:02:30 and won in 59:08 by Tokai University frosh Akinobu Murasawa whose split for the winding, uphill final 8 km was 23:26, one second faster than top American university runner Chris Derrick ran the same weekend for the 8 km NCAA Pre-Nationals XC Meet. Click here to read last year's report . Part of what makes the Yosenkai what it is is the atmosphere, with marching bands and cheering squads of alu...

by Brett Larner Last month JRN published a comparison of the achievements of American and Japanese men aged 18-22 over the 5000 m, 10000 m, half marathon and marathon distances, part two in a periodic series occasioned by October’s simultaneous NCAA XC Pre-Nationals 8 km and Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km road race. The comparison generated a fair number of comments and emails; my thanks to all those who offered insight and additional data, suggested further ideas and lines of inquiry, or gave constructive criticism. Among the findings in the previous article:  Using a common calculator of equivalent performances to set thresholds of 13:30, 28:03, 1:02:24 and 2:11:36 for the four distances, prior to the outstanding performances last spring by American 18 year olds German Fernandez and Chris Derrick Japanese runners led their American counterparts in speed, range, and to a lesser degree depth at ages 18 and 19. Fernandez and Derrick are exceptional young athletes who may rewrite the Am...

by Brett Larner special thanks to Ken Young at ARRS, the IAAF and All-Time Athletics for their database assistance in preparing this article Last month I published a comparison of the results from the American NCAA Pre-Nationals XC Meet and the Hakone Ekiden Qualifier Road Race which showed that more Japanese university runners were running as fast or faster for a hilly 20 km on the roads than American university runners were running for a hilly 8 km XC. I received a fair amount of response to this comparison, much of it negative and much of it from American university runners, in the comment section, on message boards such as letsrun.com, and in my email inbox. One such letsrun poster asked what was apparently supposed to be a rhetorical question: So how many of these "Rising Sons" have run sub-13:30 at age 18? Yeah. The poster was referring to Americans German Fernandez and Chris Derrick, both of whom achieved this impressive feat in late spring this year, clocking...

by Brett Larner Click here for video of the 2009 Hakone Ekiden Qualifier. Japan's Monday morning network news talk programs devoted lengthy segments to discussing the outstanding results from Saturday's university men's Hakone Ekiden Qualifier 20 km road race , which featured the 9th through 55th-ranked schools in the Kanto region. At the same time, American fan websites were buzzing with discussion of the results of Saturday's big university pre-National cross-country meets. How did the results compare between the top schools and runners in the two countries? The first table below shows the top ten men, times and paces in the two 8 km NCAA Pre-National XC races, the 10 km Chile Pepper Invitational XC race, and the 20 km Kanto Regional Hakone Ekiden Qualifying Road Race. Click for full-sized version. While the races in the U.S.A. were cross-country and thus suffered a disadvantage in terms of pace relative to a road race, the distance in the Hakone Qualifier was twice t...