japan running news

A training partner of disgraced Rio Olympics gold medalist Jemima Sumgong , Tokyo Marathon course record holder and Japan all-comers' record holder Sarah Chepchirchir of Kenya has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit for use of prohibited substances or methods. Chepchirchir's suspension follows the announcement last month of an eight-year suspension for Sumgong for doping-related offenses and an attempted coverup. Both Chepchirchir and Sumgong are represented by agent Federico Rosa , whose other Kenyan clients include two-time Commonwealth Games medalist Lucy Kabuu , suspended last month for two years for doping, former Boston Marathon course record holder Rita Jeptoo , who lost her title and record with a four-year doping suspension , and former Olympic 1500 m gold medalist Asbel Kiprop , found to have tested positive for EPO . Rosa is scheduled to have athletes including 2018 Abu Dhabi Marathon winners Marius Kipserem (Kenya) and  Ababel Yes...

Japan’s domestic elite marathon season wraps up Sunday with the Nagoya Women’s Marathon , the final race in the first season of qualification for the MGC Race , Japan’s new 2020 Olympic trials marathon to be held in late 2019. In its first season the MGC Race has succeeded in unifying Japan’s disparate national team selection races into what feels like an actual series, one that fans have gotten excited about and which has, at least on the men’s side, driven performances to a higher level. As of right now, thirteen Japanese men have met the MGC Race’s strict qualification criteria, six of them at the Tokyo Marathon alone. Heading into Nagoya only three women have qualified . Will we see another rush of qualifiers this weekend? On paper it could happen. Since its rebranding as the world’s largest women-only marathon, Nagoya has consistently produced among the best depth-at-quality in the world, its course, weather and fields conducive to seeing a lot of people running fast times. In...

The Nagoya Women's Marathon is the largest women-only marathon in the world, one with a long history as an elite race and adapting to the times with a mass-participation field of 20,000. The last few years it has seen a series of dynamic, high-level performances by top Japanese women, from Sairi Maeda 's 2:22:48 in 2015 to the 2:23:19 to 2:23:20 sprint finish battle between Tomomi Tanaka and Rei Ohara in 2016 to Yuka Ando 's stellar 2:21:36 debut and teammate Mao Kiyota 's 2:23:47 breakthrough last year. Maeda, Ohara and Kiyota all return this year to face the Kenyan trio of Lucy Kabuu , Valary Jemeli and Flomena Cheyech Daniel . Kabuu went to high school in Japan before moving on to the big leagues, but she hasn't finished a marathon since her 2:20:21 in Dubai 2015. Cheyech also used to be based in Japan as is a familiar face here, winning the last two Saitama International Marathons. Jemeli is making her Japanese debut, and with a 2:21:57 win in Prague and ...

by Brett Larner For its 11th running as a mass-participation race the Feb. 26 Tokyo Marathon sports a new and hypothetically faster course.  Gone are both the unpopular last 6 km through the bridge-heavy wastelands of Tokyo Bay and the old course's scenic highlight, the Imperial Palace.  In their places are a flatter course with a finish outside Tokyo Station and an additional 180' turnaround. On net it's likely to be a better course, and to celebrate that Tokyo is bringing in the great Wilson Kipsang to try to better both Dickson Chumba 's 2:05:42 course record and Tsegaye Kebede 's 2:05:18 Japanese all-comers record.  Both Chumba and Kebede are in the race, and with support from sub-2:06 men Evans Chebet and Tadese Tola , and a half-dozen 2:06-level athletes just behind they may just get there if the always-unpredictable February Tokyo weather cooperates. Tokyo is one of the main domestic selection races for the 2017 London World Championships men's mar...

http://news.ameba.jp/20151110-1151/ translated by Brett Larner On Nov. 10 the JAAF announced changes to the elite field for Sunday's inaugural Saitama International Marathon , the first domestic selection race for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic team.  The race's star foreign athlete Lucy Wangui Kabuu (Kenya) and its #2 and #3-ranked Japanese women Mizuho Nasukawa (Team Univ. Ent.) and Asami Furuse (Team Kyocera) have all withdrawn due to injuries.  Joining the field is 2009 Berlin World Championships 10000 m silver medalist Meselech Melkamu (Ethiopia) with a PB of 2:21:01. Translator's note: On Oct. 30 the New York Times published an article saying that the TCS New York City Marathon had declined to invite defending Olympic marathon bronze medalist Tatyana Petrova Arkhipova of Russia and four other Eastern European women represented by agent Andrey Baranov , who also represented high-profile doping Russians Liliya Shobukhova , Mariya Konovalova , Tatyana Aryasova a...

by Brett Larner The new Nov. 15 Saitama International Marathon is the inheritor of the defunct Yokohama International Women's Marathon, itself the lesser offspring of the great Tokyo International Women's Marathon that folded under the pressure of the big new mass-participation Tokyo Marathon.  At the time of the event's "relocation" to Yokohama JRN published an editorial questioning whether The Yokohama International Women's Marathon was an idea whose time had passed .  History bore that out, unfortunately, as Yokohama was constantly beset with problems including its first winner Inga Abitova of Russia testing positive, a circuit course popular with spectators but unpopular with runners that underwent extensive changes, a date change into the next year in its second running, the welcoming back of Lithuanian Zivile Balciunaite within virtually days of the end of her doping suspension, and a growing sense of irrelevance highlighted by its winners and top J...

by Brett Larner The Japanese women's team came through at the Mar. 29 World Half Marathon Championships in Copenhagen, Denmark, narrowly outrunning a strong Italian squad for the team bronze medal.  Top-placing Japanese woman Sayo Nomura  (Team Daiichi Seimei) started slow, nearly 15 seconds behind the lead pack at 5 km, but ran steadily to move up through the pack and overtake teammates Chieko Kido  (Canon AC Kyushu), Reia Iwade  (Team Noritz) and Risa Takenaka  (Team Shiseido) for 15th place overall. Both Takenaka and Iwade finished within 30 seconds of Nomura to overcome Italian Valeria Straneo 's strong 8th-place finish in 1:08:55 and give Japan the team bronze by just 24 seconds. Further up front, Kyushu-based Sally Chepyego  (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) took the individual bronze in a 1:07:52 PB, with Aomori Yamada H.S. graduate and former Suzuki runner Lucy Kabuu  4th in 1:08:37. In the men's race, Komazawa University's Kenta Murayama ...

by Brett Larner You couldn't ask for much better conditions than the Tokyo Marathon had today, and when you have fields with eight to eleven athletes with best times faster than your course records, those records are bound to fall.   Dickson Chumba  (Kenya) and Tirfi Tsegaye (Ethiopia) came through to beat the favorites, Chumba running a PB 2:05:42 to get the Tokyo men's course record and Tsegaye cutting more than three minutes off the women's record with the win in 2:22:23.  For Japanese men it was either the second or third-greatest marathon in history depending on your metric, five of them clearing 2:10, four for the first time, led by Kohei Matsumura  (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) in 2:08:09. Daegu World Championships marathoner Mai Ito  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) led the women's race through a relatively conservative first 10 km in 34:18 before the pace began to quicken.  Still in the lead at 20 km, she split 33:47 for the second 10 km before g...

by Brett Larner With just a month until the race date, the Tokyo Marathon organizers have released the men's and women's entry lists for Tokyo's second edition since working its way into the World Marathon Majors. Compared to the London and Boston fields it is the very model of a minor Major marathon with Kenyans, Ethiopians and even an Eritrean, but though the best have gone elsewhere the depth and quality are there to bring some overseas interest and make this field one of the best Japan has ever seen. Tadesse Tola  (Ethiopia) leads the way among the men with a sub-2:05 best from Dubai last year, tailed closely by two-time world champion Abel Kirui  (Kenya) who returns to Tokyo after a DNF in 2008, Sammy Kitwara (Kenya) and three other men who have broken 2:06 in the last two years.  2011 World Jr. XC champion Geoffrey Kipsang  (Kenya), past Tokyo winners Michael Kipyego (Kenya) and Viktor Rothlin  (Switzerland) and five other internationals make up the ...

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/sports/article/2000101864/athletics-kabuu-to-gauge-her-speed-ahead-of-february-s-tokyo-marathon Note: Lucy Wangui Kabuu is a graduate of Aomori Yamada H.S. and ran with the Suzuki corporate team.

by Brett Larner photo by Dr. Helmut Winter In a superb race led by Fukuoka Marathon course record-holder Tsegaye Kebede 's world record-pace second half 2:04:38 course record win, relatively unknown 23-year-old Koji Kobayashi (Team Subaru) was the top Japanese man, 14th in a PB of 2:10:40 in his second marathon. While national record-holder Toshinari Takaoka -coached 2:12 runner Hiroki Kadota (Team Kanebo) started the race off in the first pack and 2:11 man Yuki Moriwaki (Team JFE Steel) struggled from the start, Kobayashi, 2:10 runner Takeshi Kumamoto (Team Toyota) and 2:09:16 veteran Takashi Horiguchi (Team Honda) stuck with top American hopeful Dathan Ritzenhein on low-2:07 pace. Kadota soon dropped back to join the pack, but when Ritzenhein accelerated into high-2:06 territory near halfway the pack splintered. Kobayashi, coached by 2:08 man Wataru Okutani at Subaru, was the last to hang on, losing touch just before 30 km but holding on to 2:08 pace through 40 km....

by Brett Larner Takashi Horiguchi in last year's Chicago Marathon. Follow Horiguchi on Twitter. Photo (c) 2011 Dr. Helmut Winter Long one of the races of choice for Japanese athletes looking to run a fast time overseas and the home of Toshinari Takaoka 's 2:06:16 Japanese national record, for the second year in a row the Chicago Marathon is playing host to a group of developmental-level Japanese men.  This year's group is a step above last year's, including one 2:09 man, one 2:10, one 2:11 and two 2:12 runners. The Japanese federation has said that a sub-2:08 in any of the Majors will put the runner into the stable for next year's Moscow World Championships marathon squad, but of the men in Chicago only veteran  Takashi Horiguchi  (Team Honda) looks to be in contention.  After taking eight years to break his 2:12:06 debut time Horiguchi has been on a roll for the last year and a half, PBing twice and becoming one of eight Japanese men so far this year to ha...

http://www.chicagomarathon.com/CMS400Min/uploadedFiles/Chicago_Marathon/Press_Center/Press%20Release%2009-12-12.pdf Along with the six Japanese men in the Chicago Marathon field, 2011 Fukuoka Marathon winner Samuel Ndungu  is a longtime Japanese-based runner, Thomas Frazer  was a member of the Shibuya Ekiden course record-setting team, and Lucy Kabuu  is a graduate of Aomori Yamada H.S. and a former runner for Suzuki Hamamatsu.

Hayward Field, Eugene, OR, 6/1/12 click here for complete results 1. Wilson Kiprop - 27:01.98 - PB 2. Moses Ndiema Masai - 27:02.25 3. Bitan Karoki (Team S&B) - 27:05.50 - PB 4. Emmanuel Kipkemei Bett - 27:07.90 5. Geoffrey Kirui - 27:08.44 6. Lucas Kimeli Rotich - 27:09.38 7. Eliud Kipchoge - 27:11.93 8. Mark Kosgei Kiptoo - 27:18.22 9. Micah Kemboi Kogo - 27:23.04 10. Mike Kipruto Kigen - 2723.75 - PB 11. Paul Kipngetich Tanui (Team Kyudenko) - 27:27.56 12. Denis Masai - 27:32.79 - PB 13. Josphat Kipkoech Bett - 27:39.65 14. Kevin Chelimo - 27:46.10 15. Titus Kipjumba Mbishei - 27:59.15 Pre-race Athletics Kenya announced that the top two finishers would earn guaranteed places on the Kenyan Olympic team, with the third spot decided at a later date.  Saitama-based Karoki's PB run was thus not enough to assure that he will make it to the London. In the women's 10000 m, Aomori Yamada H.S. graduate and former Suzuki team member Lucy Kabuu Wangui  dropped ...

by Brett Larner Japan's road season got into swing this weekend with two large road races and two competitive ekidens. At the Fukuoka Prefecture Road Championships in Omuta, Kyushu, Yuya Konishi  (Team Toyota Kyushu) won the 10-miler in 48:00, one of the fastest winning times on record at the race.  The rest of the top ten went under 48:30 as well, making for an outstanding tight race.   Sally Chepyego  (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) won the women's 5 km for the second year in a row and took advantage of the ideal temperatures to set a course record of 15:51.  Runner-up Yuka Miyazaki  was 44 seconds behind.  Local boy Yuki Koga  (Omuta H.S.) won the high school 10 km in 31:29. At the other end of the country, the Sapporo Half Marathon, not to be confused with July's Sapporo International Half Marathon, saw 12,003 finishers led by Toshiaki Nishizawa  (Komazawa Univ.) in 1:05:07 and Mika Sawa  (Bukkyo Univ.) in 1:16:10. Across the world, J...

by Brett Larner Former teammates at Shizuoka-based Suzuki Hamamatsu AC , Kenyans Lucy Wangui Kabuu  and Martin Irungu Mathathi  staged dominating performances to win the women's and men's races at the rolling downhill Great North Run half marathon on Sept. 18.  Wangui, a graduate of Aomori Yamada H.S. before running for Suzuki and winning 10000 m gold and 5000 m bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, showed no sign of her near-absence from competition since the Beijing Olympics as she made an early surge at world record pace to easily crush the field, winning in 1:07:06 over two minutes up on runner-up Jessica Augusto  (Portugal).  2011 Yokohama International Women's Marathon 3rd-placer Marisa Barros  (Portugal) was 3rd again only four weeks after finishing 9th in the Daegu World Championships marathon.  Formerly Japan-based Mara Yamauchi  (Great Britain), in training for November's third edition of Yokohama, was a DNF after dropping from the le...

by Brett Larner Five Japan-based Kenyans are scheduled to compete in the Feb. 20 Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon in the United Arab Emirates, a race which in only its third running is well on its way to become one of the world's premier events. University ekiden circuit rivals Mekubo Mogusu (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) and Daniel Gitau (Nihon Univ.) will face each other in the men's race alongside nearly a dozen men with half marathon times under the hour mark. Mogusu, who clocked three sub-hour times within Japan in 2007, made his international debut at last year's 2nd Ras Al Khaimah but finished disappointingly down the field in 5th place with a time of 1:00:35. This year's race will be Gitau's international debut. In the women's race, Philes Ongori (Team Hokuren) leads the way after running the fastest time in the world last year with her 1:07:57 win at the 2008 Kagawa Marugame Half Marathon. Julia Mumbi (Team Aruze) and Lucy Wangui Kabuu will join her. Mumbi won th...