japan running news

No new additions to Japan's potential team for the Tokyo World Championships as things head into the last couple of weeks before the Aug. 24 qualifying deadline. The biggest mover this week was Naoto Hasegawa , 3rd in the men's high jump at July's National Championships, who scored back-to-back wins at the silver label Tirop P-T-S Meeting in Slovakia and gold label Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Hungary to move up from 23rd to 18th in the quota of 36. Ken Toyoda also picked up a couple of places in the men's 400 mH off a 49.37 for 6th at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium. Rin Suzuki 's chances of making the Tokyo team in the men’s javelin throw got a boost too despite a weak performance at the P-T-S Meeting. The 4th-placer there, Belgium's Timothy Herman , scored just enough points to come in between Suzuki and Nationals 3rd-placer Gen Naganuma , who had been separated by only 1 point in the Road to Tokyo rankings. That bumped Naganuma out of the top 36 while l...

Australians represented big time at Sunday's Seiko Golden Grand Prix in Tokyo, winning six events and taking one more top 3 spot and another six top 5 placings. The first Aussie win of the day came courtesy of Rose Davies in the women's 3000 m, where she outran main competition Helen Ekalale by 6 seconds to win in a meet record 8:43.38. Yuma Yamamoto broke into the all-time Japanese top 10 with an 8:50.64 PB for 3rd.  After a disappointing run in the 5000 m two weeks ago at the Shaoxing Keqiao Diamond League meet, Jude Thomas made it an Australian double win a MR win in the men's 3000 m in 7:39.69. The top 7 all broke the old MR, with Nagiya Mori continuing his quick rise with an all-time JPN #2 7:41.58 for 4th. The men's race was marred by a fall right at the start. Having set half marathon and road 5 km national records in his last two races, Tomoki Ota appeared to get clipped from behind by 10000 m NR holder Kazuya Shiojiri when Shiojiri veered to the outside...

Without an in-country Diamond League meet Sunday's Seiko Golden Grand Prix at the Tokyo Olympics stadium is the main event of the Japanese outdoor season. Along with the Asian Championships in South Korea in 2 weeks and July's National Championships, this is one of the best chances for Japanese athletes to score some serious world rankings points to boost their chances of making the home team for September's Tokyo World Championships. Set to be sunny in the morning, for most of the meet it looks like it'll be cloudy but hot and humid with temps peaking at 30˚ and high humidity after rain most of the day on Saturday. TVer is streaming the first part of the meet , the women's and men's javelin throw and 3000 m, men's 100 m, women's high jump and men's long jump, here starting at 10:46 a.m. Japan time, with the rest of the meet streaming here starting at 10:51 a.m. and broadcast on TBS starting at 1:00 p.m. If you've got a VPN you should be good ...

Day 6 of athletics at the Paris Olympics saw almost every Japanese athlete eliminated, with only one moving on thanks to a successful appeal. After missing out on making the 5000 m final, Nozomi Tanaka had a lucky break in the first women's 1500 m heat when she collided with another runner with 200 m to go. Although Tanaka finished 11th in 4:04.28, she was advanced to the semifinals on appeal. Yume Goto ran a PB of 4:09.41 for 13th in Heat 2 and will run the repechage round. In the men's javelin throw, Roderick Genki Dean threw a season best 82.48 m in the first qualification group, unluckily coming in at 13th and missing a place in the field of 12 for the final. With no repechage round to help him out Dean's first Olympics since London 2012 comes to an end. Women's long jump NR holder Sumire Hata jumped 6.31 m (+0.4) for 26th in the qualifying round and likewise missed out on a place in the final. Two of the three Japanese men in the 110 mH made the semifinals, bu...

Monday a relatively busy day in Paris Olympics athletics for the Japanese national team. Things started off slowly with all three men in the 400 mH heats finishing near the bottom of the field of 39 starters, Daiki Ogawa running 50.21 for 33rd, Kaito Tsutsue 50.50 for 35th and the high potential Ken Toyoda last among the 37 finishers in 53.62 after a mid-race injury. All three head to the repechage round, but in Toyoda's case he'll likely be a DNS. All three Japanese men in the 400 m repechage round, Joseph Nakajima , Fuga Sato and Kentaro Sato , gave it a miss in order to focus on the 4x400 m relay where their chances of making the final are higher. In the men's 3000 mSC heats, national record holder Ryuji Miura made it through to the final, running close to his season best with an 8:12.41 for 4th in Heat 2. Ryoma Aoki was one of the casualties of the slow pace in Heat 3, finishing 8th in 8:29.03 and missing out on advancing. In the men's 200 m heats 21-year-old...

Great conditions on the second day of Japan's National Track and Field Championships , U20 National Championships and Paris Olympics trials helped athletes set new National Championship meet records in the women's pole vault, men's 400 mH, men's and women's 1500 m, and men's 5000 m, with three of the five record setters and guaranteeing themselves places on the Paris Olympics team. Complete results here . Women's Pole Vault Final National record holder Misaki Morota cleared her minimum goal, the win in 4.31 m to score enough points to move from 33rd to 32nd in the 32-deep Paris Olympic quota. Morota took two attempts to get over 4.30 m, but on her first try at a Japanese National Championships meet record 4.41 m she got it done. That gave her enough points to move to 30th, but it would take clearing 4.50, 2 cm higher than Morota's NR, to move to 29th. That proved to be out of range, leaving Morota in good position but still waiting to see the outcome of...

Japan's Olympic trials,  National Championships and National U20 Championships , continue Friday in Niigata at Denka Big Swan Stadium. Live results will be here . What's on the menu: Finals Women's Discus Throw Final - 14:00 2023 national champion Maki Saito is at 45th in the Paris rankings, and even a win around her 58.47 PB from March wouldn't crack the top 40. NR holder Nanaka Kori has been off more than on this season and has only thrown over 57 m three times. The win will pretty much come down to the two of them. Maki Saito (Tokai Univ.) - 58.47 m SB / PB Nanaka Kori (Niigata Albirex RC) - 57.85 m SB / 59.03 m PB Minori Tsujikawa (Uchida Yoko AC) - 53.84 m SB / 54.46 m PB Akane Kawaguchi (Wizas) - 52.03 m SB / 54.05 m PB Mika Yamamoto (Kondotech) - 50.06 m SB / 50.51 m PB Natsumi Fujimori (STAC) - 49.53 m SB / 52.97 m PB Women's Pole Vault Final - 17:00 Coming in off a trio of good performances in Canada, NR holder Misaki Morota currently sits at 33rd in t...

Japan's Olympic trials, doubling as the National Championships and National U20 Championships , start tomorrow at Niigata's massive Denka Big Swan Stadium. In a lot of events it's more of a question of whether anyone is going to make the Paris team than who is going to fill the three spots, but it's still a National Championships and there's a lot of good competition ahead. Live results will be here . Breaking down the senior events on Thursday's schedule with top people making the starting lists: Finals Men's Hammer Throw Final  - 15:00 Defending national champ Shota Fukuda  is the only one close to the Paris quota of 32, currently at 39th. A win close to his 73.91 m season best would put him just 2 or 3 points out of the quota. Ryota Kashimura  and Tatsuto Nakagawa  have both thrown over 72 m recently and could take the national title away if Fukuda is off his best. Shota Fukuda (Sumitomo Denko) - 73.91 m SB / PB Ryota Kashimura (Yamada Holdings) - 72.92 m...

The 2023 National University Track and Field Championships wrapped with two meet records, one as old as one of the women who broke it, in its final two events. Ai Watanabe of Sonoda Gakuen Joshi University started her afternoon with a win in the 800 m final at 12:30 in 2:07.89, over half a second up on 2nd-placer Mahiro Hasegawa (Kyoto Kyoiku Univ.). Two hours later she was back to run 2nd for Sonoda in the 4x400 m. Yuzuki Nakao put them into the lead, and Watanabe, Hinata Tochio and anchor Marin Adachi carried the momentum all the way to a 3:36.71 MR, breaking Fukushima University 's 2004-era 3:37.30 record. 2nd-placer Fukuoka University just missed joining them under the record too at 3:37.41, with Waseda University close behind in 3:37.65 for 3rd. Immediately following that, after its first three runners built a solid lead the Waseda men looked to be in range of not just the meet record but the collegiate 4x400 m record of 3:03.71 from 2000. Just behind them, Budapest Wo...

Japan more than doubled its medal count on the fifth day of athletics competition at the Chengdu World University Games . Juntendo University's Haruki Manju got things started in the morning session with a bronze medal in the men's 20 kmRW in 1:25:32. That was almost 2 minutes behind winner Salih Korkmaz of Turkey, but together with teammates Kazuhiro Tateiwa , 5th in 1:26:40, and Kento Yoshikawa , 8th in 1:29:06, it was enough to score the Japanese men the team silver behind China. The next medal came 13 hours later in the women's 5000 m. In a close race that came down to a three-way battle over the last lap Portugal's Mariana Machado Carvalho won gold in 16:02.58 over China's Yuyu Xia. Doubling from the 10000 m, Nittai University's Risa Yamazaki  lost ground to the top 2 but leaned in for bronze in a photo finish with fast-closing Norwegian Amalie Saeten , 16:08.86 to 16:08.90. Ritsumeikan University's Tomo Muramatsu struggled, running only 16:51.22 f...