japan running news

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun, all rights reserved Last weekend's Sydney Marathon featured one breakthrough performance that was kind of low in the mix. Running his first marathon outside Japan, 25-year-old Masato Arao negative split a 2:07:42 PB, moving up fast over the last 10 km to pass Eliud Kipchoge and finish 6th. With the Sydney course estimated to be about 2 minutes slow with tough hills in the early going, that meant Arao's run was about equal in quality to all-time Japanese #5, the only better marathon by a Japanese man outside Japan being Yohei Ikeda 's 2:05:12 for 6th in Berlin last fall. It was a pretty amazing breakthrough for someone who never made his college team's starting varsity lineup and a year ago was working full-time in his hometown and running for fun. Born and raised way up north in Yamagata, Arao showed a bit of promise at Sakata Minami H.S. , running the First Stage at the National High School Ekiden his first year in 2016 and maki...

Dark horse Masato Arao and Paris Olympics marathon team alternate Ai Hosoda took the top Japanese spots in the TCS Sydney Marathon 's first edition as part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, both finishing 6th. Ranked 20th in the field, Arao, who this time last year was working a full-time job after not getting a corporate team contract post-college, came to Sydney for his international debut with the A-goal of making top 10 off a 1:30:50 win at the hilly Ome 30 km in February and an almost 10-minute PB of 2:08:05 in his second marathon at Tokyo in February. After driving the course and seeing the major hills in the first 15 km he opted out of going with the lead group, deciding to stick with the 2nd group on 2:08 pace until things leveled out after 15 km and seeing how it went. As it turned out the lead group with all the big names was a lot slower than planned, never more than a minute ahead of the 2nd group including Arao, Kento Kikutani , Kosei Machida and Australians Haft...

https://www.athletics.com.au/news/kipchoge-leads-unprecedented-mens-field-at-2025-tcs-sydney-marathon/

Having been named to the Kenyan men's team for this summer's Paris Olympics, Alexander Mutiso , 27, of the Nanyo, Yamagata-based ND Software corporate team, told the Yamagata Newspaper on May 13 that his goal for the Olympic marathon is "to be #1." Having lived in Yamagata for 10 years, Mutiso has strong attachment to the area and credits its environment for helping him develop, saying, "Ever since I came to Yamagata I've been running well." He left for Kenya on May 14 to join the Kenyan national team training camp, aiming to be in perfect condition when he arrives in Paris for the main event. Mutiso came to Japan in 2015, joining the ND Software team and taking up residence in Nanyo. "I don't like the cold winters in Yamagata so much, but the other seasons are nice." From that base he has grown into the athlete he is now, competing in races across Japan and around the world. Compared to the track, his strengths lie more in long road races...

The Tokyo Marathon is back Sunday with two of the biggest names in the sport at the tops of its women's and men's fields, Sifan Hassan and Eliud Kipchoge . The weather is looking great, so expect fast races. Nippon TV is broadcasting it live from 9:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. local time, with streaming on TVer , Hulu and Nittere Tada . NTV's international broadcast will be available in over 150 countries, with JRN's Brett Larner on commentary again this year. Leaderboard and tracking will be here . A quick breakdown of the major stories in the race and field listing: The Women's Race After winning her first two marathons in London and Chicago last year, Hassan is the fastest in the Tokyo field at 2:13:44. A win here would put her at 3/3 in Abbott World Marathon Majors titles and halfway to her six stars. Budapest World Championships gold medalist Amane Beriso Shankule and last year's winner Rosemary Wanjiru are her toughest competition, Amane with a 2:14:58 win...

The Tokyo Marathon is back for its 2024 race with deep fields of ten sub-2:20 women and eleven sub-2:05 men led by 2023 winners Rosemary Wanjiru and Chalu Deso Gelmisa , 2023 world champions  Amane Beriso Shankule and Victor Kiplangat , and top-ranked Sifan Hassan and Eliud Kipchoge . Last year's top three wheelchair women Manuel Schar , Tsubasa Kina and Madison de Rosario all return, with men's 2nd and 3rd-placers Tomoki Suzuki and Sho Watanabe both back in the absence of winner Marcel Hug . Hassan is the only one of the top five-ranked women who hasn't run Tokyo before, but that's probably not going to give her much of a competitive disadvantage. Budapest gold medalist Amane is her toughest competition on paper, but while Wanjiru was only 6th in Budapest the possibility of a late-race battle between any combination of Hassan, Amane and Wanjiru is pretty exciting. Tokyo doesn't count in Olympic team qualification for women, so it's a slight surprise tha...

https://worldathletics.org/news/report/tigst-assefa-world-marathon-record-berlin-kipchoge-2023 Japanese half marathon national record holders Yusuke Ogura (Yakult) and Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku) both ran the Berlin Marathon. Ogura finished 51st in 2:17:39 a few steps ahead of women's runner-up Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya, with Niiya 11th in 2:23:08. Although Niiya’s run was billed as an attempt at the 2:19:12 national record, she was never on NR pace and slowed continuously after 10 km.  Complete results .

Like you'd expect, marathons and ekidens were the main stories of 2022 on JRN. But 2 of the 3 most-read this year were about track 10000 m, one that speaks to another area of the incredible depth here, and another that organizers would probably like to forget about. This was 2022 as JRN readers saw it. Thanks for reading, and please consider subscribing in 2023 . 1. Aoyama Gakuin Breaks Own Course Record for Sixth Hakone Ekiden Win in Eight Years - Jan. 2-3 After opening a lead of almost a kilometer on the first day of Japan's biggest race , Aoyama Gakuin University turned that into a margin of over 3 km to win the 98th Hakone Ekiden in course record time. 3 of the 10 stages saw new course records , with incredible depth on almost every one of them. Preview . 2. JAAF and NHK Apologize for Camera Crew Interfering With Men's 10000 m National Championships - May 9 After an oblivious camera crew walked onto the track as the race was still happening, clotheslining Shinji Mita...

The Tokyo Marathon returned to the streets of the nation's capital Sunday with both a mass participation field of 20,000 and a world-class elite race for the first time in three years. Three of the four divisions in the race had the world record holder in their respective category, and all three put in dominant performances to take the win.  Men's wheelchair marathon world record holder and double Paralympic gold medalist Marcel Hug  of Switzerland soloed a 1:22:16 to beat Japanese national record holder Tomoki Suzuki  by almost 7 minutes. Men's marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge  delivered one of the best performances of his career, taking command before all the pacers had dropped and pushing through headwinds over the final kilometers to win in 2:02:40, the 3rd-fastest record-legal time ever, fastest on Japanese soil, and fastest so far this year. And that despite a wrong turn when the police guide escort went the wrong way on a new section of course near...

Bigger things are happening in the world right now, but this Sunday the  Tokyo Marathon  returns to the streets with a full-sized elite and mass participation field for the first time since 2019. World record holders Brigid Kosgei  and Eliud Kipchoge  are there to lead it, broadcast live in 160 countries worldwide starting at 9:00 a.m. local Japan time with JRN's Brett Larner  on the commentary once again. Follow the leaderboard here , with athlete tracking here . For the second time in its history Tokyo has a significant course change this year, the addition of a new out-and-back toward Ueno just before 10 km and an equivalent cut from the final out-and-back toward Shinagawa. Not counting the triangular turnaround at Asakusa, that means Tokyo has gone from one 180˚ turn on the original course to two on the interim course to three on this course, something that will impact its overall quality and especially so for the wheelchair marathoners. The women's wheelch...

With prime minister Fumio Kishida  having publicly confirmed yesterday that Japan will begin relaxing its rigid border restrictions as of Mar. 1, the Mar. 6  Tokyo Marathon  followed up its earlier announcement of the domestic elite field for this year's twice-rescheduled race with the full list of international athletes scheduled to compete. Women's and men's world record holders Brigid Kosgei and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya are set to return to Japan after winning the Olympic marathon silver and gold medals in Sapporo last summer, with backing from small but high-quality international fields, the Japanese women-only and men's marathon NR holders and half marathon NR holders, and more. Kosgei will face a solid list of proven winners, including last year's Amsterdam winner Angela Tanui (Kenya), 2019 Berlin winner Ashete Bekere (Ethiopia), 2021 Milan winner Hiwot Gebrekidan (Ethiopia), 2021 Berlin winner Gotytom Gebreslase (Ethiopia), 2020 Marathon Project winner S...