japan running news

Championship ekiden week is here, four days of road relay action spread across five days from Dec. 30 to Jan. 3, all broadcast live to millions of fans across the nation. Last year Nagoya's Meijo University beat five-time champ Ritsumeikan University to win the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden , the National University Women's Ekiden Championships invitational, in course record time. This season Meijo looked pretty well unbeatable at the mid-season Morinomiyako Ekiden , beating runner-up Daito Bunka University by over two and a half minutes and Ritsumeikan by more than three over Morinomiyako's six-stage, 38.1 km course. Mount Fuji's is more demanding, seven hilly stages totaling 43.4 km through the foothills of Mount Fuji. Last year Meijo, Daito Bunka and Ritsumeikan finished within two and a half minutes of each other, and with Meijo looking even better this season it'll be hard for either of its main rival teams, or any others, to close that gap up. Watch th...

Hiroto Inoue age: 26 sponsor: MHPS graduated from: Chinzei Gakuin H.S., Yamanashi Gakuin University best time inside MGC window: 2:06:54, 5th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon PB: 2:06:54, 5th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 13:38.44 (2018) 10000 m: 27:56.27 (2018) half marathon: 1:01:39 (2014) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) 12th, 2019 Boston Marathon, 2:11:53 1st, 2018 Jakarta Asian Games Marathon, 2:18:22 5th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon, 2:06:54 – PB 2nd, 2017 Tohoku Miyagi Fukko Marathon, 2:23:47 26th, 2017 London World Championships Marathon, 2:16:54 other major results: 4th, 2019 HDC Fukagawa 10000 m, 28:08.10 1st, 2019 Tamana Half Marathon, 1:02:12 6th, 2019 Karatsu 10-Miler, 46:42 1st, 2019 New Year Ekiden Fourth Stage (22.4 km), 1:04:37 2nd, 2018 Hachioji Long Distance Meet 10000 m, 27:56.27 – PB 1st, 2018 Kyushu Corporate Ekiden Fifth Stage (13.0 km), 38:05 1st, 2018 Golden Games in Nobeoka 5000 m, 13:38.44 – PB 7th, 2018 National...

Ryo Kiname age: 28 sponsor: MHPS graduated from: Keiho H.S. best time inside MGC window: 2:08:08, 7th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon PB: 2:08:08, 7th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 13:40.62 (2012) 10000 m: 28:18.52 (2011) half marathon: 1:02:22 (2012) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) 26th, 2019 Tokyo Marathon, 2:17:19 DNF, 2018 Chicago Marathon 7th, 2018 Tokyo Marathon, 2:08:08 – PB other major results: 25th, 2019 Shibetsu Half Marathon, 1:06:50 9th, 2019 New Year Ekiden Fifth Stage (12.1 km), 36:50 3rd, 2017 Beppu-Oita Marathon, 2:10:30 5th, 2016 Kumamoto Kosa 10-Miler, 46:47 1st, 2016 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:13:16 8th, 2014 Beppu-Oita Marathon, 2:12:46 Kiname is another of the handful of men in the field who didn’t go to university, going straight to the strong MHPS team after high school. He had a good arc to his early marathon career, 2:12:46 in Beppu-Oita in 2014, a 2:13:16 win at the Hokkaido Marathon in 2016, and a 2:10:30 b...

Yuji Iwata age: 32 sponsor: MHPS graduated from: Fukuoka Kogyo H.S. best time inside MGC window: 2:09:30, 6th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon PB: 2:09:30, 6th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 14:08.35 (2014) 10000 m: 28:53.82 (2010) half marathon: 1:03:38 (2011) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) 6th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon, 2:09:30 – PB 7th, 2018 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:15:09 46th, 2018 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:24:00 other major results: 22nd, 2019 Shibetsu Half Marathon, 1:06:44 3rd, 2019 New Year Ekiden Seventh Stage (15.5 km), 45:50 8th, 2017 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, 2:12:15 4th, 2015 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:17:29 One of the things about Japanese marathoning, especially on the men’s side, is that the depth makes it so that there’s usually going to be some random guy who busts a 2:08~2:10 out of nowhere. Put Iwata into that category. One of only three men in the field who didn’t go to university, at age 32 Iwata has been in th...

Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon and Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon pretty much wrapped up qualification for the Sept. 15 MGC Race , Japan's new 2020 Olympic trials in the marathon. There's still a chance for people who haven't qualified yet to get in if they can clear the wildcard standards, 2:24:00 or a two-race 2:28:00 average for women and 2:08:30 or a 2:11:00 average for men, by the end of April. At least two men with good chances of making it, Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) and Asuka Tanaka (Hiramatsu Byoin), are planning to race again in April to try to go that route, and there will probably be others. But realistically the numbers of qualifiers probably won't change too much from what they are now. As of the end of Sunday's races, 14 women and 30 men have qualified. On the women's side, the Tenmaya corporate team, the most successful at putting women on national teams in the marathon, has produced the most qualifiers with three, Honami Maeda...

In a 100 km race that came down to a sprint finish over the last 100 m the ascendant Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems team came up just short of stopping old-school powerhouse Asahi Kasei from scoring a third-straight New Year Ekiden corporate men's national title. Unremarkable over the first two stages, it took a Third Stage win by Tetsuya Yoroizaka with pressure from the superb 32-year-old  Ryosuke Maki (Subaru) to put Asahi Kasei in range of the front. But on the day's longest stage, the 22.4 km Fourth Stage, MHPS' Jakarta Asian Games marathon gold medalist  Hiroto Inoue had other ideas. Running with incredible smoothness and poise Inoue ran down some of 2018's best Japanese marathoners including Berlin 4th-placer Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) and Chicago 2:07:57 man Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) to go 35 seconds out front, 16 seconds faster than he ran last year before his 2:06:54 in Tokyo but still 18 seconds off Yuta Shitara 's course record. With Fukuoka wi...