japan running news

Championship ekiden season wrapped last weekend, but there's still a lot going on this weekend. First up, Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.), who holds five U20 national records from 1500 m through 10000 m and ran a 59:22 half marathon equivalent at the Hakone Ekiden just over 3 weeks ago, tunes up for February's Millrose Games 2-mile with an indoor 5000 m at the Boston University Terrier Classic Friday night in his first race since turning 20. Sato has only run one indoor race before, a 3000 m silver medal at last year's Asian Indoor Championships, but the indoor NR of 13:27.81 is sure to be a target. The quick transition from Hakone isn't easy, but based on his 27:28.50 10000 m in November, the Asian indoor AR of 13:08.41 could be in range too. Three big road races dominate the horizon on Sunday. First up is the Katsuta Marathon in Ibaraki. Now in its 71st year, Katsuta has a mass participation field of 10000 with another 5000 m in its 10 km. Although it's got a hilly...

Sheila Chepkirui is the favorite in the Feb. 4 Marugame Half Marathon women's race, at 1:04:36 about three minutes up on her closest competition, Japan-based Kenyans Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels) and Dolphine Omare Nyaboke (U.S.E.). Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) leads the Japanese women at 1:08:53, but the most interesting person on the entry list is her teammate Ririka Hironaka , all-time Japanese #2 for 5000 m and 10000 m and making her half marathon debut here. When Hitomi Niiya set the current NR of 1:06:38 in early 2020 it seemed like a mark that would last a long time, but with a better understanding of how much shoe tech has inflated road times since then that has to be a realistic goal for Hironaka, if not this time then next. Sub-58 man Alexander Mutiso (ND Software) has a recent best of 58:48 that puts him just ahead of Charles Langat , ranked #2 at 58:53. Cleophas Kandie (Mitsubishi Juko) is the only other runner under 60 minutes with a best of 59:18 from Marugame...

The Jan. 28 Osaka International Women's Marathon and Osaka Half Marathon organizers announced the elite fields for both races today. The marathon is all about whether a Japanese woman can run 2:21:41 to steal the third spot on the Paris Olympic team from Ai Hosoda , the 3rd-placer at October's MGC Olympic marathon trials. Only one Japanese woman in the field has done that, Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) with a 2:20:52 in Osaka International two years ago, and to help her try to get there organizers have pulled in Workenesh Edesa (Ethiopia), 2:18:51 in Berlin 2022, Stella Chesang (Uganda), 2:20:23 in Hamburg this past spring, and Sisay Meseret Gola (Ethiopia), 2:20:50 in Seville 2022. 2021 Tokyo Olympian Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) is probably Matsuda's strongest domestic competition at 2:22:32 earlier this year in Nagoya, with Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) and Natsumi Matsushita (Tenmaya) more distantly in range. But with Nagoya coming in March with others in pursuit of the ...

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 50th anniversary National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships went off with a bang Sunday in Yamaguchi with historic results in both the women's and men's races despite cold and rainy conditions. In the women's half marathon, debut marathon NR holder Yuka Ando (Wacoal) and Rino Goshima (Shiseido), course record breaker on November's National Corporate Women's Ekiden 10.0 km Fifth Stage and 2019 World University Games 10000 m silver medalist, went out relatively conservatively on track for just over 69 minutes at 5 km in 16:24. Kenyan Dolphine Nyaboke Omare (U.S.E.) caught up shortly after that and really got things moving, taking them through 10 km in 32:33 and 15 km in 48:29. That was too much for Goshima, who dropped 9 seconds behind by 15 km, and a bit later for Ando. Omare hammered on to go through 20 km in 1:04:19 en route to a 1:07:56 course record for the win, 15 seconds under the old record set by Yukiko Akaba in 2008. Goshima caught An...

With a young team all aged from 20 to 25 but including two Olympians and a 2:06:26 marathoner, Honda  won its first-ever New Year Ekiden corporate men's national title Jan. 1 in Gunma.  Off to a slow start on the 7-stage, 100.0 km course, Honda went from 13th to 23rd in the field of 37 over the first two legs before third runner Naoki Koyama turned things around. With a strong tailwind that pushed the top 7 on his stage under the older course record, Koyama was 8th-fastest in 37:40 for 13.6 km to take Honda up to 14th. Tokyo Olympics 10000 m runner Tatsuhiko Ito handled the race's longest stage, 22.4 km, and with a 1:04:15 putting him at 5th-fastest Ito advanced Honda to 5th overall. Olympic 3000 mSC team member Ryoma Aoki  ran the 2nd-fastest time on the 15.8 km Fifth Stage, surviving a turn into the wind to take Honda to 3rd and setting up sixth man Ken Nakayama  to go for the top position. Initially working together with Tsukasa Koyama  (Subaru) to close ...

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 IAAF has unilaterally declared track season over . But in Japan fall track is an integral part of ekiden season training, and it's not unusual to see many athletes drop their best 3000 m, 5000 m and 10000 m times of the year between October and December. Case in point, this weekend. The biggest news came at Saturday's Nighter Time Trials in Nagasaki , where Keiho H.S. 11th-grader Hiroto Hayashida ran 28:45.75 for 6th in the 10000 m, all-time #8 among Japanese high school boys and #2 among 11th-graders. "Thank you to everyone who supported me!" Hayashida said on Twitter post-race. "I want to take this and apply to it ekiden season now." Geoffrey Gichia (Daiichi Kogyo Univ.) won in 28:36.36, with Jakarta Asian Games marathon gold medalist Hiroto Inoue (MHPS) 2nd in 28:37.27. ナイター記録会(諫早) 林田洋翔選手(瓊浦2) 28:45.75 県高校記録更新おめでとうございます🎉 pic.twitter.com/V7navKw6HQ — manamin (@kinokonoko0916) October 13, 2018 At Niigata's Autumn Time Trials a...

The 2017 National Sports Festival took place over the long weekend, the last major track meet on the Japanese calendar as ekiden season gets into full swing. This year saw one of the greatest women's 3000 m races and certainly the best high school 3000 m ever held on Japanese soil, as 18-year-old Nozomi Tanaka (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) led five high school women under nine minutes to win in 8:54.27. えひめ国体 女子 少年A3000m決勝ラスト一周 優勝🥇兵庫・田中選手8:54.27 pic.twitter.com/Z4l0wMDr6n — 城戸康志 (@dokidokikouji) October 9, 2017 The daughter of Japan's best female amateur marathoner, 2:29:30 runner Chihiro Tanaka , Tanaka broke nine minutes for the first time in August with a runner-up finish to Kenyan Helen Ekarare (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) at the National High School Championships in 8:59.83. Last month she took that to 8:58.81 at a time trial meet in Shizuoka. At the National Sports Festival she ran at the front of a lead pack of eight featuring five Japanese runners and three Kenyans, the...

http://www.ktn.co.jp/news/20170219116552/ translated and edited by Brett Larner 2/19 郡市対抗県下一周駅伝 第7区 林田洋翔選手(大村・東彼) 7 51 区間新 pic.twitter.com/oUt8H5Qbtc — manamin (@kinokonoko0916) February 19, 2017 On the final day of the three-day Nagasaki Intraprefecture Ekiden on Feb. 19, the Seihi-Saikai municipal team scored its first overall win in three years. Seihi-Saikai led both of the first two days of the race before leading the way to the finish line on day three.  The city of Nagasaki team was 2nd,  with the Omura-Higashi Sonogi municipal team 3rd. 3000 m junior high school national record holder Hiroto Hayashida , a third-year at Sakuragahara J.H.S., ran the 3.0 km Seventh Stage for Omura-Higashi Sonogi.  Having set a new 3.0 km course record at last month's National Men's Ekiden , Hayashida did it again as he passed three people en route to a new course record of 7:51, an amazing 31 seconds off the old record. " This was the last ekiden I'll run as a...

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/sp/nnp/nagasaki/article/307416 translated by Brett Larner A third-year at Sakuragahara J.H.S. in Omura, 3000 m junior high school national record holder Hiroto Hayashida announced on Feb. 10 that he has committed to attend Keiho H.S. in Nagasaki.  Hayashida received offers from a number of top running schools both within and outside Kyushu, but, he said of his decision, "I want to do my part to raise the level of athletics in Nagasaki where I was born and raised." In last October's Iwate National Sports Festival junior 3000 m Hayashida won in 8:19.14, breaking his own junior high school national record.  In January he set a new course record of 8:20 on the 3.0 k m Second Stage at the National Men's Ekiden in Hiroshima .  Keiho H.S. has competed at the National High School Ekiden five times.  Asked about his goals in high school, Hayashida replied with determination, "I want to win the 1500 m and 5000 m at the National High Sc...

by Brett Larner video courtesy of NHK Six-time national champion Nagano extended its dynasty to seven, fighting off a tough challenge by Fukuoka on the anchor stage to win the 22nd edition of the National Men's Ekiden  in Hiroshima. The counterpart to last weekend's National Women's Ekiden , the men's race features 47 seven-man teams made up from the best junior high school, high school, university and corporate league runners from each prefecture, all competing over a total of 48.0 km. Nagano got off to a strong start as its lead runner Yuhi Nakaya took 2nd on the 7.0 km high school boys' First Stage, 3 seconds behind leader Kiseki Shiozawa of Mie .  Defending national champion Aichi and Fukuoka were more than 20 seconds back in 19th and 20th, but with solid runs by their 3.0 km junior high school Second Stage runners both advanced into the top 10. Behind them, Nagasaki 's Hiroto Hayashida went from 41st to 27th as he broke the course record by 9...

by Brett Larner click here for part one After a meet record in the men's 10000 m race walk earlier in weekend, the second half of the 71st National Sports Festival saw two more race walk meet records.  In the senior women's 5000 mRW, Kumiko Okada (Bic Camera) broke the record set 21 years ago with a new mark of 21:24.94 to win by almost a minute.  The junior men's 5000 mRW was closer, with Masatora Kawano (Gotemba Minami H.S.) pushing Ryutaro Yamamoto (Toyama Shogyo H.S.) to break his own record.  Yamamoto bettered his 2015 record by 12 seconds in 19:56.66, Kawano also coming in under Kawano's old mark in 20:02.38. In the junior men's 3000 m, 9th-grader  Hiroto Hayashida (Sakuragahara J.H.S.) bettered his high school competition to win in a new junior high school national record of 8:19.14.  No records were set in the junior women's 3000 m, but Kenyan Helen Ekarare (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) delivered one of the fastest performances in National Sports Festiv...

by Brett Larner With ekiden season just starting to break track action was heavy across the country as teams started to sharpen their lineups after summer mileage.  At the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Osaka, Rio Olympics 4x100 m silver medalist Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) ran a 10.03 (+0.5 m/s) PB and meet record to beat his Rio relay teammate Asuka Cambridge (Dome), drawing ever closer to Japan's first sub-10 clocking.  Another member of the Rio team, Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) duly won the 200 m in 20.57 (+0.0 m/s), doubling in the 4x100 m and running a rare 4x400 m to help bring Mizuno national corporate titles in both, Mizuno breaking the 4x400 m meet record with a 3:04.51 win. A meet record also fell in the men's 3000 mSC, where two-time national champion Hironori Tsuetaki (Team Fujitsu) ran an all-time Japanese #7 8:29.78 for the win.  Times were also fast by Japanese standards in the women's 1500 m, where Kenyan Ann Karindi (Toyota Jidoshokki...