japan running news

Japan's two major April marathons returned Sunday for the first time since pre-pandemic, both smaller than usual but a welcome step forward even as other races this summer and beyond continue to cancel. The Nagano Marathon saw an exciting men's race with local amateur Junichi Ushiyama surging hard with 5 km to go to break Akihiro Kaneko and Yuya Yamashita and win in a PB 2:14:42. Kaneko and Yamashita, who run for rival northern Tokyo supermarket chains Comodi Iida and Sunbelx , were head-to-head almost to the end before Kaneko broke free, taking 2nd in 2:15:22 to Yamashita's 2:15:26. The top nine men all went sub-2:20. Yamashita's teammate Akane Sekino led solo in the women's race , running 2:41:20 to win by almost three minutes over corporate leaguer Kasumi Yoshida of the Aichi Denki team, 2nd in 2:44:19. Tokyo-based club runner Asami Morino was 3rd in 2:44:35 with the top five women all sub-2:50. At the Kasumigaura Marathon , Kotaro Motonaga , a 4th-year...

As a route to qualification for next month's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials the Hokkaido Marathon saw higher-quality results than usual last year, but in its first edition after the closing of the trials qualifying period yesterday's 2019 running had no shortage on quality. In warm conditions the men's race went out conservatively with a 1:06:57 first half and turned into a show of who could negative split the hardest, with the top six all running the second half faster. Ryo Matsumoto , part of the top current marathon program in Japan, Toyota , won by over 30 seconds in 2:12:57 with 2nd through 6th all finishing within 15 seconds of each other in the mid-2:13s. Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) did a lot of the work in leading the women's pack for the first 30 km before heavy favorite Mirai Waku (Univ. Ent.) took off. Waku had said pre-race that she wanted to break 2:30, but despite falling well short of that she opened a lead of over a minute and a half to win in 2:33:...

Ugandan Jackson Kiprop and Ethiopian Meskerem Hunde won Sunday's 21st edition of the Nagano Marathon . Running a steady and well-paced race that went out near 2:10:30 pace and sped up slightly to a 1:04:58 halfway split, Kiprop wore down the competition until there were only four left at 30 km. Ethiopian Deresa Geleta stayed with him until the very end, but Kiprop had the finish in him to open 3 seconds on Geleta to become Nagano's first-ever Ugandan winner in 2:10:39. Geleta's 2:10:42 was good for a PB, with Japan's Naoya Sakuda (JR Higashi Nihon) also dropping a big PB of 2:11:21 for 3rd over Kenyan Alfred Kering . #1-ranked Asuka Tanaka (Hiramatsu Byoin) was one of the first to drop off Kiprop's early pace but rallied late in the race to take 5th in 2:14:35, his best performance since a stress fracture following his breakthrough in Tokyo last year. Hunde pulled off an equally evenly-paced run to win the women's race, projected to run 2:33:44 after ...

Moroccan Soud Kanbouchia took the top spot in Japan's second-biggest marathon Sunday, breaking the Osaka Marathon women's course record to win in 2:31:19. In the early going Kanbouchia had company from minor team corporate leaguers Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead) and Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) on mid-2:27 pace, but with a surge at halfway she was on her own and stayed that way until the finish. Yoshitomi, this year's Boston Marathon 10th-place finisher who set a PB and CR of 2:30:09 two weeks ago at the Fukuoka Marathon and, incredibly, won the Ohtwara Marathon on Friday in 2:37:22, dropped off after 10 km to settle into mid-2:30s pace. Yoshida lasted longer but slowed dramatically after 25 km and was quickly retaken by Yoshitomi. But from the main pack of amateur women behind them club runner Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) emerged to run both down, running almost even splits to take 2nd in 2:34:12, a PB by over 4 minutes. Yoshitomi hung on 3rd in 2:34:39, almost 3 minut...

Japan capped the final day of its role as host nation for the Asian Junior Athletics Championships with a pair of championships records that erased marks set by China way back in that nation’s 90’s heyday. Nozomi Tanaka , newly-graduated from high school and opting for the club runner life like her mother, sub-2:30 amateur Chihiro Tanaka , got the party started with a 9:04.36 record in the girls’ 3000 m that took almost 6 seconds off Li Xin Lan ’s 1997 mark. Her high school and club teammate Yuna Wada wasn’t far off Lan’s old record with a 9:14.13 for silver more than 20 seconds ahead of China’s Fan Liu . The Japanese girls’ 4x400 m likewise took down a Chinese record set in 1997, running 3:38.20 for gold. India and Sri Lanka were a distant 2nd and 3rd, with China nowhere to be found in the final. One member of Japan’s 4x400 m squad, Kasumi Yoshida , doubled after winning an individual gold in the 400 m hurdles earlier in the day in 58.43. Her teammate Natsumi Murakami missed...

Rio 10000 m Olympian Yuka Takashima (Shiseido) made a good debut Sunday at the Paris Marathon , finishing 8th in 2:26:13. Takashima started fast, on sub-2:21 pace until just before 30 km before fading. Her time was the 4th-fastest this year by a Japanese woman and best so far this season outside Japan, and it put her well within reach of the two-race sub-2:28:00 average route to qualifying for the MGC Race 2020 Olympic trials marathon. Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) was 11th in 2:38:15 and Kanae Shimoyama (Noritz) 16th in 2:45:34. Yoshiki Koizumi (Raffine) was the top Japanese man at 24th in 2:20:29. Things went less smoothly at the Rotterdam Marathon . Running her third marathon in less than four months in a desperate attempt to get her MGC Race qualifying time this season, Hofu Yomiuri Marathon course record holder  Misaki Kato (Kyudenko) went through halfway on schedule in 1:13:22 before starting to slow, ultimately finishing in 2:47:25 for 15th. On the men's side Yuki Yagi (Y...