japan running news

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...

Entry lists are out for next week's National Track and Field Championships in Nagoya, the main selection event for Japan's teams for September's Nagoya Asian Games and Copenhagen World Road Running Championships. Top entries in each event with best time in 2025-26. Asterisks indicate 2025 national champions. Men Men's 100 m *Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) - 9.99 Sorato Shimizu (Seiryu H.S.) - 10.00 Yuhi Mori (Watanabe Pipe) - 10.00 Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.06 Fukuto Komuro (Chuo Univ.) - 10.08 Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) - 10.08 Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.10 Ryota Suzuki (Suzuki) - 10.11 Naoki Inoue (Osaka Gas) - 10.12 Rikuto Higuchi (Suzuki) - 10.12 Men's 200 m Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) - 20.45 Aoto Suzuki (Sumitomo Denko) - 20.49 Kota Uematsu (Chuo Univ.) - 20.50 Yuji Michael Orisa (GK Line) - 20.51 Soshi Mizukubo (Miyazaki T&F) - 20.51 Mitsuhiro Numata (Legalis) - 20.58 Seisho Sasaki (Iwate Univ.) - 20.60 Sota Miwa (Koizumi) - 20.61 Naoki Uemoto (Lega...

The Tokyo World Athletics Championships might have just ended, but there's still a lot of track action happening in Japan with some late-season championships and pre-ekiden season time trial meets. The highlight at the Sept. 24 Kizuna Time Trials meet in Machida in western Tokyo was a solid 13:34.01 win in the fast heat by collegiate marathon record holder Asahi Kuroda (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.), not quite a PB but a good shakeout ahead of the Oct. 13 Izumo Ekiden . The top 21 in Kuroda's heat went sub-14 minutes, 11 of them from Aoyama Gakuin, with 2nd-year Sota Orita continuing to struggle at AGU after a promising senior of high school, running only 13:58.77 for 21st. Brian Kiptoo (Comodi Iida) almost tied Kuroda's time with a 13:34.61 win in the fast heat at the Sept. 27-28 Tokai University Time Trials meet south of Yokohama, where the top 20 broke 14 minutes in the fast heat plus another 2 in the B-heat. 5000 m NR holder Suguru Osako (unattached) made a return to comp...

Fresh off the sting of world and Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi  not making the final in the women's javelin, national pride was salved a bit in the first event the next morning on day 8 of the Tokyo World Athletics Championships . In a tight 5-way race for the medals, women's 20 km national champion Nanako Fujii took 15 seconds off her own NR to take bronze in 1:26:18, 24 seconds behind Spain's Maria Perez , who added the 20 km gold to her 35 km victory last weekend with a 1:25:54, and 12 seconds behind Mexico's Alegna Gonzalez , who set an area record of 1:26:06. Fujii had to reach for bronze, beating Ecuador's Paula Milena Torres to the line by a step, with Peruvian Kimberly Garcia Leon 4 seconds back in 5th. All-time Japanese #2 Kumiko Okada was 18th in 1:30:12 and third teammate Ayane Yanai 37th in 1:35:44. That brought Japan's medal count for its home soil World Championships to 2, both bronze and both in race walks. With Kitaguchi out the home tea...

No new medals for the host country on the 2nd day of the Tokyo World Athletics Championships , but there still some good performances across the day including a massive NR in the men's 400 m. The least experienced member of the women's marathon squad, Kana Kobayashi took the early lead in the women's marathon, dropping as far back as 12th mid-race but clawing her way back into the top 8 on the hills at the end with a 2:28:50 for 7th. Sayaka Sato was off the back from the start but eventually ran down Yuka Ando for 2nd Japanese in 2:31:15 for 13th. Ando was 28th in 2:35:37. Peres Jepchirhir took gold in a track sprint against Tigist Assefa , 2:24:43 to 2:24:45, with Uruguay's Julia Paternain a distant 3rd in 2:27:23. Next up, Asian champion Kazuto Iizawa didn't make it out of the first round heats in the men's 1500 m, taking 13th in Heat 1 in 3:41.76. In the women's 100 m hurdles heats 2 of the 3 Japanese woman advanced to the semifinals on time, Mako F...

On Aug. 25 the JAAF announced that it has reversed 29-year-old sprinter Fuga Sato 's disqualification in the July 6 National Championships men's 400 m final, giving him the national title for the second time in his career. It is unusual for official results to be amended after the end of the competition. According to the JAAF, there was a discrepancy in officials' interpretation of World Athletics rules in disqualifying Sato. The reversal elevated Sato in the final update to World Athletics' rankings following the Aug. 24 Tokyo World Athletics Championships qualification deadline, moving him up from outside the quota to 46th of 48 qualified athletes. He is now expected to be named to his third-straight World Championships team. The events in question were part of the National Track and Field Championships, which doubled this year as the main selection event for the Tokyo World Championships. Sato finished 1st in the men's 400 m final on July 6 but was ruled to have ...

No new additions to Japan's potential team for the Tokyo World Championships as things head into the last couple of weeks before the Aug. 24 qualifying deadline. The biggest mover this week was Naoto Hasegawa , 3rd in the men's high jump at July's National Championships, who scored back-to-back wins at the silver label Tirop P-T-S Meeting in Slovakia and gold label Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Hungary to move up from 23rd to 18th in the quota of 36. Ken Toyoda also picked up a couple of places in the men's 400 mH off a 49.37 for 6th at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium. Rin Suzuki 's chances of making the Tokyo team in the men’s javelin throw got a boost too despite a weak performance at the P-T-S Meeting. The 4th-placer there, Belgium's Timothy Herman , scored just enough points to come in between Suzuki and Nationals 3rd-placer Gen Naganuma , who had been separated by only 1 point in the Road to Tokyo rankings. That bumped Naganuma out of the top 36 while l...

There was something in the air Sunday at Yamanashi's Fujisan no Meisui Stadium as the 7th edition of the Fuji Hokuroku World Trials meet tuned into a festival of records that changed the situation for Japan's home team at next month's Tokyo World Championships. At the top of the list, Abigail Fuuka Ido (Toho Ginko) ran 22.79 (+1.0) to take 0.09 off Chisato Fukushima 's almost decade-old women's 200 m national record. Both she and 2nd-place Ami Takahashi (Tsukuba Univ.) were under the old meet record, Takahashi in 23.20. Ido still has a way to go to hit the 22.57 Tokyo standard, but having gone from a 23.59 (+0.6) PB last year to a 23.18 (+0.2) PB at Nationals last month to this 22.79 NR, it doesn't seem out of range. Injured since last year before coming back at Nationals with a 45.81 for 4th in the final, Yuki Joseph Nakajima (Fujitsu) came out of nowhere with a 44.84 PB and MR for the men's 400 m win, just clearing the 44.85 Tokyo standard. Fuga Sato...

The 2025 Asian Athletics Championships kick off today in Gumi, South Korea and run through Saturday. Meet schedule, entry lists and results will be on the meet site. Day One streaming is above, with other days here . The top tier of Japanese athletes like Ryuji Miura and Nozomi Tanaka who've already hit their qualifying marks for the Tokyo World Championships are mostly skipping the Asian Championships, giving the next tier of people a chance to get into Tokyo via an area title or score enough world rankings points to have a shot at making the Tokyo quota. From that point of view the race of the day is the men's 10000 m. Between people who've hit the standard, qualifiers via cross country, and area champions, the only person in the quota of 27 on points is 2024 Japanese national champ Jun Kasai . He was scheduled to run but is out with injury. Next in line is India's Gulveer Singh , who missed the standard by just 0.22 with a 27:00.22 at The Ten earlier this season. ...

Australians represented big time at Sunday's Seiko Golden Grand Prix in Tokyo, winning six events and taking one more top 3 spot and another six top 5 placings. The first Aussie win of the day came courtesy of Rose Davies in the women's 3000 m, where she outran main competition Helen Ekalale by 6 seconds to win in a meet record 8:43.38. Yuma Yamamoto broke into the all-time Japanese top 10 with an 8:50.64 PB for 3rd.  After a disappointing run in the 5000 m two weeks ago at the Shaoxing Keqiao Diamond League meet, Jude Thomas made it an Australian double win a MR win in the men's 3000 m in 7:39.69. The top 7 all broke the old MR, with Nagiya Mori continuing his quick rise with an all-time JPN #2 7:41.58 for 4th. The men's race was marred by a fall right at the start. Having set half marathon and road 5 km national records in his last two races, Tomoki Ota appeared to get clipped from behind by 10000 m NR holder Kazuya Shiojiri when Shiojiri veered to the outside...

Indoor track isn't much of a thing in Japan, but there's still a small national team at this weekend's Nanjing World Indoor Championships . High jumpers Naoto Hasegawa and Sota Haraguchi were the only Japanese athletes in action in final on Friday's opening day. Hasegawa became the first Japanese man to make top 8 in a World Indoor Championships high jump final, taking 7th with a 2.20 m SB. Haraguchi was 13th of 13 with a 2.14 m SB clearance. In the men's 400 m Fuga Sato made it through the opening heats with a 46.60 SB for 2nd in Heat 3, while Ryo Yoshikawa ran only 47.47 for 5th in Heat 2 and did not advance. Sato was eliminated in the semifinals after he was last in SF1 in 48.31. Yoshiki Kinashi and Naoki Nishioka both made it through the men's 60 m heats, Kinashi running 6.60 m for 2nd in Heat 8 and Nishioka 6.67 for 3rd in Heat 4. In the semifinals both were eliminated, Nishioka improving to 6.62 for 4th in SF3 and Kinashi running 6.63 for 5th in SF2....

Monday a relatively busy day in Paris Olympics athletics for the Japanese national team. Things started off slowly with all three men in the 400 mH heats finishing near the bottom of the field of 39 starters, Daiki Ogawa running 50.21 for 33rd, Kaito Tsutsue 50.50 for 35th and the high potential Ken Toyoda last among the 37 finishers in 53.62 after a mid-race injury. All three head to the repechage round, but in Toyoda's case he'll likely be a DNS. All three Japanese men in the 400 m repechage round, Joseph Nakajima , Fuga Sato and Kentaro Sato , gave it a miss in order to focus on the 4x400 m relay where their chances of making the final are higher. In the men's 3000 mSC heats, national record holder Ryuji Miura made it through to the final, running close to his season best with an 8:12.41 for 4th in Heat 2. Ryoma Aoki was one of the casualties of the slow pace in Heat 3, finishing 8th in 8:29.03 and missing out on advancing. In the men's 200 m heats 21-year-old...

There still aren't many Japanese athletes on the ground in athletics at the Paris Olympics. Day 3 on Saturday saw only 3 men in action, all in the 100 m. Abdul Hakim Sani Brown was the only one to make it out of the heats and into Sunday's semifinals, running 10.02 (0.0) for 2nd in Heat 4 behind Jamaican Oblique Seville . Ryuichiro Sakai missed a time qualifying spot by only 0.01, running 10.17 (+0.3) for 5th in Heat 7. Akihiro Higashida was 5th in Heat 1, running 10.19 (+0.6). In the semifinals Sani Brown had an unlucky draw, running SF 3 against Kishane Thompson , Fred Kerley , Andrew De Grasse , Ferdinand Omanyala and others. Totally determined to make the final, Sani Brown ran a PB 9.96 (+0.5) for 4th, the 2nd-fastest ever by a Japanese man and just 0.01 off the NR. But with the fastest times ever in Olympic semifinals coming in two of the three races it took a 9.93 to make the final on time, putting it out of Sani Brown's range. His best just wasn't enough, bu...

Japan's Olympic trials, National Track and Field Championships and National U20 Championships , wrap up Sunday in Niigata at Denka Big Swan Stadium. Light rain is forecast in the afternoon and evening, ut with 7 new National Championships meet records and an U20 national record so far, there's a good chance of one outright national record, maybe two, on the last day of the meet.  Live results will be here . The final schedule: Women's Shot Put Final  14:45 Already having made a comeback in her main event with a win in the women's discus throw, local  Nanaka Kori  will be going for a repeat on her 2023 national title in the shot put. She's the only woman over 16 m this season, and one of only two in the field to have ever done it, along with #3-ranked Fumiko Ono . Nanaka Kori (Niigata Albirex RC) - 16.19 m SB / 16.57 m PB Honoka Oyama (Imamura Byoin) - 15.75 m SB / 15.78 m PB Fumika Ono (Tsukuba Univ.) - 15.74 m SB / 16.37 m PB Haruka Osako (Somay-Q) - 15.28 m SB / P...