japan running news

  Another busy weekend in Japan and for Japanese athletes racing abroad. On the roads, the biggest thing at home was ASICS' Tokyo:Speed:Race  Wavelight-paced promo event for its new road shoe lineup. After setting a 59:27 NR at the Marugame Half in February, Tomoki Ota (Toyota) added another low-hanging NR fruit to his resume with a 13:30 for 10th in the 5 km. Harbert Kibet (Uganda) took the win in 13:00. Jemal Mekonen (Ethiopia) won the men's 10 km in 27:10, where Kyosuke Hanao (Toyota Kyushu) was the top Japanese man in 28:23, technically also a new NR, but come on. Triathlete Hayden Wilde (New Zealand) was 7th in an excellent 27:39, only to crash on his bike in Tokyo the next day and suffering multiple broken bones and a punctured lung. Marathon NR holder Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) had a mini comeback in the women's 5 km, finishing 13th in 15:48 as the top Japanese finisher. Caroline Nyaga (Kenya) won in a stellar 14:19, with the top 5 all breaking 15 minutes. Joy Chep...

Tokyo University 's Hiroaki Furukawa and Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University 's Shota Shiode scored sub-2:20 wins at the Kumamoto Castle Marathon and Kochi Ryoma Marathon, and Hakone runner-up Komazawa University 's Ibuki Kaneko and Kyosuke Hanao had good runs over 30 km , Kaneko 2nd at the Ome 30 km in 1:34:15 and Hanao only 5th at the Kumanichi 30 km but faster in 1:33:14. But there were other big results for Japanese collegiate runners this weekend overseas and at home. At the FISU World University Cross Country Championships in Muscat, Oman, Haruka Ogawa of Rikkyo University was at the front of the pack the entire way through the women's 10 km, unable to hang with eventual gold medalist Maria Karabo Mailula of South Africa over the last 2 km loop and losing touch with Great Britain's Alice Goodall just before the end but hanging on for bronze in 34:22. Ogawa was the only Japanese woman to make the top 10, with Rio Einaga (Osaka Gakuin Univ.)...

Two-time national champion Komazawa University rode the momentum of its course record win at last month's Izumo Ekiden to score a third-straight National University Men's Ekiden win Sunday in Nagoya and Mie, its 15th national title in 29 starts under head coach Hiroaki Oyagi . Komazawa's leading runner Kensuke Tsubura was 4th on the opening leg, star 1st-year Keita Sato broke the 2nd leg course record to move into 2nd, 60:40 half marathoner Chikara Yamano took the lead on the 3rd leg, and from there it was only a question of whether Komazawa could keep it together and how much they would win by. Komazawa runners won three of the remaining five stages after Yamano and took top 2 on another, with 4th-year Ren Tazawa running an incredible 49:38 course record on the 17.6 km 7th leg, 43 seconds under the old record. Anchor Kyosuke Hanao had a lead of over a kilometer for the 19.7 km 8th leg and could have jogged it in, but he soloed a 57:30 stage win to bring Komazawa h...

2021 National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University ran an almost perfect season-opener to win the Izumo Ekiden for the first time since 2013. 2nd after a good run from Kyosuke Hanao on the opening leg, 1500 m U20 NR holder Keita Sato had a big impact in his college ekiden debut, putting Komazawa into 1st and beating 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) by 4 seconds to set a new CR of 15:27 for his 5.8 km stage. 27:23.44 10000 m runner Ren Tazawa and 1:00:40 half marathoner Chikara Yamano were both second on the next two stages, but still extended Komazawa's lead to 33 seconds. The weakest link on the team, fifth man Taiyo Yasuhara initially lost 12 seconds to his chasers, but on the second half of his stage he turned it around and reopened Komazawa's lead to 44 seconds, winning the stage on time. Critically, that meant anchor Mebuki Suzuki , a 27:41.68 10000 m runner who lost most of the last year to a stress fracture, could afford to play it safel...

http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/sports/201612/0009761574.shtml translated and edited by Brett Larner The 24th National Junior High School Ekiden Championships took place Dec. 18 at Kibogaoka Cultural Park in Yasu, Shiga.  Hyogo's Hirano J.H.S. won its first national title in the six stage, 18 km boys' race in 57:31. Katsura J.H.S. of Kyoto won the five stage, 12 km girls' race in 41:01 to become just the second school in history to win three-straight titles, beating rival Arai J.H.S. of Hyogo by 56 seconds. In the boys' race Hirano did not get off to a great start in the first half.  Its fourth runner Kentaro Kishimoto  began in 10th place 24 seconds behind the leader, but passing 9 people over the 3 km stage he put Hirano ahead by 3 seconds.  Fifth runner Masaya Tamai dropped back to 2nd, 2 seconds behind the leader, but Hirano's anchor Yuta Kamikariya turned it around to take the win by 4 seconds.   Ryoke J.H.S. of Kanagawa was 2nd, with Ehime's N...