japan running news

Host team Kyoto was back on top at Sunday's National Women's Ekiden , taking the lead on the 2nd of the 42.195 km race's 9 legs and rolling on to win its 19th national title in the event's 43-year history in 2:15:26 with 4 individual stage wins. Kyoto's lead runner Kokoro Nakachi was only 3 seconds behind First Stage winner Erika Tanoura of Chiba , and it didn't take much for its next runner Yua Sato to move into the top spot by 3 seconds. That lead grew to 50 seconds at the end of the Fifth Stage before a stage-winning run from Nagano 's Nami Kawakami on the Sixth Stage cut it back to 33 seconds. But driven by stage wins from 7th runner Momoka Onishi and anchor Kaede Kawamura , from there to the end Kyoto pulled away to its final margin of victory of 2:26. Nagano and Osaka were locked in a duel for 2nd for most of the way, but with only 3 km to go on the 10.0 km anchor stage Fukuoka and early leader Chiba caught up to make it a four-way race. Nagano...

The 40th National Women's Ekiden took place Jan. 16, starting and finishing at Kyoto's Takebishi Stadium and covering 42.195 km in 9 stages. The race having been canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 winner Kyoto took the top spot again in 2:15:05 to strengthen its position as the winningest team in event history with 18 national titles. Fukuoka scored 2nd, with Miyagi taking 3rd. Following up on her superb 31:28 CR on the National Corporate Women's Ekiden 's 10.0 km Fifth Stage in November, Shiseido corporate runner Rino Goshima put the Ishikawa prefecture team out front on the 6.0 km opening leg, beating members of the Tokyo Olympic team and finishing in 18:41, just 2 seconds behind the CR held by 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka . Kyoto's Sakiho Tsutsui was only 9th, but over the next three stages the team worked its way toward the front of the field along with Fukuoka and Miyagi. On the race's Eighth Stage, 3.0 km reserved for juni...

Bringing together everyone from the top junior high school runners to the pros, the National Women's Ekiden took place in Kyoto on Jan. 12. Hosts Kyoto outran Miyagi and Tokyo to win the national title for the 17th time, extending its lead as the winningest team in the National Women's Ekiden 38-year history. The race started and finished at Kyoto's Takebishi Stadium, covering the full marathon distance in nine stages. Teams from all 47 prefectures competed for the national title. On the First Stage, Nagasaki 's Ririka Hironaka , who last month cleared the Tokyo Olympics 5000 m qualifying standard, opened a lead of over 30 seconds on 2nd place and broke the stage record dating back to 2003. Nagasaki held the lead over the next two stages, but near the end of the Fourth Stage they were run down by Nagano . On the Fifth Stage high school 3rd-year Rina Kimura tied the stage record to take Miyagi from 3rd past Nagano into 1st. But from the Fifth through Seventh...

On Dec. 19 it was learned that the JAAF is formulating guidelines to be released next spring that strongly urge coaches and athletes to refrain from taking the iron injections that are believed to be common practice at some top high schools to enhance their athletes' performances in the name of treatment for anemia. The JAAF will encourage other anemia treatments such as taking iron supplements orally. Accumulation of iron in the body can have a negative impact on physical health, including damage to the liver. The JAAF has previously requested coaches refrain from resorting to injections, but as the practice continues as a method of performance enhancement the JAAF is determined to take a stronger position. The determination of whether an iron injection is necessary or not is currently left to the judgment of an athletes' doctor. From now on the facile use of iron injections, even in the name of therapeutic use, will be restricted to severe cases of anemia where oral intak...

On June 3 the Kyoto Athletics Association held a ceremony at Kyoto's Nishi Kyogoku Field to unveil a new stone monument commemorating the 100th anniversary of the ekiden. Led by Association chair Setsuko Tanaka , roughly 30 dignitaries took part. In April this year another monument was erected at Shinjo Ohashi, the starting point of Japan's first-ever ekiden in 1917. To help "spread the good word about the first century of the ekiden to as many people as possible," the Association chose to place a second monument at Nishi Kyogoku Field, the start and finish points for the National High School Ekiden Championships. The new monument is of the same design, material and size as the one at Sanjo Ohashi, made of granite and measuring 1.8 m tall by 1.2 m wide. While the Sanjo Ohashi monument is engraved with "starting point," the new monument reads "Nishi Kyogoku Field, Kyoto," letting fans get different selfies at each. Tanaka commented "We wi...

http://www.yukawanet.com/archives/5166613.html translated by Brett Larner High schooler Yumika Nagahama leading the Jan. 15 National Women's Ekiden for the Kanagawa team. Since the start of the month it's been cold in Japan.  A record-breaking kind of cold that has seen snow piling up even on the Pacific side of the country, and for better or worse that word "snow" has been generating buzz around the world.  Yes, it has been a cold winter, and now that fact has become a hot topic in China.  Particularly in relation to women's distance running. The picture above is from the " National Women's Ekiden " that took place in Kyoto on Jan. 15.  Kyoto experienced a blizzard, even "whiteout" conditions.  Far too harsh to go ahead with staging a running race in conditions like that.  It's natural to wonder why the race wasn't cancelled, but it seems likely that they weren't expecting the snow to escalate to the point that it wo...

by Brett Larner click photo for video courtesy of  NHK Snow throughout the night and morning yielded to freak weather alternating between piercing sunlight and near-whiteout conditions at the 35th edition of the National Women's Ekiden in Kyoto. A unique format featuring teams of junior high school, high school, university and pro runners from each of Japan's 47 prefectures, the National Women's Ekiden is the peak of ekiden season for most Japanese women. It was an unusually tight race, with the lead turning over five times over the nine-stage, 42.195 km course and 2nd place within 3 seconds of the leader at six of the eight exchanges.  Many of the favorites, including defending champion Aichi , 2015 winner Osaka and powerhouses Hyogo and Okayama , got off to a slow start, ranging from 10th to 44th on the first stage and spending the rest of the race digging themselves out of a hole. 2014 winner Kyoto , course record holder, 2013 winner Kanagawa and the alway...

by Brett Larner Ekiden season never really ends, but championship season hits its peak this weekend and next with the Jan. 11 National Women's Ekiden in Kyoto and Jan. 18 National Men's Ekiden in Hiroshima.  Both races feature teams from each of Japan's 47 prefectures, made up of the best pro, collegiate, high school and junior high school runners from each region, and both are broadcast live and commercial-free nationwide by NHK.  Follow @JRNLive for live coverage of both starting at 12:30 each day. At the 33rd running of the National Women's Ekiden defending champion Kyoto comes in with seven wins in the last ten years and home ground advantage on the nine-stage, 42.195 km course .  Its team is missing its magic ingredient, last year's Fourth Stage course record setter Ryoko Kizaki (Team Daihatsu), but features veteran Mari Ozaki (Team Noritz) and 2011 Tokyo Marathon winner Noriko Higuchi (Team Wacoal) along with 2014 National University Ekiden winner ...

by Gregg Yarborough Reader Gregg Yarborough recently visited Japan on business, running the 6th Kyoto Isshu Trail Run while he was here.  This is his account of the race. When I was informed by my company that I would be traveling to Japan for 3 weeks on business I thought I would take advantage of the opportunity to find a trail race in Japan to run during my visit. Not knowing anything about races in Japan I enlisted the help of Brett Larner who got me registered for the Kyoto Trail Run, a 32 km trail run across the mountains in the north of Kyoto, Japan.  Although I never received my race packet I took the bullet train to Kyoto with the assurance that just telling them my name would be enough to get my number and be able to line up on the starting line, and so it was. When I arrived at the check-in area I could only hope that someone there would be able to speak English since I know almost no Japanese. As it turns out the first volunteer I approached spoke enough En...

http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/sports/201407/0007125999.shtml translated by Brett Larner The biggest attraction in Kansai university athletics long distance these days is without a doubt Kyoto University junior Kentaro Hirai .  A graduate of Hotoku Gakuen H.S., Hirai won this spring's Kansai University Track and Field Championships 10000 m and finished 2nd in both the 5000 m and half marathon.  Running as Kyoto's best runner at last month's National University Ekiden Championships Kansai Region Qualifier, he finished 1st overall to lead Kyoto University to qualify for Nationals for the first time in 41 years, showing the strong and inspiring impact he is having on his teammates.  Hirai envisions a place for himself on a Japanese national team in the marathon.  We talked to this 21-year-old about his current situation and about his vision for the future. You had a very strong first half of this season. The Kansai Regionals meet lists people who score 20 or mor...

http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASG693FG1G69PTQP003.html translated and edited by Brett Larner At the June 8 Kansai Region National University Men's Ekiden Championships Qualifier at Kyoto's Nishi Kyogo Sogo Sports Park Field, academic powerhouse Kyoto University  finished 5th to qualify for the National Championship race for the first time since its fourth running in January, 1973 and only the second time in school history.   Ritsumeikan University  won the regional qualifier for the Nov. 2 National Championships, to be run on a 106.8 km course between Atsuta Shrine in Aichi prefecture and Ise Shrine in Mie prefecture. With a grab-bag team ranging from its star first-year recruit, 2013 World Youth Championships 10000 m racewalk gold medalist Toshikazu Yamanishi , to graduate student runners, the Kyoto team's efforts   just barely paid off.  Over four heats of 10000 m with two runners from each school per heat it came down to Kansai Regional Track and Field...