japan running news

Fresh off a 1:00:41 Australian all-comers record at the Launceston Half at the end of May, Haftu Strintzos lived up to the potential he showed there with a negative split 2:06:20 Australian NR and CR to win the ASICS Gold Coast Marathon . Post-race Strintzos was quick to give credit to the expert pacing trio of 2:06:00 runner Tsubasa Ichiyama , who paced Yuki Takei 's 2:07:33 CR last year, 2:07:14 American Ethan Shuley , and 2:07:34 runner Shinsaku Kudo who paced Gold Coast 2 years ago. The trio kept things going slightly hotter than the 3:01 target pace, on track for 2:06:50 most of the way. Ichiyama stopped at 25 km and Kudo at 30 km, and at that point it was down to Strintzos, 2:06:26 runner Hidekazu Hijikata , and the debuting Jinya Ozaki . Shuley was tasked with going to 30 km but, critically, kept it going for another 2 km over the only significant hill on the Gold Coast course. Just as Strintzos did in Launceston, when Shuley stepped off at 32 km Strintzos got to work, spl...

The China Airlines Gold Coast Half Marathon and ASICS Gold Coast Marathon happen this weekend, with the half kicking off at 6:15 a.m. local time Saturday and the marathon 6:15 a.m. Sunday. Both races feature a load of Japanese talent facing off against top-tier Australian competition and other elites from around the world. See our earlier detailed field listing for the half marathon and the marathon. JRN's Brett Larner will be doing a guest spot on the webcast of the marathon as usual. © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved

The Gold Coast Marathon is always a big stop on the Japanese calendar, with both the men's and women's CR of 2:07:33 and 2:24:22 set by Japanese athletes in the last 2 years and 5 of the last 7 races won by Japanese men. 3 athletes on the entry list in both the women's and men's races have run faster than those times in the last 3 years, and with solid Japanese contingents there's a good chance of new CR. Almaz Kebede , 2022 winner Lindsay Flanagan and Antonina Kwambai have all run 2:23 since 2024 and have 2:25-level Japanese women Aika Murakami and Kaede Kawamura to deal with. The lack of jet lag for the Japanese tends to play in their favor relative to African athletes, so it should be at least a 5-way race up front. Vanessa Wilson is the top domestic entrant with a 2:28:34 in Berlin 2 years ago. 2:06 Kenyans Benson Tunyo , Dominic Ngeno and Elisha Rotich make up the front end of the men's field, with last year's 3rd-placer Ryoma Takeuchi and rece...

Japanese men showed up in force at the 45th ASICS Gold Coast Marathon Sunday in Australia, taking the top 6 spots and 8 of the top 10 led by a 2:07:33 course record by Yuki Takei . Expert pacing by World Marathon Majors-bound Tsubasa Ichiyama and Masato Arao kept things on track to break the 2:07:40 CR by 30 seconds until Arao stepped off at 30 km, a 30 km that saw at least two falls, one by 2:08:40 runner Ryoma Takeuchi at 23 km and another by debuting 61-minute half marathoner Tatsuya Tsunashima at 27 km. In Tsunashima's case it was enough to knock him out of the race when he hit his head on the pavement, send to the hospital post-race for examination. When Arao stepped off former Aoyama Gakuin University ekiden specialist Aoi Ota went straight to the front, looking to make up for a stellar and predictable DNF at this year's Tokyo Marathon in prep for Berlin by getting an easy finish under his belt. Right on him was Yuki Takei , 2:08:06 in Osaka the week before Tokyo. ...

Australia's Gold Coast Marathon is back for its 45th running with title sponsorship from longtime partner ASICS. Two-time winner Rodah Tanui is the top name in the women's race with a 2:23:14 in Copenhagen two years ago, with her strongest competition coming from Olympian Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , who set a Mongolian NR of 2:26:32 in Tokyo last year. Zerihun Alemtsehay and Caroline Kilel both have recent sub-2:30 times, and debuting Ethiopian Tegest Ayalew looks to have a sub-2:30 in her too. Pacing is planned to be a 1:12:00 first half, an ambitious goal for pretty much everyone except maybe Tanui. Up front in the men's race are a solid trio of 2:07 runners made up of Ethiopians Gizealew Ayana and Japan-based Derese Workneh , and Kenyan Mathew Samperu . The top tier of Japanese men come in at the 2:08 level, including Mizuki Higashi , Yuki Takei , and Ryoma Takeuchi , a pacer at Gold Coast last year. Past winner Yuki Kawauchi has only run under 2:20 once in 2024 a...

The Nagoya Women's Marathon has announced 3 withdrawals from Sunday's race. Half marathon NR holder Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku) has withdrawn with an Achilles tendon injury, Gold Coast Marathon CR holder Yuki Nakamura (Panasonic) due to a knee injury, and 2:25:44 runner Kaede Kawamura (Iwatani Sangyo) to run the Mar. 30 Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China. With Niiya's withdrawal the top domestic seed in Nagoya is now Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu), 2:21:55 in Berlin 3 years ago. The complete remaining Nagoya field is here . © 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Winner of the 2016 Gold Coast Marathon and 4th in the 3000 m steeplechase at the 2011 Asian Championships, Sysmex corporate team athlete Misato Horie has retired following her run at the Feb. 2 Hyogo Prefecture Ekiden. Born in 1987, Horie's best achievement at Seiryo H.S. was making the Kinki Region championships. But after entering Mukogawa Joshi University and starting to run the 3000 m steeplechase she grew into one of Japan's top athletes with an 8th-place finish at the 2008 National Championships. After graduating she joined the Noritz corporate team, where she was 2nd at the 2011 National Championships in what was at the time an all-time Japanese #6 mark of 10:02.24. That put her on the team for that year's Asian Championships, where she placed 4th. 2 years later she took 6th at the 2013 Asian Championships. From 2015 on Horie focused on road racing, winning the 2016 Gold Coast Marathon in a then-CR 2:26:40 and following up with her career PB of 2:25:44 for 2nd ...

23-year-old Yuki Nakamura broke through to the upper levels of Japanese women's marathoning, taking over 6 minutes off her PB to win Australia's Gold Coast Marathon in a course record 2:24:22. Coming into the race with a best of only 2:30:31 from Nagoya in March, the night before the race Nakamura's coaching staff told JRN that her goal was to clear 2:26 and that she'd go with the lead group on 2:24 pace and see what she could do. Helped by a large group of men to break the wind, the pack of five soon shook down to just Nakamura, favorite Visiline Jepkesho of Kenya and 2:26 Ethiopian Sichala Kumeshi . Nakamura looked comfortable and under control, even like she was holding back, through the first 2/3 of the race. A move from Jepkesho before 30 km opened a 10 m gap between the two Africans and Nakamura, but Nakamura worked the small hill just after 31 km to catch back up and even go to the front. From there Nakamura threw in a series of surges, first breaking Kumeshi a...

Australia's Gold Coast Half Marathon and Marathon are big draws for Japanese corporate leaguers these days, especially with a big contingent from this year's National Corporate Half Marathon dominating the entry lists in the half. Two-time winner Sara Hall is top-ranked in the women's half with a 1:07:15 from Houston two years ago and will mostly be racing Leanne Pompeani for the win. Beyond that there's a big group at the 1:10 level including Japan's Rinka Hida , Yukari Nagatomo and Moe Shimizu who should all be in it for 3rd. The men's half is dominated by four Japanese men who broke 1:01 at the National Corporate Half in February, meaning that if the weather is decent then the 1:01:16 CR is likely to fall to Shunsuke Shikama , Koki Kamata , Soshi Suzuki or Daisuke Doi . That's a big if, though, with >50% chance of rain and a headwind in the 2nd half that's forecast to get stronger as the race goes along. The favorite for the win and a shot at...

Australia's Gold Coast Marathon is a big draw for Japanese corporate leaguers these days. Japanese men have won it four of the last five editions, and the last time a Japanese man wasn't in the top two was 2015. Last year Naoki Koyama set a course record 2:07:40, then went on to win the Paris Olympic marathon trials, then 2:06:33 in Osaka this past February. Given that kind of progression, the field this year is packed with 2nd-tier Japanese men hoping to have the same success, ten of them who've run 2:07 to 2:09 in the last two years. Most of the action looks like it'll be down around the 3rd to 5th-ranked runners, with 2:07:53 Kenyan Timothy Kipkorir Kattam looking like the best bet to break the Japanese streak carried this year by Yuta Koyama , 2:07:57 in Osaka last year, and Mizuki Higashi , 2:08:03 in Osaka this year. The best potential for a breakthrough out of the Japanese men is Yota Ifuku , a Waseda University ekiden team member who broke the course record ...

On a windier than usual race morning the 2023 Gold Coast Marathon was kind of a throwback to ancient pre-pandemic history, 2019 to be specific. In the women's race, 2019 winner Rodah Jepkorir Tanui was the last woman left standing after a CR-pace 1:12:19 first half, fading the least in the strong headwinds after the turnaround point near 36.5 km and coming to the line in 2:27:10, 46 seconds better than when she won last time. 2018 winner Ruth Chebitok lost touch with Tanui around 25 km but held on for 2nd in 2:28:17. In 3rd, Australian Genevieve Gregson moved up through the field after a more conservative 1:14:19 first half, executing her debut perfectly with a 5-second negative split to finish in 2:28:33. In her first race since 2019, two-time world champion and two-time winner of both the Chicago and Berlin marathons Florence Kiplagat was 6th in 2:36:29. "I wished only to finish," she told JRN. "This was a start to again have something to my name." Top Jap...

Australia's ASICS Half Marathon and Gold Coast Marathon are almost always big draws for elite-level Japanese runners, offering up better weather than to be found domestically this time of year, a faster course, and international racing experience without the jet lag. Saturday's half marathon has four Japanese women and three Japanese men on the entry list, plus a lot of familiar home-grown faces. Former U.S.A. marathon national record holder Keira D'Amato is the top name in the women's race with a best of 1:07:55. Australians Ellie Pashley and Isobel Batt-Doyle are regulars in Japan, Batt-Doyle having set her 1:09:27 PB at Marugame this year and Pashley having run her marathon best in Nagoya in 2019. D'Amato said at the pre-race press conference that she hopes to take a shot at the American record of 1:06:52, and Batt-Doyle said she would be giving it a PB effort. One step down from them in the 1:10-1:11 range are four Japanese women, Kaede Kawamura , Chiharu Ik...

https://goldcoastmarathon.com.au/2023/06/02/2023-gold-coast-marathon-elite-field-reveal/

Aiming for Olympic trials qualification at Sunday's Rotterdam Marathon , Sakiho Tsutsui (Yamada Holdings) had the closest thing to a good race out of the four elite-level Japanese athletes competing abroad this weekend. Needing to run 2:27:15 for qualification after running a 2:28:45 PB just five weeks ago in Nagoya, Tsutsui was just off target at 5km in 17:29, 2:27:33 pace. She fell progressively further off as she went but rallied in the last 10 km to finish 8th overall in 2:29:09, a solid effort at just 24 seconds off her Nagoya best. Also in Rotterdam, Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) needed to run 2:10:45, just under 3:06/km pace, after a 2:09:15 PB at Beppu-Oita the first weekend of February. Shunya Kikuchi (Chugoku Denryoku) only needed 2:11:40, just over 3:07/km, off a 2:08:20 PB in Osaka at the end of February that put him as the 2nd-fastest Japanese man not to have qualified for October's Olympic trials yet. Mystifyingly, both went out at 3:00/km only to crash and bur...

As Australia's Village Roadshow Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon returned for the first time since 2019, Lindsay Flanagan became its first American winner female or male, taking 6 seconds off the course record and over 2 minutes off her PB to take 1st in 2:24:43. Accompanied by dedicated male pacers and a large group of men in a race that never saw a lead women's group congeal, Flanagan went through halfway in 1:11:59 and then sped up even further, clocking her two fastest 5 km splits of the race, 16:52 and 16:47, from 20 to 25 km and 25 to 30 km. The effects of that came down on her after 30 km as she slowed beyond 3:30/km, but with a rally over the last km she held on to crack Ruth Chebitok 's 2018 CR of 2:24:49. Post-race Flanagan and her coach, Australian NR and Oceania AR holder Benita Johnson , were elated, having just met each other in person a few days before the race after a year of online coaching. Like Flanagan, 2nd-placer and local favorite Lisa Weightman , the...

Australia's Gold Coast Marathon returns this weekend for the first time since 2019 with the ASICS Gold Coast Half Marathon on Saturday and Village Roadshow Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon and Southern Cross University 10 km on Sunday. Streaming starts at 5:45 a.m. local time both days, with leaderboards and live results here . JRN's Brett Larner will be doing commentary on the streaming and ABC radio broadcast Sunday. Read JRN's preview of the half and full here . © 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Australia's Village Road Show Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon is set to return next weekend for its first full-on in-person edition since 2019. The elite fields for its half marathon and marathon division are smaller than usual but full of top domestic talent with some international support from the U.S.A., Japan, and elsewhere. A familiar face in Japan, Eloise Wellings leads the women's half marathon, her PB of 1:09:29 set at the Marugame Half in 2016. Earlier this year she ran a marathon best of 2:25:10 in Nagoya and 1:10:42 for 4th at the Gifu Seiryu Half, setting up a good head-to-head race with Jessica Stenson , 2:25:15 in Perth last fall and with a 1:10:59 best in Marugame in 2018. Brett Robinson leads the men's half marathon with a 59:57 NR for the win in Marugame in 2020. Tim Vincent is his strongest competition on paper with a 1:01:43 on the aided Rome-Ostia Half course earlier this year, but Joel Tobin-White , 1:02:03 in Marugame 2019, Commonwealth Games-boun...

Jo Fukuda age: 28 sponsor: Nishitetsu graduated from: Omuta H.S., Kokushikan University best time inside MGC window: 2:09:52, 3rd, 2018 Gold Coast Marathon PB: 2:09:52, 3rd, 2018 Gold Coast Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 14:09.18 (2017) 10000 m: 28:44.67 (2017) half marathon: 1:02:25 (2019) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) DNF, 2019 Tokyo Marathon 7th, 2018 Fukuoka International Marathon, 2:10:54 3rd, 2018 Gold Coast Marathon, 2:09:52 – PB 23rd, 2018 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:18:16 3rd, 2017 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:15:11 other major results: 7th, 2019 Gold Coast Half Marathon, 1:03:49 26th, 2019 Marugame Half Marathon, 1:02:25 – PB 24th, 2019 National Men’s Ekiden Seventh Stage (13.0 km), 38:38 23rd, 2019 New Year Ekiden Fourth Stage (22.4 km), 1:06:42 3rd, 2018 Kyushu Corporate Ekiden Fifth Stage (13.0 km), 38:27 20th, 2017 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, 2:16:16 9th, 2016 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:16:29 35th, 2016 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:19:06 ...

Last year Yuta Shitara became the first Japanese man in 16 years to break the national record in the marathon. But just seven months later that record was rewritten. Now, vowing to run "my way," he faces September's Tokyo Olympics marathon trials, the MGC Race. At last year's Tokyo Marathon when Shitara broke the national record he picked up a 100 million yen bonus and established himself as the leading contender for the Tokyo Olympic team. Nothing about Shitara fit the usual stereotypes. He didn't run longer than 30 km in training. He prioritized his own sense of his condition and refused to run any more than necessary. But in October his record fell to one of the biggest rivals of his generation, Suguru Osako . Two months later at the Fukuoka International Marathon Shitara fell off pace after 32 km, the lingering effects of a stress fracture in his right leg. When his recovery didn't go as planned he began to lose motivation. "I started ...

Former marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (27, Honda) returned to Narita Airport on July 8 a day after scoring his first-ever marathon win at Australia's Gold Coast Marathon . Shitara won in an excellent course record time of 2:07:50, lending momentum to his buildup for the MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials just over two months away. During the race Shitara suffered a mishap, bleeding from both nipples early on. "It rained right before the start," he said, "and once I started running it started chafing. I was a little worried about it, but if you want to compete at the top of the game then there are no excuses." Shrugging it off, even as his uniform soaked up the blood Shitara kept up his fast pace. "My training paid off in this result," he said with obvious satisfaction. "Winning gives me confidence, and I want to make good use of that after this." Up to now Shitara has followed his own training program, never running lo...