japan running news

In the last big Japanese race of the year 2018 Morinomiyako Ekiden winner Meijo University ran an almost perfect team performance to break the course record at the Mount Fuji Women’s Ekiden , the 2018 National University Women’s Invitational Ekiden Championships. Under clear blue skies in the foothills of Mount Fuji Meijo got off to a good start, 2nd from the gun behind the National University Select Team made up of top runners from schools that didn’t qualify for Mount Fuji as a team. The Select Team’s first three runners all won their stages with its second runner Rino Goshima of Chuo University running 20:50 to set a new course record for her 6.8 km stage. But Meijo was never far behind, just 28 seconds off the Select Team by the end of the Third Stage with four more to go. Graduating senior Kana Matsuura , who had announced Mount Fuji as her final race, put Meijo into the lead with a winning time on the Fourth Stage, and from there Meijo was never in danger. Its next two ...

Ladies and gentlemen, Hitomi Niiya is back. You might remember Hitomi Niiya from the 2013 Moscow World Championships 10000 m, where she led the entire way only to get destroyed over the last lap and finish 5th in 30:56.70. That made her the third-fastest Japanese woman ever over that distance, but not long after that race she quit the sport entirely, getting an office job as far away from athletics as she could and not running for almost five years. But the pull of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is strong, and, now 30, early this year she made the decision to try to make a comeback. Under the eye of former men's 800 m national record holder Masato Yokota she ran a 3000 m and two 5000 m time trials on the track between April and October before choosing the East Japan Women's Ekiden for her return to the roads and the longer distances. The East Japan Women's Ekiden celebrated its 34th running Sunday, 9 stages totaling 42.195 km through the Fukushima countryside with teams...

3rd last year, Meijo University returned to the top with its first national title since 2005 at today's National University Women's Ekiden Championships in Sendai. Missing its star pair Anju Takamizawa and Riho Takamizawa (no relation), defending champion Matsuyama University was never in the race, 25th of 26 teams on the 6.4 km First Stage and eventually working its way up to 13th. 6 seconds out of 1st, Meijo took over the lead on the 5.6 km Second Stage and held it almost the entire rest of the way. With a record of ten wins and four 2nd-place finishes in the last 14 years, last year's runner-up Ritsumeikan University went into 1st on the 4.8 km Fourth Stage thanks to a stage best run by Ayano Tanaka , setting up a duel between course record holder Kotona Ota (Ritsumeikan Univ.) and #1-ranked first-year Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) on the day's longest stage, the 9.2 km Fifth Stage. Kaseda caught Ota within the first 3 km, but while it looked like the young...

by Brett Larner Corporate and university meets led the way in the first of three straight weekends of regional track action.  At the Chubu Region Corporate Track and Field Championships Kenyan Rodgers Chumo Kemoi (Team Aisan Kogyo) led the top three under 28 minutes, winning in 27:54.19. Returning to the track after a quality 2:10:39 debut at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, Minato Oishi (Team Toyota) was the fastest Japanese man in the race, running 28:31.28 for 4th. Silas Laikong (Team Aichi Seiko) won the Chubu men's 5000 m in 13:45.59, but the fastest time of the weekend came at the season's first Shizuoka Long Distance Time Trials meet, where Ethiopian teammates Abiyot Abinet and Yeneblo Biyazen (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) went 1-2 in 13:36.08 and 13:36.20. Downhill specialist Yuji Onoda led a large contingent from Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University , 3rd overall in 13:58.05. The women's 3000 m in Shizuoka also saw teammates sweep the front...

by Brett Larner 中国実業団駅伝　優勝　マツダ　アンカーは松岡選手 pic.twitter.com/3UZxCdy3YS — M.Kawaguchi (@rikujolove) November 13, 2016 The fall ekiden season continued with not one or two or three but four top-level races across the country Sunday.  With places at the New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships on the line corporate teams in Chugoku and Kansai lined up in their regional championship races.  To the apparent surprise of everyone including anchor Koji Matsuoka , pictured above, the Mazda men broke the Chugoku Region course record to hold off perpetual powerhouse Chugoku Denryoku by 30 seconds for the win. Otsuka Seiyaku claimed the Kansai Region title, outrunning SGH Group by over a minute to take the top spot. In women's action, Yamada Denki successfully defended its Fukui Super Ladies Ekiden title, taking the lead on the second of six stages and never threatened after that as its third through sixth runners, led by Kasumi Nishihara , won their individu...

by Brett Larner Two major women's ekidens took place Nov. 11 on opposite coasts of Japan.  For the second year in a row, the Kanagawa Prefecture  team set a course record to outrun Nagano Prefecture  for the win at the 28th running of Fukushima's East Japan Women's Ekiden, an event featuring teams made up of runners from junior high to pro from eighteen regions in eastern Japan.  Kanagawa's Rui Aoyama  led off with a win by a hair over last year's stage winner Yuko Shimizu  of Nagano after a brutal head-to-head battle of surges on the 6.0 km First Stage.  Nagano's second runner Honoka Yuzawa  took over the lead, a position Nagano occupied for three stages before losing it for good to Kanagawa on the Fifth Stage.  Kanagawa covered the nine-stage, 42.195 course in 2:16:16 to break its own course record set last year, with Nagano ultimately finishing nearly two minutes back in 2:18:12. The Tokyo  team, only 6th last year, had a str...

by Brett Larner The last national championship women's ekiden of the season takes place this Sunday, Jan. 15 in Kyoto.  The National Interprefectural Women's Ekiden Championships have one of the most interesting formats on the circuit, with teams of nine women ranging from junior high schoolers to pros running for teams representing Japan's 47 prefectures.  The open stages are one of the few chances to see the best high school, university and pro women battle it out, while the stages reserved for junior high and high school runners often feature breakout performances by unknowns.  The commercial-free national broadcast and outstanding online coverage begins on NHK at 12:15 p.m.  Overseas viewers should be able to watch live online via Keyhole TV using the password NHK, with English-language commentary available once again via Twitter  @JRNLive . Final start lists at the men's and women's National Interprefectural Ekidens are notoriously unpredictable comp...