japan running news

With temperatures reported as high as 35˚C and sunny conditions, a total of 3,858 people were reported to have run Sunday's Lake Saroma 100 km and 50 km Ultramarathon . The conditions were bad enough that 3 runners were taken to the hospital with heatstroke and world champion Haruki Okayama had to drop out mid-race, but that didn't stop Hong Kong's Kok Wai Tse from running strong over the 2nd half of the race to come from behind with an excellent 6:28:39 for the win. At halfway Tse was almost 2 minutes behind a lead group that included Hideaki Yamauchi and Hideo Nojo , but when they faded in the heat Tse was there to take over. He ultimately finished over 13 minutes ahead of 2nd-place Shion Oe , who likewise had a more conservative start and spent most of the race with eventual 3rd-placer Naoki Matsuo . Yamauchi was ultimately 4th in 6:47:32, splitting 3:07:39/3:39:53, with Nojo 5th in 6:49:37 with even more painful splits of 3:07:30/3:42:07. In the women's race Mik...

After dropping out of a shot at the world record at last month's Shibamata 100 km , 2022 World Championships silver medalist Jumpei Yamaguchi (Eldoreso) was back to give it another go at Sunday's Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon in Hokkaido. Running into a 1~2 m/s headwind for much of the race, Yamaguchi started fast, splitting 35:55 at 10 km, just on track for sub-6 hours. '22 gold medalist and Shibamata winner Haruki Okayama (Comodi Iida), two-time world champ Hideaki Yamauchi (Hamamatsu Hotniks), 2017 Lake Saroma winner Tatsuya Itagaki (Tokinosumika) and others went with him, but by 30 km it was down to just Yamauchi, Itagaki and Okayama in 1:47:48. After hitting the marathon point in 2:31:39, still sub-6 pace, Okayama fell off and ultimately dropped out. Itagaki stayed with Yamaguchi until 60 km in 3:37:09 before letting go. As the temperature hit 20˚ under cloudless skies and climbed on to 22˚ Yamaguchi's 10 km splits slowed into the 37-minute range, and the m...

Relative newcomers Haruki Okayama and Jumpei Yamaguchi ran big PBs to take the top two spots in the men's race at the IAU 100 km World Championships Saturday in Berlin. 2018 world champ Hideaki Yamauchi was a last-minute scratch after testing positive for COVID-19, leaving Okayama, Yamaguchi and world record holder Nao Kazami to take things out hard in a quintet with Brazilian Felipe Silva and French athlete Guillaume Ruel . Ruel soon broke away to open a lead of around 2 minutes by halfway. Behind him, a South African trio caught up to the Japanese group, prompting Yamaguchi to take off in pursuit of the lead. On every 7.5 km lap he closed around 30 seconds on Ruel, finally coming within 20 seconds at around 70 km. But just as he was about to take the lead, Yamaguchi ran into trouble, at exactly the time that Okayama drove by hard to move into 1st instead of him. Running the 100 km distance for only the second time, by 77.5 km he had almost a minute lead over Ruel and never ...

The IAU 100 km World Championships are this Saturday in Berlin, Germany, and Japan has sent strong teams with every woman under 7:40 and 2 of the 3 men under 6:20 for the 100 km distance. 2018 gold medalist Hideaki Yamauchi (Hamamatsu Hotniks RC) is out after testing positive for coronavirus, but world record holder Nao Kazami (Aisan Kogyo) remains to lead the men. The fastest non-Japanese athlete on the entry list is American Rajpaul Pannu at 6:28:31. Considering that 3rd Japanese man Junpei Yamaguchi (Eldoreso) has run 6:22:35 it looks like the potential for a Japanese men's podium sweep is there, but things are never that easy. 2018 bronze medalist Mai Fujisawa (Sapporo Excel AC) and 7:27:46 runner Miho Nakata (Chiba T&F Assoc.) lead the women. Only three other women in the field, European record holder Dominika Stelmach (Poland), Radka Churanova (Czech Republic) and Camille Chaigneau (France), have broken 7:30, giving Nakata a good shot at an individual medal if ...

On June 17 the JAAF announced its team of four men and four women for the 31st IAU 100 km World Championships to be held Aug. 27 in Berlin, Germany. Held every two years, the last edition of the 100 m World Championships was scheduled for 2020 in  Winschoten, the Netherlands, but was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. 2018 gold medalist Hideaki Yamauchi  (Hamamatsu Hotniks RC) and world record holder Nao Kazami  (Aisan Kogyo) lead the Japanese men's team, with 2018 bronze medalist Mai Fujisawa  (Sapporo Excel AC) leading the women's team. The full team rosters: Men Nao Kazami (Aisan Kogyo) - 6:09:14 (Lake Saroma 2018) Haruki Okayama (Comodi Iida) - 6:16:47 (Shibamata 2022) Hideaki Yamauchi (Hamamatsu Hotniks RC) - 6:18:22 (Los Alcazares, 2016) Junpei Yamaguchi (Eldoreso) - 6:22:38 (Shibamata 2021) Women Mai Fujisawa (Sapporo Excel AC) - 7:37:56 (Lake Saroma 2018) Aiko Kanematsu (Team RxL) - 7:38:41 (Shibamata 2022) Miho Nakata (Chiba T&F Assoc.) - 7:40:06...

The 34th Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon took place June 30 on the northern shores of Hokkaido. In the women's 100 km  Mai Fujisawa (Excel AC) ran 7:32:50 for her fourth Lake Saroma title with a margin of victory of over six minutes. In the men's race  Tatsuya Itagaki  (Tokinosumika) ran 6:25:52 to win Lake Saroma for the third time, two years after his last victory. Runner-up Yasuyuki Nakamura (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) was just 37 seconds behind, with world champion Hideaki Yamauchi  (Hamamatsu Hotniks) another six minutes back. Between Lake Saroma's 100 km and 50 km divisions a total of 3770 people started the race, with 2861 finishing. In the 100 km division 3281 people started of which 2435 finished, a finishing rate of 74.2%. 34th Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon Yubetsu, Hokkaido, 6/30/19 Women's 100 km 1. Mai Fujisawa - 7:32:50 2. Mikiko Ota - 7:38:53 3. Konoka Azumi - 7:53:48 Men's 100 km 1. Tatsuya Itagaki - 6:25:52 2. Yasuyuki Nakamura - ...

When frontrunning American Jim Walmsley packed it in after going a few seconds under the longstanding 50-mile world record at Hoka One One's Project Carbon X 100 km , two-time world champion Hideaki Yamauchi was quick to take over. Well under world record pace at halfway despite being 3 minutes behind Warmsley at that stage, Yamauchi slowed as temperatures rose in the second half but had no real competition after taking the lead and sailed on to win in 6:19:54, almost 14 minutes ahead of runner-up Patrick Reagan . Yoshiki Takada was just over 18 minutes behind Reagan in 3rd in 6:52:03. The lone finisher in the women's race, American Sabrina Little took the women's title in 7:49:28. Project Carbon X 100 km Fulsom, CA, 5/4/19 complete results Women 1. Sabrina Little (U.S.A.) - 7:49:28 Men 1. Hideaki Yamauchi (Japan) - 6:19:54 2. Patrick Reagan (U.S.A.) - 6:33:50 3. Yoshiki Takada (Japan) - 6:52:03 4. Jim Walmsley (U.S.A.) - 7:05:24 5. Mike Wardian (U.S.A.)...

It was a pretty good year for the Japanese men, in the marathon at least. Not so much on the track and less so in the half marathon, but very decent in the marathon. On the track, the fastest 5000 m time was only 13:29.11 by national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) and in the 10000 m 27:55.85 by all-time #2 man Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei). With the IAAF announcing 13:22.50 and 27:40.00 standards for next year's Doha World Championships after doing an about-face on its plans to base everything on world rankings it's pretty likely that, for the second World Championships in a row, there won't be a single Japanese man running either distance. Of the 4 still-active Japanese men to have ever bettered the 5000 m standard nobody has done it in the 3 and 1/2 years since Osako and Yoroizaka did in July, 2015. Likewise in the 10000 m, where none of the 5 currently active men to have cracked 27:40 has done it since 2015. Neither distance saw any me...

The Japanese men and women dominated the 2018 IAU 100 km World Championships in Sveti Martin na Muri, Crotia on Saturday, winning both team gold medals and the individual men's gold and silver and women's bronze medals. Finishing in the inverse order they did at June's historic Lake Saroma 100 km , the men went 1-2-4-6, Lake Saroma 4th placer and defending world champion  Hideaki Yamauchi winning the race outright in 6:28:05 and Lake Saroma 3rd-placer Takehiro Gyoba taking silver in 6:32:51. Two-time Comrades Marathon champ Bongmusa Mthembu of South Africa, 2nd to Yamauchi last time out, was the only non-Japanese athlete to make the men's podium, beating Lake Saroma runner-up Koji Hayasaka by just over two minutes to take bronze in 6:33:47 to Hayasaka's 6:36:05. All three scoring Japanese men broke 4:00/km to give the men's an incredible score of 19:37:01, nearly an hour faster than the silver-earning South Africa team. Germany had the distinction of ta...

Running on the same course where Japan's Takahiro Sunada set the road 100 km world record of 6:13:33 twenty years ago, 2:17:23 marathoner Nao Kazami   bested a deep and competitive field to win the Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon in a world record 6:09:14. Part of a front group of at least five that went through the marathon split in 2:33:36, on pace for 6:04:01, Kazami lost touch with the lead as rivals Koji Hayasaka and Takehiko Gyoba surged just before halfway to open a roughly 30 second lead that lasted until nearly 75 km. But in the last quarter of the race Kazami, a graduate of Hakone Ekiden powerhouse Komazawa University , was the only one who could sustain anything close to the early pace, overtaking Hayasaka and Gyoba before pulling away to open a lead of over 11 minutes. Kazami's mark took more than 4 minutes off the world record, and he also bettered the 100 km track world record of 6:10:20 set in 1978 well before he was born by the late Don Ritchie . ...

#1-ranked Kaleab Ghilagabr became the first Eritrean winner in the Osaka Marathon 's short seven-year history, leading 29,359 finishers across the line Sunday in a PB 2:12:03, while club runner Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) had to run a minute-plus PB 2:34:38 to win an exciting battle between Japan's six best amateur women by 1 second. Ghilagabr set off accompanied by unsponsored amateur Hideyuki Ikegami , an unusual independent who got attention by beating Yuki Kawauchi in a half marathon in 2014 and went on to be mentored by 2:07:48 Olympian Arata Fujiwara . In April this year Ikegami made his marathon debut at the Hannover Marathon but finished in a disappointing 2:30:15 that didn't reflect the quality suggested by his 1:03:09 half best and 1:31:53 PB for 30 km.  The pair ran 2:10:30 pace through 15 km, PB pace for both, before Ikegami began to slip. Ghilagabr pushed on alone, holding on to 2:10 pace until well into the second half before beginning to slow. Ikeg...

One of the world's ten biggest marathons, in its six runnings to date the Osaka Marathon has continued to avoid the addition of a world-class elite field of the same caliber as at equivalently-sized races like Tokyo, Berlin and Boston. In place of doling out cash to pros, Osaka's women's field has developed into a sort of national championship race for amateur women. In the field this year are six, probably all six, of the amateur Japan women to have broken 2:40 in the last three years. Last year's top three, Yoshiko Sakamoto (F.O.R.), Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) and Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) lead the way at the 2:36 +/- level, with a second trio of Marie Imada (Iwatani Sangyo), Mitsuko Ino (R2 Nishin Nihon) and Chika Tawara (RxL) all around the 2:39 level. Last year's winner Sakamoto and 3rd placer Yoshimatsu squared off in September at Germany's Volksbank Muenster Marathon , Yoshimatsu tying Sakamoto's Osaka winning time of 2:36:02 to tak...

by Brett Larner @JRNHeadlines pic.twitter.com/uqE9UrqAYw — John O'Regan (@johnoregan777) November 29, 2016 Hideaki Yamauchi become the fourth Japanese man in the last ten years to win the IAU 100 km World Championships , coming from three minutes behind to outrun South Africa's Bongmusa Mthembu , Italian three-time world champion Giorgio Calcaterra and others to win Sunday's race in Los Alcazares, Spain by nearly six minutes.  Yamauchi's winning time of 6:18:22 was the fifth-fastest ever for the 100 km distance , making him the all-time #4 man worldwide just behind world record holder Takahiro Sunada .  Yamauchi's teammates Kaitaro Toike and Yoshiki Takada took 8th and 23rd, giving Japan the team silver medal by a slim margin behind South Africa.  The U.S.A. team took bronze on the strength of two top five finishes. No Japanese women scored individual medals, but with a 5-6-7 finish separated by only 17 seconds the trio of Mikiko Ota , Aiko Kanematsu ...