japan running news

The  Tokyo Marathon  announced some withdrawals and additions to the field for next week's race today. Names are as below with reasons given on the Tokyo Marathon website : Men's Marathon Withdrawals Suguru Osako (Japan/Nike) - declines to participate Benard Koech (Kenya/Kyudenko) - in poor condition Hidekazu Hijikata (Japan/Asahi Kasei) - injury Tadashi Isshiki (Japan/NTT Nishi Nihon) - injury Takumi Oishi (Japan/Suzuki) - injury Keigo Yano (Japan/Kao) - injury Tatsuro Oyazaki (Japan/Shindengen) - injury Men's Marathon Additions Hiroaki Furukawa (Japan/Tokyo University Grad School) - 2:16:14 (Kumamoto 2024) Women's Marathon Withdrawals Brigid Kosgei (Kenya) - in poor condition Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia) - in poor condition Men's Wheelchair Withdrawals Jin Hua (China) - injury Women's Wheelchair Withdrawals Eden Rainbow-Cooper (Great Britain) - injury Women's Wheelchair Additions Yen Hoang (U.S.A.) © 2025 Brett Larner , all rights reserved

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half...

Strong over the second half, it came down to an untried rookie just promoted up from the B-team to seal up the old-school Asahi Kasei team's fourth-straight New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships title. Asahi Kasei was always there, 2nd on the opening stage thanks to a good run from leading man Keijiro Mogi , Kenyan Abraham Kapsis Kipyatich moving them up to 1st on the Second Stage in his final run with the team, and Sixth Stage specialist Hiroshi Ichida holding the lead on the Third Stage. It wasn't until the Fourth Stage, at 22.4 km the longest of the day, that Asahi Kasei lost any ground, with 2019's fastest Japanese half marathoner Minato Oishi (Toyota) running down third man Hiroshi's twin brother Takashi Ichida and opening a gap of 12 seconds. On paper that should have been enough for Toyota, the favorite to end Asahi Kasei's domination, to pull it off, with Olympic marathon trials runner-up Yuma Hattori and the #2 and #3 half ma...

http://mainichi.jp/sports/news/20151104k0000m050015000c.html translated and edited by Brett Larner 朝チャン！ 東日本実業団駅伝 「いつも追いかけている仕事の警視庁。この日ばかりは必死で逃げます！」←思わず笑ってしまった(^O^) pic.twitter.com/nKLg7mMNcs — ku_min (@kunkun_san) November 3, 2015 Running from the Saitama Prefectural Government offices to Kumagaya Sports Park Field, 27 corporate men's teams raced the 56th running of the seven-stage, 77.5 km East Japan Corporate Ekiden on Nov. 3.  The local Honda team won for the first time in 3:47:09 after anchor Yuki Matsumura made up a 52-second deficit to run down leader Nissin Shokuhin .  Nissin Shokuhin finished 2nd for the fourth year in a row, with DeNA taking 3rd and Konica Minolta , in search of a fourth-straight win, finishing on 4th.  The top 15 teams qualified for the 60th running of the New Year Ekiden national corporate men's championships on Jan. 1.  The new ND Software team was the 16th finisher, just missing making its New Year Ekiden debut by 3 second...

by Brett Larner click here for video highlights of the first 19 years of the National Men's Ekiden Ekiden season rolls on for a few weeks more, but Sunday's 20th anniversary National Men's Ekiden marks the end of the month-long run of national championship ekiden races.  Teams made up of the best J.H.S., H.S., university and pro runners from each of Japan's 47 prefectures race over 48.0 km in 7 stages through the streets of Hiroshima, with NHK's live commercial-free broadcast showing many of Japan's future stars to a national audience for the first time.  Follow @JRNLive for live coverage starting at 12:30 p.m. on Jan. 18. There's so much growth happening right now in Japanese men's distance running that there's almost no point filling a preview with details about which teams are packed with talent.  Most of them are.  Hometown Hiroshima is not fooling around with its lineup, featuring 27:38.99 man Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei), 2015 Hako...

by Brett Larner click photo for video highlights courtesy of NHK Five-time national champion Nagano  made history at the 19th edition of the National Men's Ekiden Jan. 19 in Hiroshima, anchor Keigo Yano  (Nittai Univ.) breaking away to make his team the first in event history to win a sixth national title as he broke the tape in 2:19:20, the third-fastest ever in National Championships history. Never a clear leader in a pack race throughout the day, Nagano made its first move to the front on the 8.5 km Third Stage when past 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno  (DeNA RC) dropped a pack of Hakone Ekiden stars to take the lead.  With the mixed team of junior high, high school, university and pro athletes that makes the National Ekiden format one of the most interesting in national championship ekiden season, Nagano lost ground after Ueno and remained roughly even with a pack of four rivals. Not until halfway through the 13.0 km anchor stage did it ...

by Brett Larner This Sunday's 19th National Men's Ekiden in Hiroshima brings Japan's 2013-2014 national championship ekiden to a close with one of the most entertaining races of them all. Teams from each of Japan's 47 prefectures made up of junior high school, high school, university and pro runners race over 7 stages and 48 km, one of the few chances of the year to see the best of the corporate league's New Year Ekiden men duel with the university circuit's Hakone Ekiden stars and often the first glimpse of upcoming stars running young.  It's all broadcast live nationwide and commercial-free on NHK starting at 12:30 p.m.  As usual, JRN will cover the race live on Twitter @JRNLive . This year university runners seem to outweigh the pros, with many of the Hakone stage winners and upper-echelon men taking the top positions on a number of teams.  That may in part be due to this year's World Half Marathon Championships being held in March and the Nati...

by Brett Larner photo by Kazuyuki Sugimatsu click here for Hakone Ekiden Day One report and results Before 2009 Toyo University  had only finished in the top three once in the history of Japan's biggest sporting event, the Jan. 2-3  Hakone Ekiden university men's road relay championships, all the way back in 1960.  In Hakone's 85th anniversary running in 2009, the tens of millions of fans who watch Hakone live on TV and along its ten-stage, 217.9 km course were witness to the birth of a legend as Toyo first-year Ryuji Kashiwabara singlehandly lifted the team to the winner's podium for the first time with a stunning course record on Hakone's most celebrated stage, the 23.4 km Fifth Stage with nearly 900 m of climb.  With Kashiwabara Toyo was almost untouchable at Hakone; he won the Fifth Stage all four years at Toyo and set stage records on it in three of them.  Every time he broke the record, Toyo took the overall win, transforming themselves from the l...

text and photos by Brett Larner videos courtesy of Ekiden News On a busy weekend featuring at least seven major events across the country, Japan's biggest race of the weekend took place northwest of Tokyo in Saitama.  With perfect conditions for its 26th running, the Ageo City Half Marathon , consistently one of the world's deepest halves as a consequence of being the unofficial tryout race for Japan's biggest sporting event, the Jan. 2-3 university men's Hakone Ekiden, saw a dramatic race with five men battling to the line to make history.   In a relationship set up by JRN, two invitations to run March's New York City Half Marathon were up for grabs for the first two Japanese collegiate finishers, and, having seen the effect on last year's Ageo winner Kenta Murayama  (Komazawa Univ.) who returned from finishing 10th in New York in 2013 to set course records at both the Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden Championships, the field responded en mass...

Bydgoszcz, Poland, 3/24/13 click here for complete results Junior Women's 6 km 1. Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon (Kenya) - 17:51 2. Agnes Jebet Tirop (Kenya) - 17:51 3. Alemitu Heroye (Ethiopia) - 17:57 ----- 18. Azusa Sumi (Japan) - 19:28 19. Miyuki Uehara (Japan) - 19:32 24. Saki Yoshimizu (Japan) - 19:39 29. Maki Izumida (Japan) - 19:54 43. Nanami Aoki (Japan) - 20:28 53. Yui Fukuda (Japan) - 20:52 Team Results 1. Kenya - 14 2. Ethiopia - 23 3. Great Britain - 81 ---- 4. Japan - 90 Junior Men's 8 km 1. Hagos Gebrhiwet (Ethiopia) - 21:04 2. Leonard Barsoton (Kenya) - 21:08 3. Muktar Edris (Ethiopia) - 21:13 ----- 27. Yuki Hirota (Japan) - 23:13 28. Tatsuya Hayashi (Japan) - 23:14 31. Tadashi Isshiki (Japan) - 23:17 52. Hideto Yamanaka (Japan) - 23:40 59. Yusuke Nishiyama (Japan) - 23:50 81. Kazuki Takahashi (Japan) - 24:28 Team Results 1. Ethiopia - 23 2. Kenya - 26 3. Morocco - 65 ----- 5. Japan - 138 Senior Women's 8 km 1. Emily Che...

by Brett Larner With a few exceptions cross-country has never been a major part of Japanese long-distance methodology, but each World Cross-Country Championships sees a roster featuring many of Japan's best.  London Olympian Hitomi Niiya  (Team Univ. Ent.) heads the senior women's squad for Sunday's Worlds in Bydgoszcz, Poland, accompanied by the runner-up in last weekend's National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, Hanae Tanaka  (Team Daiichi Seimei) and top-ranked collegiate Ayuko Suzuki  (Nagoya University).  2013 Hakone Ekiden winner Nittai University  fields three members of its champion team, Takumi Honda  and Keigo Yano  in the senior men's race and 1st-year Hideto Yamanaka  leading the junior men's squad.  Alongside Yamanaka is Tadashi Isshiki  of 2012 National High School Ekiden champion Toyokawa H.S.   Curiously, the senior men's team includes only four athletes, with top-ranked men Suguru Osako (Waseda Univ....

http://www.iaaf.org/news/news/junior-women-carry-japans-hopes-for-world-cro

by Brett Larner The first of Japan's two selection races for its World Cross-Country Championships team took place under beautiful sunny skies Feb. 10 in Chiba.  Former Sera H.S. standout Charles Ndirangu  (Kenya/Team JFE Steel) had no trouble taking the senior men's 12 km, winning by a margin of nearly 30 seconds over newcomer Miliyon Zewdie (Ethiopia/ Team Yachiyo Kogyo).  Close behind, Keigo Yano  and Takumi Honda of 2013 Hakone Ekiden champions Nittai University  went 4-5 to take the top two Japanese positions and all but assure themselves places on the Worlds team.  Last weekend's Marugame International Half Marathon winner Collis Birmingham  (Australia) was only 7th in 36:07. High schooler Rosemary Wanjiru  (Kenya/Aomori Yamada H.S.) won the senior women's 8 km with the largest margin of victory of the day, running 26:08 to beat pros Susan Wairimu (Kenya/Team Denso),  Hanae Tanaka  (Team Daiichi Seimei) and Yukari Abe (Team...

by Brett Larner Click photo for video highlights via race broadcaster NHK. Hyogo Prefecture took its second-straight National Men's Ekiden title Jan. 20 in Hiroshima with a perfect team performance that held off rivals Tokyo and Aichi Prefecture . With anchor Satoru Kitamura (Team Nissin Shokuhin) ailing after potentially career-ending injuries last year and a disastrous performance three weeks ago at the New Year Ekiden the rest of the Hyogo team knew that they needed a margin of at least a minute by the start of the anchor stage to have a chance at holding off  Tokyo and Aichi anchors Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) and Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota), and, aided by ideal conditions, they timed it perfectly. Last year's First Stage winner Keisuke Nakatani  (Hyogo/Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) took it out fast and accelerated each km on the 7.0 km leg, just missing the course record but giving Hyogo a 2-second lead.  3.0 km Second Stage runner Chikashi Ikeda  (Hy...

by Brett Larner click here for a collection of 2013 Hakone Ekiden photos courtesy of jiji.com click here for video highlights courtesy of NTV Riding the momentum of its Day One win , Nittai University ran unchallenged throughout the second day of the 2013 Hakone Ekiden to take its first overall Hakone title in 30 years, crossing the line in 11:13:26 with a lead of nearly five minutes over defending champion Toyo University . Nittai, winners of October’s Yosenkai qualifier after finishing a miserable 19th at Hakone last year, became the first team in Hakone’s 89-year history to go from the qualifier to the overall win. With its last winning team in 1983 having included future marathon world champion Hiromi Taniguchi in its lineup, Nittai’s return to the top took on special symbolic significance. Nittai’s Yusuke Suzuki made a crucial contribution to the team’s success as he started the day off on the net 750 m downhill Sixth Stage, running well in his Hakone debut to prevent...