japan running news

The Suffolkland Shibetsu Half Marathon took place on July 12 in Shibetsu, Hokkaido, with corporate league runners, collegiate athletes and amateur runners all taking to the city streets under breaks in the cloudy skies. A total of around 1900 people entered the event's 39th edition. In the men's race, Yu Miyazaki of Toyo University won in 1:02:22, the 6th-fastest time in Shibetsu Half history. Kaede Hagitani , a 2021 Tokyo Olympian in the 5000 m, won in 1:13:02 as a step toward next month's Hokkaido Marathon. "This was a good run that helped me figure out what areas I need to work on for the Hokkaido Marathon," she said post-race. "The scenery along the course was relaxing." Miyazaki, who took 3rd on the opening leg at the 2023 National High School Ekiden while at Ibaraki's Toyodai Ushiku H.S. and anchored Toyo at last fall's Izumo Ekiden, took 27 seconds off the PB he had run at November's Ageo City Half Marathon. It was his second PB i...

Compared to yesterday's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai half marathon conditions were tougher for the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon today, and the effects of the warmer weather showed in the results. With people like Tokyo Olympics 10000 m gold medalist Selemon Barega , 57:50 for the half marathon, and 59:30 collegiate record co-holder Richard Etir in the race the men went out in a leisurely 14:52 for the downhill first 5 km, with Sydney Marathon 6th placer Masato Arao in the lead and a pack of over 50 in tow. Victor Kipchirchir made a couple of tries to get things moving, shaking the front pack down to 16 by 10 km and 9 by 15 km. Things really broke up on the same hill that featured near the end of the Tokyo World Championships marathons, leaving it down to Barega, Etir, Benard Kimeli and Paul Kuira with 1 km to go. Barega and Etir were head-to-head heading onto the track, and even though Etir tried to pull off a replay of the Tokyo Worlds men's marathon finish Barega hung on for t...

Following Saturday's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifier half marathon, the weekend's other big half is Sunday's Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon . The Tokyo Marathon Foundation has been trying to get this race off the ground for the last few years, and it is pretty cool. Starting and finishing on the track in the National Stadium built for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and following basically the same course as the one originally planned for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, the MGC Race Olympic marathon trials, and last month's Tokyo World Athletics Championships marathon, it's quickly gotten popular as a mass participation race. But as an elite race it's got a few problems. The uphill finish that was such an important strategic part of the MGC and World Championships marathons means it'll never be as fast as it could be. And its timing in the middle of ekiden season severely limits the number of Japanese athletes and Japan-based Africans who can run it, especially fo...

At the Yodogawa Kanpei Half Marathon in Hirakata, Osaka on Dec. 15, Kaede Hagitani , 24, took over 10 minutes off the women's course record to win in 1:10:37. Hagitani ran the 5000 m at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and is targeting the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Men's winner Koki Hosokawa , 31, broke his own CR with a 1:08:03 to win for the 2nd year in a row. In 5˚ temperatures the race set off along the Yodogawa river. Competing as a first step in her comeback after having left the sport post-Olympics, Hagitani had a spectacular record-breaking run that earned her a permanent invitation. "I usually train alone, so I never feel like I'm really on except in a race like this," she said. "The male runners in the race helped me have a good one." When asked why she ran a local race like the Kanpei Half when everyone else there was just a regular amateur Hagitani laughed and said, "My parents live near here." At the Tokyo Olympics Hagitani broke her 5000...

Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships women's 5000 m team member Kaede Hagitani placed 3rd in the Mar. 31 Hasetsune 30K Trail Race , finishing in 4:06:01. Starting and finishing at the Akigawa Keikoku Rivertio campground and hotel, Hasetsune covers 30 km across the three Tokura peaks in western Tokyo's Okutama mountain range. Yuri Yoshizumi won the women's race in 3:40:49. Hagitani graduated from Nagano Higashi H.S. where she was teammates with Narumi Kobayashi and others on the roads and track. In her 3rd year at Nagano Higashi she took 5th in the 1500 m at the National High School Championships and 7th in the National Sports Festival 3000 m. Along with Kobayashi she helped Nagano Higashi take the runner-up spot at the National High School Ekiden. Entering the Edion corporate team after graduating, Hagitani ran 15:05.78 for 5000 m in 2020, at the time the 7th-best ever by a Japanese woman. In 2021 she was 4th at the National Championships, earning a spot on th...

A member of Japan's women's 5000 m teams at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Oregon World Championships, Kaede Hagitani , 22, has announced on her Twitter feed that she is quitting the Edion corporate team and the sport of running. "I've decided to leave both the Edion team and track and field as of the end of April," she wrote. "I'll treasure everything I've learned in athletics and the experience I got there for the rest of my life. I'll keep doing things the best way I can no matter what comes next. Thanks to everyone who cheered me on and supported me along the way." Hagitani was one of the most talented runners of her generation, her 3000 m best of 8:48.12 from 2020 ranking her at all-time Japanese #3, and her 5000 m best of 14:59.36 putting her at all-time Japanese #5. A graduate of last year's National High School Girls Ekiden champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , she won her stage at the National Corporate Women's Ekiden twice after j...

Sunday is the first big women's ekiden of the season, the Princess Ekiden in Sendai, the qualifying race for November's National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships. The top 8 teams from last year's Nationals are already qualified, and at the Princess Ekiden another 16 will join them. 31 teams will be competing over 42.195 km in 6 stages, with the race broadcast live by TBS starting at 11:50 local time. Streaming will happen on Youtube, live results will be here , and JRN will be covering it live @JRNLive . Up near the front third of the field , the teams that made Nationals last year, the top 12 or so teams look pretty secure for qualifying. 11th at Nationals last year, Edion is looking especially strong with track Olympian Kaede Hagitani , 2:21:42 marathoner Ai Hosoda and new transfer from the Denso team Mikuni Yada , a 15:19.67/31:34.39 runner, on its entry list. Daiichi Seimei also has two solid new recruits from Daito Bunka University , Yuka Suzuki and Na...

Like the National University Track and Field Championships two weeks ago, this long weekend's National Corporate Track and Field Championships come at a funny point in the season, after two months of road season base training in Hokkaido and right at the start of ekiden and overseas marathon season. Half the country is in Berlin this weekend and another chunk is at the new Okukuma Ekiden , a raced backed by Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University head coach Susumu Hara that brings together top high school, university and corporate league men's teams. But a lot of corporate leaguers will be lining up in Gifu for Corporate Nationals. Day 1 is being streamed live above starting at 15:25 Friday local time. The main events start at 15:30 with the first-round heats of the men's 100 m, featuring past 4x100 m national relay team members Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko), Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) and Shota Iizuka (Mizuno). The junior women's 3000 m at 16:30 has a pret...

Day 5 of the Oregon 22 World Championships saw only two Japanese athletes in action, with Koki Ueyama and Shota Iizuka running the men's 200 m semifinals. Ueyama took 6th in SF 3 in 20.48 +0.3, with Iizuka bowing out in Heat 1 at 20.77 -0.1 for 7th. Day 6 kicked off with the women's javelin throw qualification round. Haruka Kitaguchi only threw once, but that was all it took for her to put herself at the top of the field at 64.32 m. Sae Takemoto also made it to the final with a 59.15 m throw on her second attempt. Wearing a heavy brace on her left knee and in visible pain, Momone Ueda somehow managed three throws. The best of them was only 50.70 m, putting her ahead of only two athletes who didn't manage any marks, but given the condition she seemed to be in Ueda's performance was one of the grittiest we've seen in Eugene. In the women's 5000 m heats, NR holder Ririka Hironaka took the same approach as in the 10000 m, going out on PB pace in front and tr...

The Hokuren Distance Challenge 20th Anniversary Meet , a last chance set up by the JAAF for Japanese athletes to hit 2022 World Championships standards ahead of Sunday's deadline, produced two new qualifier. Pacing the men's 5000 m, Justus Soget (Honda) kept going when the rest of the field dropped off and crossed the line in a new PB of 13:12.90, the 18th Kenyan to qualify for Worlds in the 5000 m. Men's 10000 m pacer Benard Koech (Kyudenko) did the same, getting under the standard in 27:20.66 and also becoming the 18th Kenyan to qualify. Half marathon great Alexander Mutiso (ND Software) almost joined Koech but came up just short in 27:29.85 for 2nd. Among Japanese men the performance of the day was former 1500 m NR holder Nanami Arai (Honda), who ran an all-time JPN #3 PB of 3:36.63 for the win, short of the Worlds standard but adding further to the incremental step up this season for Japanese middle distance as a whole. Hironori Tsuetaki (Fujitsu) gave the 8:22.00...

The JAAF has set up one last chance for its middle and long distance athletes to hit the qualifying standards for next month's World Championships, adding an early meet to the Hokuren Distance Challenge series today ahead of Sunday's deadline to qualify. Streaming starts at 16:00 local time. A breakdown of the races: Men's 800 m - 16:15 - No Japanese man has ever broken the 1:45.20 Worlds standard, but national champion Mikuto Kaneko (Chuo Univ.) is close at 1:45.85. Given that he's currently 57th against the 800 m's 48-deep quota it'll take a NR for him to make it to Eugene. Women's 1000 m - 16:25 - Nationals 800 m top 2 Ayano Shiomi (Iwatani Sangyo) and Nozomi Tanaka (Jidoshokki) are both relatively close to making the quota, but instead of going for the standard or maxing points they're opting for a go at Tanaka's 2:37.72 NR for 1000 m. Only 3 athletes are entered. Women's 5000 m - 16:40 - Nobody in this race is in contention for the Or...

Japan's National Track and Field Championships wrap up Sunday in Osaka. Streaming starts at 10:25 local time, switching over to NHK's live broadcast at 3:30 p.m. The daily schedule is here , start lists here , and live results here . The women's 5000 m looks like the race of the day, with five women under the 15:10.00 Oregon World Championships standard not including Kenyan pacer Agnes Mukari (Kyocera). NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post), Kaede Hagitani (Edion) and Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) have all gone under 15 minutes, Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido) and Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) just over. Any of them makes the top 3 will be Oregon-bound, and anyone who knocks at least three of them off will have a shot. Hironaka is the obvious favorite and Hagitani the most likely choice for 2nd, but beyond that it's wait and see. Tanaka's chances aren't helped by the fact that she's entered in the 800 m final just over an hour before, where she's ra...

A crowd reported at over 6000 filled the lower stands at Tokyo's National Stadium Saturday to see the 10000 m component of this year's National Track and Field Championships . In the women's race, Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) and Rino Goshima (Shiseido) sealed up their places on the Oregon World Championships team by going 1st and 3rd, with NR holder Akira Aizawa (Asahi Kasei) making a comeback for the win in the men's race but falling short of the Worlds standard. The dynamic in the women's race was changed dramatically a few hours before the race when top-ranked Seira Fuwa (Takushoku Univ.) announced she had withdrawn after not making enough progress in her comeback from an injury in January. In her absence Goshima took things out on pace to crack the standard, which only she, Hironaka and top collegian Narumi Kobayashi (Meijo Univ.) held going into the race. Following Goshima's lead were Hironaka, Kaede Hagitani (Edion), Mikuni Yada (Denso), Sayaka Sa...

Coming back from a scandal earlier this year in which a non-Japanese former team member spoke out about abusive behavior by male coaches toward the team's female athletes,  Shiseido  was back with what looked like a more positive team culture, dominating Sunday's Princess Ekiden with a course record win. Shiseido didn't quite lead start-to-finish, but it came close. Tomoka Kimura got it rolling with a 21:44 stage record on the 7.0 km opening leg, 38 seconds under the old record.  Former national champ Daiichi Seimei 's Hibiki Sakuragawa  broke the course record on the Second Stage to put her team 5 seconds ahead of Shiseido, but it didn't last long as on the next stage Shiseido's Naruha Sato  retook the lead and built up a margin that Shiseido's last three runners held. Anchor Kain Maeda  brought the team home in 2:16:41 for the full 42.195 km distance, 21 seconds under the previous course record and securing the team's place at next month's Queen...

Track time trial meets are a fact of life in the Japanese system, running all the way through the fall up to championship ekiden season in December. And with the conservative response to the pandemic in Japan in terms of road race cancelation, that's gone even longer, pretty much through the end of the academic and fiscal year in March. But this weekend did have the last major full track meet of the season, the National Corporate Track and Field Championships at Osaka's Yanmar Stadium Nagai. But before we get to that, last weekend's Nittai University Time Trials meet in Yokohama produced one major result that has to be mentioned. With Saturday's usual program of everything except men's 5000 m moving to the public holiday on Monday, Joseph Lemeteki Razini  (Takushoku Univ.) took two seconds off the Japanese 10000 m collegiate record, winning in 27:25.65 over Jonathan Ndiku  (Hitachi Butsuryu) and Ledama Kisaisa  (Kanebo). The previous record of 27:27.64 was set by ...

  20-year-old Kaede Hagitani  (Edion) and the just-turned-19 Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) took the senior titles at the 2021 National Cross-Country Championships Saturday in Fukuoka. Hagitani ran away with it, outclassing a tight chase trio to win the Senior Women's 8 km by 26 seconds in 25:54. High schooler Miku Sakai  (Kitakyushu Municipal H.S.) was an impressive 2nd in 26:20.  Like Sakai opting for the senior race, Miura, the U20 national record holder for 3000 m steeplechase and half marathon, had a tougher race on his hands in the Senior Men's 10 km, just getting two-time 5000 m national champion Hiroki Matsueda  (Fujitsu) at the line for the win in 29:10 with the next four finishers, including past national champ Kazuki Tamura  (Sumitomo Denko), all within 10 seconds. 36-year-old Hakone Ekiden legend and 2:07:39 marathoner Masato Imai  (Toyota Kyushu) showed there's still life in his legs, a surprising 11th in 29:30. The junior races were...

In the first major road race held on public roads in Japan since the coronavirus crisis began, the Sekisui Kagaku team won its second-straight Princess Ekiden Sunday in Munakata, Fukuoka to lead the qualifiers for November's National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships. 25 km national record holder Sayaka Sato took things out with a 22:22 CR for the 7.0 km First Stage, setting up a lead that last year's double 800 m and 1500 m national champ Ran Urabe held onto despite only running the third-fastest time on her 3.6 km leg. Urabe handed off to half marathon NR holder Hitomi Niiya , who took an incredible 1:15 off the record for the 10.7 km Third Stage. Niiya's time of 32:43 equated to 30:35 for 10 km, well under the track 10000 m NR, and singlehandedly took Sekisui Kagaku from a 10 second lead to 1:58 out front. Sekisui Kagaku's last three runners had it relatively easy, none of them in the top 8 on their stages but anchor Chikako Mori bringing them home saf...

Longtime Japan resident Rosemary Monica Wanjiru (Starts) turned in the run of the day at Wednesday's Hokuren Distance Challenge Abashiri meet in Hokkaido, soloing a world-leading 30:38.18 to win the women's 10000 m. In the very early going Wanjiru had company from Tokyo Olympic marathon team member Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal), but for most of the race she was completely on her own at a steady 3:03 to 3:04/1000 m. Wanjiru ended up just short of the 30:35.75 she ran for 4th at last fall's Doha World Championships, but her time bettered the world-leading time by almost a minute and took over 3 seconds off the Japanese all-comers' record of 30:41.85 set two years ago by Pauline Kamulu at the Hokuren Distance Challenge Fukagawa meet. Ichiyama, who ran 32:03.95 for 2nd in this year's Fukagawa meet six days ago, was 2nd again in a PB of 31:23.30 that also bettered the previous world-leading mark of 31:34.94 set by Fukagawa winner Honami Maeda (Tenmaya). Sayaka Sato (Se...

One of the few events to survive the wave of race cancelations currently sweeping Japan as the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads, the National Cross-Country Championships took place Feb. 22 in Fukuoka. The senior men's 10 km was almost a replay of last year's race, with Hakone Ekiden uphill Fifth Stage star Yuhei Urano (Koku Gakuin Univ.) replacing Yuta Bando (Hosei Univ.) in the leading role of outrunning brothers Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) and Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima) for the national title. Despite windy conditions times were quicker than in recent years, with Urano winning in 29:18 by 6 seconds over Kazuki Tamura and Yusuke Tamura another 10 seconds back. In the senior women's 8 km, last year's 5th-place and 2018 national 3000 m steeplechase champion Yukari Ishizawa (Edion) came back from a mid-race dropoff to outrun a group of women more than a decade younger for the win in 26:57, beating 20-year-old Yuna Wada (Meijo Univ.) by 1 second and 19-yea...

The qualifying race for the Nov. 24 National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships took place Oct. 20 in the town of Munakata, Fukuoka. Covering 42.195 km in six stages, in its fifth running the Princess Ekiden hosted 28 teams competing for the 14 qualifying spots on offer. Sekisui Kagaku took 1st among them in 2:19:36, holding off runner-up Kyudenko by 16 seconds with 3rd-placer Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo  another 4 seconds behind. 7th-place Hitachi qualified for Nationals for the first time in 3 years, and 14th-place Uniqlo made it in for the first time in 4 years, while Kagoshima Ginko was the unlucky 15th-place team, just 33 seconds short of qualifying. Two new stage records were set, Kaede Hagitani (Edion) running a new record of 22:28 for the 7.0 km First Stage and marathoner Miyuki Uehara (Daiichi Seimei) running 34:42 for the 10.4 km Fourth Stage a month after a DNF at the MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials. Princess Ekiden National Corporate Women's Ekid...