japan running news

  Japan-based Kenyans dominated at the revamped and improved Kumamoto Kosa Road Race across all three of its main distances. Agnes Ngetich  from the Canon  team got things started in the women's 5 km, blasting a 14:48 that left Japanese NR holder Nozomi Tanaka  almost 40 seconds behind. Tanaka, whose 15:25 was technically a NR, was only 10 seconds up on Nanami Watanabe , who continued a good season with a 15:35 for 3rd only 1 second off Tanaka's previous NR iteration. Kosa's 10 km race has historically been for high school boys, but this year's race had an excellent field of corporate league runners. Triple Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Vincent Yegon , now with the Honda  corporate team, won in 28:05 by 1 second over  Festus Kiprono . Mangata Kibet  was 3rd in 28:13, with Kenyans taking the top 6 spots. Top high schooler Mahiro Kubo  from local Omuta H.S.  ran a solid 29:58, good enough for the win a lot of years but only 14th against his older c...

With high humidity, mostly sunny skies and temps reported as high as 30˚ it was just too hot for fast times at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon qualifying race for January's 101st Hakone Ekiden. Individual winner and last year's 1:00:16 CR setter Shadrack Kipkemei from Nihon University and runner-up Brian Kipyegon of Yamanashi Gakuin University lasting the whole way on sub-1:01 pace and going 1:00:59 and 1:01:02 was really exceptional given the weather, but you could see how tough it was given that only five people went under 1:02 and seven under 1:03 compared to 11 and 38 last year. Top Japanese finisher and 1:00:31 half marathoner Reishi Yoshida of Chuo Gakuin University was only 10th in 1:03:29 and collegiate record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University 11th in 1:03:35. But ultimately the Yosenkai is about team scoring based on the total times of each school's first ten finishers, so while the unseasonal summertime conditions held times ba...

There were a lot of good performances on the 4th day of the Sapporo High School Championships, but a freak accident in the first heat of the boys' 3000 mSC got most of the attention. The leading runner at the first obstacle fell right as he started to jump, colliding with the barrier at waist height and falling forward over it. The ~100 kg barrier rocked forward just as multiple people behind the leader put their feet on it as they jumped, tipping it further. Athletes in the next row started to crash into the runners ahead or hit the obstacle, giving it enough momentum to fall over. It probably wasn't the first time this has ever happened, but given the construction of the obstacle and the combination of force and angle of impact needed to knock the it over it must be pretty close to never. Nobody was caught underneath, but when officials stopped the heat and re-ran it the runner who first hit the barrier, Shuya Kanamori (Sakudaira Sogo H.S.), and one other were both absent. ...

In distance action on Day 3 of the Sapporo National High School Track and Field Championships , the 5000 m saw 3 boys go sub-14 in the qualifying heats. Duncan Maina (Senshudai Kumamoto H.S.) led the 5 qualifiers from the relatively low-key Heat 1 in 14:25.23. Things escalated in Heat 2, where Kaito Matsui (Saitama Sakae H.S.) led 6 of the 7 qualifiers under 14:08 in 14:02.90. Things went even further in Heat 3, with Samuel Kibathi (Kurashiki H.S.) running 13:56.21, Eliud Kabiga (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) 2nd in 13:56.79, and Sota Orita (Suma Gakuen H.S.) 3rd in 13:58.38. The other 3 qualifiers from Heat 3 were all under 14:08, setting up a deep and potentially fast final tomorrow. In the girls' 800 m, Daisy Jerop (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) led the first round in 2:08.47 to win Heat 2, with Heat 1 winner Rin Kubo (Higashi Osakadai Keiai H.S.) running 2:09.20, the top 4 in Heat 3 under 2:10, and the top 2 in Heat 6 both under 2:10. Fresh off running the fastest-ever 1500 m by a 10th grade...