japan running news

On April 19 the Hitachi women's corporate team announced that its athlete Cynthia Mbaire had passed away on April 14. A statement from head coach Satoru Kitamura said that Mbaire had been suffering from an unspecified illness since last year, and that she had faced it with strength and had fully expected to make a comeback. "She was always kind and considerate of those around her, and she brightened the mood on the team and gave us all courage," Kitamura wrote. "She made us all smile, and we are saddened to the depth of our hearts." Mbaire attended Kamimura Gakuen H.S. in Kagoshima. She was best known for her 8:49.72 meet record in the 2019 South Kyushu High School Championships 3000 m at age 16. Mbaire went on to win both the 1500 m and 3000 m at the National High School Championships that year, then won the 1500 m at the 2021 East Japan Corporate Championships her first season with Hitachi. Her best performance following that was a 9:01.66 for 3000 m in ...

Four out of five corporate regional championship meets went off as schedule this weekend, with the 5 1st Hokuriku Region meet in Ishikawa the only one to cancel amid the latest COVID-19 wave hitting Japan.  The 63rd East Japan Region meet in Saitama was the biggest and fastest of those that did happen. The biggest news was in the T11-T13 men's 5000 m, where T11-class  Kenya Karasawa  (GSWC) won in 15:09.94, going a second and a half under the previous world record for his class.  Sitonki Kiprono  (Komori Corp.) turned in the only sub-28 men's 10000 m of the weekend, winning Saturday's A-heat in 27:47.69. Justus Soget  (Honda) was likewise the only one to go sub-3:40 for 1500 m, winning Saturday's A-heat in 3:39:12. Soget doubled to win Sunday's men's 5000 m A-heat in 13:29.43 going close to 55 seconds for the final lap and ending up the only man under 13:30 for the weekend. Pauline Kamulu  (Route Inn Hotels) won the East Japan women's 10000 m in 32:...

Like the title says, regional corporate league track and field championships lead this weekend's main action, with every region except Kyushu set to go ahead with its meet despite the proliferation of a new round of states of emergency across the country. Two of the most competitive regions, East Japan and Chubu, will be streaming their meets live, with Kansai likely to join the list. East Japan, whose Day One stream above, runs 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday Japan time and again 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday. The meet schedule and entry lists can be had here . Featuring a lot of the best Japan-based Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes, the men's 5000 and 10000 m look like the best races of the meet, with the 5000 m A-heat also having like Olympic 5000 m team member Yuta Bando  (Fujitsu), newly-minted Olympic 10000 m team member Tatsuhiko Ito  (Honda), and Olympic marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) back in action, hopefully, after scratching from the Lake Biwa Maratho...

After months off from competition, the athletes at this year's Hokuren Distance Challenge produced high-level performances across the board, with world-leading times at all four meets in the series and a string of Japanese national records. Using World Athletics scoring tables to compare performances across distances and meets, Rosemary Wanjiru (Starts) turned in the best run of the series with her world-leading 30:38.18 in the Abashiri meet 10000 m. Benard Kibet (Kyudenko) had the best men's performance of the series when he held off Bedan Karoki (Toyota) to win the Fukagawa meet 10000 m with a 27:14.84 world leader. Kibet was the only athlete male or female to have two performances inside the overall ten best in the series, his 13:11.77 win in the Abashiri 5000 m ranking at #9. Among Japanese athletes, Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) had the top performance of the series with her 31:23.30 PB in the Abashiri 10000 m. Four Japanese women turned in five performances inside ...

With world-leading marks at all three meets in the series so far, the 2020 Hokuren Distance Challenge wrapped Saturday in Chitose with an unexpected bang as 18-year-old Juntendo University first-year Ryuji Miura delivered a world-leading 8:19.37 to win the men's 3000 m steeplechase. Showing zero fear over the last lap, in a sprint finish Miura overtook Kenyan Philemon Kiplagat Ruto (Aisan Kogyo) in the last 50 m for the win, taking down the collegiate and U20 national records in the process and just missing the straight up national record, set when Miura was a one-year-old, by 0.44, ranking him all-time #2. 3rd-placer Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) and 4th-placer Ryoma Aoki (Honda) also broke into the all-time Japanese top ten, Yamaguchi coming in at #5 in 8:25.04 and Aoki #6 in 8:25.85. And there were other records and all-time marks. On the women's side the best came in the 5000 m A-heat, where a lead group of eight went out even with NR pace with a 2:59 opening 1000 ...

Longtime Japan resident Rosemary Monica Wanjiru (Starts) turned in the run of the day at Wednesday's Hokuren Distance Challenge Abashiri meet in Hokkaido, soloing a world-leading 30:38.18 to win the women's 10000 m. In the very early going Wanjiru had company from Tokyo Olympic marathon team member Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal), but for most of the race she was completely on her own at a steady 3:03 to 3:04/1000 m. Wanjiru ended up just short of the 30:35.75 she ran for 4th at last fall's Doha World Championships, but her time bettered the world-leading time by almost a minute and took over 3 seconds off the Japanese all-comers' record of 30:41.85 set two years ago by Pauline Kamulu at the Hokuren Distance Challenge Fukagawa meet. Ichiyama, who ran 32:03.95 for 2nd in this year's Fukagawa meet six days ago, was 2nd again in a PB of 31:23.30 that also bettered the previous world-leading mark of 31:34.94 set by Fukagawa winner Honami Maeda (Tenmaya). Sayaka Sato (Se...

As the numbers in Tokyo's second wave go up and up the likelihood that we're going to get many more weekends like this one goes down, but for this little window of opportunity, at least, there was action on the track at at least five elite-level meets across the country. At the 75th Kagoshima Prefecture Championships , 17-year-old Cynthia Mbaire (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.) ran U20 world-leading times in both the women's 1500 m and 5000 m, running 4:10.67 to win the 1500 m Saturday and then 15:14.30 Sunday to win the 5000 m. Both times were also meet records. On Friday 36-year-old amateur Takahiro Nakamura , who ran a 1:00:57 half marathon in February, won the men's 10000 m for the fifth year in a row, running a meet record 29:23.09. Sunday he was back to try to score the 5000 m title too but was outrun by Kanta Tokumaru (Kagoshima Jitsugyo H.S.) 14:18.21 to 14:28.36. Tokumaru was doubling off a win in the 1500 m Saturday in 3:57.17. Across Kyushu at the Saga Pref...