japan running news

The winner of the first Marathon Grand Championships Olympic trials race is starting down a new road leading back to the Hakone Ekiden. Set to retire at the end of March, 2021 Tokyo Olympics marathon team member Shogo Nakamura (33, Fujitsu) will take over as head coach at Meiji Gakuin University in April in a quest for its first-ever Hakone appearance. According to a source involved in the situation, Nakamura has been hired to lead Meiji Gakuin to Hakone by the 2028-29 academic year. Nakamura's career as an athlete garnered great respect, especially his serious attitude toward competition and the patience and endurance he developed through marathon running. Still on the cusp of retirement, Nakamura is unproven as a leader. But last year he entered the Waseda University Graduate School of Sport Science with the aim of becoming a professional coach. While balancing his academic work with his racing he studied top sports management at the same place Susumu Hara , head coach of 9-t...

Tokyo Olympics marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura will retire at the end of this fiscal year on Mar. 31, 2026. On Jan. 23 he released the following statement on his sponsor Fujitsu 's corporate team site. To everyone who has supported me I have decided to bring my career as a competitive athlete to its end and retire. I started running in 5th grade, and over the many years since then it has been my life. I'm really happy to be able to end it as part of the Fujitsu team. I've been with Fujitsu since I graduated from Komazawa University , and thanks to Fujitsu's flexibility and support I was able to keep Komazawa as my training base and make it all the way to the Tokyo Olympics. Getting there was a major milestone in my career and remains a prized memory. After reaching that height I started being with the Fujitsu team full-time, and under the leadership of head coach Tadashi Fukushima and the rest of the coaching staff I entered a new phase of my career aiming to co...

A native of Uwajishima, Ehime, a new chapter is starting in the life of men's marathon national record holder Kengo Suzuki , 30. On Oct. 8 he announced that he is quitting the Fujitsu corporate team to which he has belonged for 8 years to go independent. His new main sponsor will be a major food product manufacturer, who will support him in his shot at making the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics team. Suzuki ran the National High School Ekiden as a 3rd-year at Uwajishima Higashi H.S. . His 3rd year at Kanagawa University he won the 93rd Hakone Ekiden's most competitive leg, the Second Stage, making him determined to pursue a future as a marathoner. He joined Fujitsu after graduating in 2018, and in January, 2021 played a key role in the team winning its first New Year Ekiden national title in 12 years. A month later he ran 2:04:56 to win the Biwako Mainichi Marathon, a national record that still stands. In recent years he has suffered from a series of injuries, causing his star to l...

  On June 12 the Kyudenko corporate team announced that it is terminating its contract with longtime team member Benard Koech of Kenya as of June 30. On June 11 the Athletics Integrity Unit had issued a provisional suspension against Koech on charges of violation of doping regulations. The charges were based on abnormal values in his biological passport data, which suggested use of a banned substance or method rather than actual detection of one. After receiving notification from the AIU, Kyudenko questioned Koech, who responded that he had "not done anything that would break doping rules." Kyudenko said that while it believed Koech's statement, the provisional suspension would interfere with a period in which he was expected to compete, and as a result, "with deep regret we have decided to terminate his contract with us on June 30, 2025." Japanese Olympic silver race walker Koki Ikeda was in the same way provisionally suspended by the AIU last November due ...

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

A new, nominally one-off event held as part of Osaka's hosting of Expo 2025, Sunday's ACN Expo Ekiden pit top top corporate and collegiate teams against each other on a 7-stage, 54.5 km course. The new race lost a bit of steam when New Year Ekiden runner-up Honda declined to participate, when winner Asahi Kasei pulled out days before the race, and when the top two teams at the Hakone Ekiden, Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University , didn't field A-list lineups. In their absence it was pretty much a blowout for New Year Ekiden 3rd-placer Toyota , who led start-to-finsh off a great leading run by Yamato Yoshii and stage best titles on 4 of the 7 individual legs to win in 2:32:48. Fujitsu came on strong over the 2nd half with wins by 4th and 5th runners Daniel Kosen and Kazuya Shiojiri and strong runs on the final stages by Hiroki Matsueda and Kengo Suzuki to move into 2nd, finishing 1:14 behind Toyota in 2:34:02. Hakonen 3rd-placer Koku Gakuin University b...

The New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championship kicks off 2025 early, with streaming starting at 9:00 a.m. local time January 1st and the race going off at 9:15. At 7 legs totaling 100 km it's the peak of the year for the corporate leagues, the reason they have teams and bring in Kenyans. Last year Toyota led from the Second Stage to the finish, outrunning 2022-2023 winner Honda and 2017-2020 winner Asahi Kasei to take the national title for the first time since 2016. How is Toyota looking this year? On the one hand they've picked up fresh incoming talent like last year's Komazawa University captain Mebuki Suzuki . On the other, some of its key players like Tomoki Ota and Ren Tazawa have been dealing with injury, and at November's Chubu Region qualifying race Toyota lost by a minute to Toyota Boshoku , who broke the Chubu CR. A lot of Honda's A-list was missing from its lineup at the East Japan Region qualifying race , where it was only 7th out...

On July 23 the Fujitsu corporate team announced that men's 20 km race walk world record holder and 2019 50 km world champion Yusuke Suzuki , 36, and three-time men's 400 m national champion Julian Walsh , 27, are retiring at the end of the month. Suzuki competed in the 2012 London Olympics in the 20 km race walk. In 2015 he set a world record of 1:16:36 for 20 km at the National Race Walk Championships in Nomi. At the 2019 Doha World Championships he won the 50 km race walk, the first time a Japanese athlete won gold at an international championships including the Olympics. After that, he suffered setbacks from overtraining and other issues and did not try to make the Tokyo Olympic team in 2021. After leaving Fujitsu Suzuki will become a coach at Niigata University of Food and Agriculture . "I want to give the next generation of athletes the same kind of support that I received in my time as an athlete," he said. A member of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2021 Tokyo Ol...

  Japanese men's 400 m national record holder Kentaro Sato (Fujitsu) sat for online interviews on June 18. Sato's 44.77 NR cleared the Paris Olympics qualifying standard of 45.00, and if he wins the National Championships later this month in Niigata he'll be named to the Paris team. "To put it simply, it's the meet that decides who's #1 in Japan," he said. "I haven't won a national title yet. I'm preparing to run for time, for place, and for an Olympic spot." As he trains Sato is paying close attention to the condition of his left Achilles tendon, which he injured two years ago. "I'm more focused on time than place," he said. "If I can run 44 at Nationals then I'll get the place I'm looking for. If I can put together a 400 m the way I want to do it then I can run a national record. That means focusing on something faster than just the NR. Sub-44.5 is what I'm thinking." Also entered at Nationals are to...

  Following 400 m hurdler Masaki Toyoda 's suspension for a violation of anti-doping regulations , the Fujitsu corporate team published a statement on its website, including comments from Toyoda's legal team , explaining the ruling and the circumstances surrounding the case. Toyoda was a member of the 2019 Doha World Championships team and holds a best of 48.87. Early in the morning of May 19, 2022, the Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) conducted a doping test of Toyoda. The prohibited substance trenbolone was detected in urine taken during the test, resulting in a two-year suspension that began May 21, 2022. He did not compete at the National Track and Field Championships the next month. The amount of trenbolone detected in Toyoda's urine sample was 1.4 ng/ml, well below the minimum analytical precision of 2.5 ng/ml required by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for analytical equipment. As a general rule, if a non-specified prohibited substance such as trenbolone is dete...

  On April 8 the Japan Sports Arbitration Agency upheld a two-year doping suspension against 2019 Doha World Championships team member Masaki Toyoda , 26, of the Fujitsu corporate team, rejecting an appeal from the Japan Anti-Doping Agency for a stricter sentence. Metabolites of the prohibited substance trenbolone were detected in a urine sample taken from Toyoda during a drug test in May, 2022. After a hearing, on Jan. 5 this year the Japan Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel determined that Toyoda would be given a two-year suspension back-dated to start on May 21, 2022.  JADA filed a complaint with the JSAA arguing that Toyoda's use of prohibited substance had been intentional and that a four-year suspension beginning on June 21, 2022 would be appropriate. In response, the JSAA ruled that since trenbolone would be of no benefit to a 400 m hurdler Toyoda's intake of the substance had been unintentional, and upheld the original two-year suspension. source article: https://www.jiji...

The Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden is the only major championship ekiden that doesn't give podium placers auto-qualification for the next year, forcing corporate men's teams to run the regional qualifiers every November and impacting runners' ability to do a fall marathon. The Olympic marathon trials 3 weeks ago impacted the dynamic this time, as any team that had had someone at the Trials and finished its regional qualifier would make the New Year Ekiden regardless of whether it finished in the bracket. That didn't really come into play much at the Kyushu Region Corporate Ekiden in Fukuoka, where 7 of the 9 teams in contention for 8 qualifying spots had people at the Trials. Kurosaki Harima led start to finish, its lead duo Yusuke Tamura and Sitonik Kiprono both winning their stages to give the team a 31 second lead. Traditional power Asahi Kasei came on strong in the middle of the race with stage wins from Takashi Ichida and Ryo Saito and an excellent new CR of 31:18 fo...

The favorites took the top spots in most of the races at Sunday's National Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka. The front end of the U20 women's 6 km was like a replay of the 6.0 km First Stage at December's National High School Ekiden, and it couldn't have been closer. Both Kanoko Nawa , leadoff runner for ekiden winner Nagano Higashi H.S. , and Akari Matsumoto , the first runner from 7th-place Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S. , clocked 20:20 with Nawa getting the win in the photo finish. Narumi Okumoto , first runner from ekiden 8th-placer Kojokan H.S. , was 3rd in 20:23, and Aya Kotajima , first runner from 5th-place Hakuho Joshi H.S. , was 4th in 20:28. Soma Nagahara , the first runner from Saku Chosei H.S. ' runner-up team at the National High School Ekiden, won the U20 men's 8 km in another photo finish, both he and Sota Yamasaki , first runner from 12th-place Yamaguchi Kenritsu Saikyo H.S. , clocking 24:01. Sota Orita (Suma Gakuen H.S.) was a close 3rd ...

The first big race of the year worldwide every year is the New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships, 100 km in 7 stages through Gunma northwest of Tokyo. TBS broadcasts it live domestically starting at 8:30 a.m. local on Jan. 1, with the broadcast to be streamed live on TVer . TBS will also be streaming live, unedited feeds from three different camera trucks too starting at 9:00 a.m. You'll probably need a VPN to get around geoblocking for both TVer and the unedited feed above. Live results will be here , and JRN will be covering the race live on @JRNLive  and Instagram to help you make sense of what's going on, and on the ground from the course. Buy us a coffee to help make the first of three straight days of live ekiden coverage possible. Last year the Honda team won for the first time in the race's 66-year history. Anchor Hidekazu Hijikata promptly jumped ship for CR holder Asahi Kasei , a product of 2020 rule changes around restrictions on team ...

The Japanese women's 2022 season still has big races to come, with the Sanyo Ladies Road Race 10 km and half marathon this weekend and the Nittai University Women's Long Distance Time Trials on Dec. 24, but for men the top lists for the year are pretty much a done deal barring something unexpected at the Dec. 24-25 Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials or Dec. 29 Year End Half Marathon . We'll wait until after Nittai for our women's rankings, but as men from JHS to the corporate leagues do their final preparations for the four championship ekidens over the next three weekends here's how they shaped out in 2022. Update: Women's rankings are here . Indoor 5000 m NR holder Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) took the top spot on the strength of a single run, his all-time JPN #2 13:10.69 win against an incredibly deep field of Japan-based Kenyans at the May 4 Golden Games in Noboeka . That came less than a month after his 3:36.69 1500 m at the Kanakuri Memorial Meet , a...

The first two regional qualifiers for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships happened Nov. 3 in Saitama and Kyushu. At the East Japan Race in Saitama, 2021 New Year Ekiden winner Fujitsu outran 2022 champ Honda by 40 seconds for 1st. Honda started and finished strong with stages wins from its lead and anchor runners Hideto Kosode and Naoki Koyama , but Fujitsu had a solid lineup mid-race led by a stage record win on the Fourth Stage by Ken Yokote that gave it the lead it needed for the win. Most of the big names qualified without any surprises. Local supermarket chain Sunbelx did surprise, spending much of the race as high as 3rd before finishing an excellent 5th overall. Down near the 12th-place cutoff for New Year qualification, Saitama Ika Daigaku Group had a nail-biter as it dueled with the Comodi Iida supermarket team, ND Software and Komori Corporation to stay in the ring for its second-ever qualification. Despite a sub-par run from #1 man...

Thursday's public holiday is the traditional date for the East Japan Corporate Men's Ekiden , the first of the regional qualifiers for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championship. The New Year Ekiden is the only one of the major championship ekidens without a seeded bracket guaranteeing top-placing teams a spot at the next year's race, something that forces every corporate men's team to run the regional qualifier right in the middle of fall marathon season. Liberalizing that setup would have a measurable effect on men's marathoning, but like everything else in Japan vested financial interests and politics keep things the way they are. This year the East Japan race, which covers the greater Tokyo area and further north, returns to the roads of rural Saitama for 76.9 km in 7 stages after spending the pandemic on a loop course inside a park in the city of Kumagaya. 31 teams are entered, a massive increase due to the move to allow club teams to...

The year's biggest races are just around the corner, with four days of championship ekiden racing in the space of five coming up this week. First up on Dec. 30 is the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden university women's national championship, 7 stages totaling 43.4 km through the foothills of Mt. Fuji. Meijo University  has won the last three years, setting the course record of 2:21:38 last year, and it's going to win again. Meijo's core quartet Narumi Kobayashi , Yuma Yamamoto , Yuna Arai  and Yuna Wada  all made the Japanese top 25 for 5000 m or 10000 m this year, more than all other universities combined, and unless Meijo has some kind of major setback there's just no way for its strongest competition, perpetual 2nd-placer Daito Bunka University , to match it.  The most exciting thing to look forward to will be seeing how Takushoku University  1st-year Seira Fuwa , 30:45.21 in her 10000 m debut earlier this month, does on a more technical course than she has raced ...

Ririka Hironaka  (Japan Post) and Kengo Suzuki  (Fujitsu) topped JRN's 2021 women's and men's Japanese distance rankings. Hironaka ran big at the Olympics, making the women's 5000 m final and then running a national record 14:52.84 there for 9th. Five days later she was back with a near-miss on a rare Japanese sub-31 in the 10000 m, running 31:00.71 for 7th . Steadily improving over the last few seasons and unafraid to go further, Hironaka this year was the clear leader among the talented group of women aged 18-22 that is currently coming up to the top of the Japanese ranks. After winning the 12.1 km Sixth Stage to help  Fujitsu  win the  New Year Ekiden  Suzuki ran  a stellar 2:04:56 national record  to win February's Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon. But apart from a 2:08:50 for 4th at October's  Chicago Marathon  and marrying marathoner Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) that was just about all he did this year.  Ichiyama and Mizuki Ma...