japan running news

With championship ekiden season right around the corner there aren’t many weekends this time of year that aren’t busy ones in Japan. This one is another one. Saturday is the 85th Tango University Ekiden in Kyoto, the 8-stage, 74.4 km season-ender for Kansai Region university teams. This year a few of them had the chance to run the Hakone Ekiden qualifier in October to try to achieve the hopeless task of beating even one Kanto Region team for a spot at the 100th Hakone in January, but with none achieving that goal they’re back for their own regional championship. It’s an interesting situation as some teams like Ritsumeikan University and Kantaiheiyo University just made the challenging Hakone qualifier - National University Ekiden double, and others like Kwansei Gakuin University opted to focus everything this season on a Tango win. And this time there’s actually a Kanto Region interloper in the form of powerhouse Aoyama Gakuin University , making a special one-time appearance at Ta...

The return of the legendary Ageo City Half Marathon was the biggest news this weekend, but high-level races were happening on the road and track across the country. On the roads, this season's top non-Kanto Region program Kwansei Gakuin University toppled four-time winner Ritsumeikan University to take the top spot at the 84th Tango University Ekiden Saturday in Kyoto. The season ender for Kansai Region schools, Tango saw 22 teams racing 84.5 km in 8 stages. Ritsumeikan led early with a stage win by first runner Yuta Nagasawa before being overtaken by Kansai University on the second leg. Kwansei Gakuin hovered in the top 3 until the 12.3 km Fifth Stage, where 4th-year Sota Ueda wrapped his college career by breaking his own stage record with a new mark of 35:18 to put KGU into the lead. That's where they stayed for the rest of the race, winning in 4:16:01. The battle for 2nd was intense over the 11.7 km anchor stage. Kyoto Sangyo University overtook Kansai for 2nd, but...

The world's deepest half marathon returns Sunday in Ageo, Saitama for the first time since 2019 as Hakone Ekiden-bound universities line up at the Ageo City Half Marathon . Coaches of the teams set to run Hakone use Ageo to narrow down their rosters of contenders for their 16-member Hakone entry list, and the result of that is hundreds of people turning in times that would win most other races. Since 2012 the top two Japanese collegiate finishers have also earned invitations to the United Airlines NYC Half. People like former national record holder Yuta Shitara and the top placer in the marathon at this summer's Oregon World Championships Yusuke Nishiyama have gone from Ageo to NYC and on to bigger things, and with big names like 2019 winner Joseph Razini Lemeteki (Takushoku Univ.), 1:00:40 half marathoner Chikara Yamano (Komazawa Univ.) and former 5000 m H.S. NR holder Kosuke Ishida (Toyo Univ.) on the entry list this time the front end of the race should be fast and com...

Amateur Japanese club runner Haruka Yamaguchi  (AC Kita) and Ugandan Geoffrey Kusuro had dominant wins at the 9th running of the Kobe Marathon Sunday, both running PBs and winning by almost 4 minutes in course record time. Yamaguchi, who ran a PB 2:33:06 in Sydney in September and dropped a surprise 31:58 at last weekend's East Japan Women's Ekiden , slipped away early, never challenged by the pack of invited African elites or by friend and rival club runner Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto). Going through halfway faster than her half marathon PB in 1:13:08. She slowed slightly in the second half, especially on the large bridge out to the island finish line, but her win was never in doubt as she broke the tape in 2:27:39. Previously, the fastest pure amateur Japanese women's marathon performance was Chihiro Tanaka 's 2:29:30 in Nagoya in 2002. Breaking that by almost two minutes, Yamaguchi staked her claim as Japan's best-ever amateur. 2nd through 5th wer...