japan running news

The Hokkaido Region University Ekiden took place Aug. 13 in Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, women running 35.86 km in 6 stages and men 101.06 km in 8 stages. In the women's race, Sapporo Gakuin University won for the 6th year in a row, running 2:15:08 and qualifying for the Oct. 30 National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai. All 6 SGU runners won their stages, definitively beating 2nd-placer Hokkaido University by over 9 minutes. Anchor Hazuki Kurokawa said, "It was my first time to break a tape at the finish line, and I loved it." SGU's Nei Tsu took the lead 2 km into the first stage, opening a gap of over a minute on 2nd. Rikako Hamada and Yuno Ishikawa handled the next two stages before the tasuki went to captain Akane Yatame on the fourth stage. The only 4th-year on the team, post-race Yatame said, "I had a lot of responsibility out there today. The younger runners really helped out." Third runner Ishikawa had suffered fractures in her left fibu...

The Hokkaido University Ekiden took place Aug. 14 in Sapporo's Moerenuma Park, with women covering 35.86 km in six stages and men 101.06 km in eight stages. In the women's race, Sapporo Gakuin University  scored a fifth-straight prefectural title, all six of its athletes winning their stages and covering the total distance in 2:11:31. The team's win secured its place at the Oct. 31 National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai. The Sapporo Gakuin men won in 5:19:31, their fourth-straight and 28th overall prefectural win. They likewise qualified for the National University Ekiden, taking place Nov. 7 in Nagoya for men. The women's decisive win came under new head coach Hiroyuki Kudo , 71, who previously led the Otani Muroran H.S.  boys and girls and the Sapporo Nichidai H.S.  girls to a combined 21 National High School Ekiden appearances. 2nd-year Sena Onishi  generated the team's momentum on the opening leg. Last year Onishi was unwell and lost more than 10 kg, p...

It seems like the only news about Japanese road racing these days is that all the races are shutting down, already all the way until mid-March at this point. But there are a few races that have offered some hope by going ahead or planning to. The June 20  Arakawa Smile Marathon was the first one to happen since early March this year, a small amateur event along a Tokyo riverbank with a variety of distances up to 30 km. It followed up July 4 with another edition. At this point it has editions planned monthly until January , with an extra running planned in Shizuoka in October. Last weekend the Hokkaido University Ekiden also took place on a short loop course in a Sapporo park with five men's teams and four women's teams. And that's it so far. Looking forward, along with the Smile event's upcoming editions, the elite-level Okukuma Ekiden  on Oct. 4 insists that it will go ahead with its first running despite the coronavirus crisis and large-scale flood damage in ...

Following the cancelation of the Kanto Region University Women's Ekiden, on Aug. 18 the Inter-University Athletic Union of Kanto announced that the teams it will send to the Oct. 25 National University Women's Ekiden will instead be chosen based on the results at a series of 5000 m track races to be held Sept. 26 at Juntendo University in Inzai, Chiba. Each team vying for Nationals will field six runners, with the four schools with the lowest combined times for their six women earning places. Due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the meet will be held without spectators. The top eight teams at last year's Nationals have already qualified for the return trip this year, among them the Kanto region programs Daito Bunka University , Nittai University and Josai University . Translator's note: This news follows the Hokkaido region holding its usual qualifying ekiden this past Saturday, the first elite-level road race in Japan since March 8. The qualifying method ...

The 32nd Hokkaido University Ekiden took place Aug. 15 on a 3.26 km loop course inside Sapporo's Moerenuma Park. In the six-stage, 35.86 km women's race, which served as the regional qualifier for the Oct. 25 Morinomiyako Ekiden national championships in Sendai, Sapporo Kokusai University swept all six stage bests to win in a new event record of 2:06:13. Overcoming the challenges of the coronavirus era, it was Sapporo Kokusai's fourth-straight win. Captain Reo Aoyama  lit the fuse when she took the lead on the 6.52 km First Stage. At last year's Nationals she was responsible for the First Stage but finished last in 25th, the team only managing to pull itself up to 22nd by the end of the race. "I wanted to get rid of last year's disappointment with this run and get our season off the ground with some momentum," she said. Aoyama succeeded in that goal, handing off with a margin of almost 4 minutes on 2nd place. Head coach since the team was founded, ...