japan running news

The meet records kept coming on Day 3 of the 2025 National Sports Festival Sunday in Shiga. The biggest came in the junior women's javelin throw , where Ayaka Suzuki (Namisho H.S.) opened with a 57.11 m MR throw to win by almost 9 meters. That would have been good enough for 4th in the senior women's javelin throw , where Marina Saito (Suzuki) won over Momone Ueda (Zenrin) 59.39 m to 59.34 m, but more newsworthily put her at all-time #5 on the Japanese high school rankings, 1.79 m behind Paris Olympics champ Haruka Kitaguchi . Both the junior women's 5000 m race walk and junior men's 5000 m race walk took the event to new levels, with the top 4 in the women's race going under the MR and the top 2 in the men's race doing the same. Hikari Osaka (Nishinomiya H.S.) took the women's race by less than a second over Yuna Uchiyama (Honjo Higashi H.S.) 22:40.75 to 22:41.50, but the men's race was clearer-cut with Daichi Yamada (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) winn...

A few updates as we get near the bottom of the barrel for qualifying for next month's Tokyo World Athletics Championships. The Asian Throwing Championships in Mokpo, South Korea brought some clarity down around the cusp for qualification in a few events. The biggest result from the Japanese point of view was in the men's javelin throw, where National Championships 3rd-placer Gen Naganuma , currently the 2nd Japanese man in line for a roll down spot behind Rin Suzuki , threw 78.60 m for 2nd. Based on the current Road to Tokyo rankings that was enough to move him up into 35th in the 36-deep javelin quota, bumping down Suzuki who has been in poor form the last two months and threw only 68.85 m for 11th in Mokpo. Sri Lankan Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage won at 82.05 m. The #2 woman on the Japanese women's javelin squad, Momone Ueda threw a PB and championships record 62.20 m for the win over Sri Lankan Dilhani Lekamge , 2nd at 57.53 m. #3 Japanese woman Sae Takemoto was 4th at ...

Day 7 of athletics at the Paris Olympics kicked off with one of Japan's few chances at a medal, the marathon race walk mixed relay. Masatora Kawano took it out hard, leading early with honorary Japanese team member Evan Dunfee of Canada and staying with the pack once caught. 20 km NR holder Kumiko Okada took over for the 2nd half of the race but soon lost touch and drifted back to her final finishing position of 8th in 2:55:40, just over 4 minutes behind bronze medalists Australia . Spain took gold in 2:50:31, with Ecuador beating Australia by 16 seconds for silver in 2:51:22. Japan's B-team of Kazuki Takahashi and Ayane Yanai was 13th in 2:58:08. 8th place for the A-team was far off a medal, but as another top 8 finish to go with those in the men's 20 km race walk it clicks a box in the JAAF's metrics for success at this Olympics.  Japan's best chance at an individual medal, 2023 world champion Haruka Kitaguchi led off with a 62.58 m throw that put her ov...

Getting stuck in the shinkansen cancelation headaches yesterday means we're a day late getting to the weekend's track roundup, but better late than never. At the top of the list, women's 100 mH national record holder Mako Fukube (NKK) took 0.04 off her own record to win in 12.69 (+1.2) at the All-Star Night Games in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa in her last race before the Paris Olympics. Other Paris team members won their races too: 4x400 m squad member Takuho Yoshizu (GK Line) took the win in the men's 400 m in 45.89. Men's 400 m hurdler Daiki Ogawa (Toyo Univ.) set a meet record 49.09 for the win. Sumire Hata (Sumitomo Denko) set a women's long jump MR of 6.61 m (+0.8). Marina Saito (Suzuki) and Momone Ueda (Zenrin) both threw over the old MR held by world champion and Paris teammate Haruka Kitaguchi , Saito getting the win with a final attempt of 58.45 m, Ueda next at 57.93 m and 3rd-placer Yuki Yamamoto (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) also going over the old MR at 57...

After taking silver in the Hangzhou Asian Games 10000 m, former NR holder Ririka Hironaka was back in the 5000 m to try again for gold. And you can't say she didn't try. Hironaka immediately dictated the terms of the race, leading the first 1000 m in 3:00.43 and most of the way to 2000 m in 6:04.28 before pulling into the 2nd lane to let Ethiopian Bahraini Bontu Edao Rebitu do some of the work. The pace immediately slowed, with 3000 m and 4000 m splits of 9:14.44 and 12:24.30, until Hironaka attacked again. Over the last 1000 m she accelerated steadily and one by one cracked all three African-born athletes and India's Anita until the only one left behind her was 3000 m SC silver medalist Parul Chaudhary of India. On the back straight Hironaka managed to open some distance on Chaudhary and it looked like she might actually pull off the win, but with less than 50 m to go Chaudhary reeled her back in to take gold in 15:14.75 to Hironaka's 15:15.34, a 2:51.04 closing k...

  None of the finals on Day 5 of the Budapest World Championships featured any Japanese athletes, but there were good performances in qualifying rounds in both the morning and evening sessions. First up for the day, Tomoya Karasawa didn't turn in one of the good ones, failing to clear the opening height in the men's pole vault qualifying round. Japan's best prospect for an individual medal outside of race walking, Haruka Kitaguchi was the first woman in the javelin throw and one of only seven to clear the auto-qualifying mark of 61.50 m, throwing 63.27 m. Marina Saito managed only 58.95 m for 15th in the first round, just 71 cm short of making the qualifying bracket of twelve. Men's long jumpers Yuki Hashioka , Hiromichi Yoshida and Shotaro Shiroyama were all off their game in the opening round, Hashioka jumping best with a credible 7.94 m -0.2 m/s but short of the 8.00 m that proved necessary for qualification. Yoshida jumped 7.60 m +1.2 m/s and Shiroyama only 7....

The 2023 Asian Athletics Championships started Wednesday in Bangkok, Thailand. Japan's fastest-ever collegiate 10000 m runner Ren Tazawa said pre-race that he would go for a sub-28 win to have a shot at getting into the quota for next month's Budapest World Championships. But while he, teammate Yuto Imae , Kenya-born Kazakhstani Shamrock Kimutai and others gave it a go, it was just too hot and humid to sustain. Tazawa led the entire way except for some early assistance from Imae and a very brief mid-race attack from Kimutai, going through halfway in 14:17.99 and crossing the finish line in 29:18.44. Kimutai was 2nd in 29:31.63, with Imae getting caught by India's Abhiskhek Pal in the last 200 m and knocked out of the medals. Tazawa's gold was the first AAC 10000 m gold for Japan since 1981, which seems surprising, but while his time was over a minute short of what he needed for the Budapest quota there's still a chance he'll make it as area champion. That wo...

Heavy rain in Osaka on the leading edge of a passing typhoon meant most of the field events on the day 2 program at the 107th National Track and Field Championships and 39th U20 National Championships got bumped to the morning of day 3, but on the track men's 1500 m NR holder Kazuki Kawamura (Toenec) dropped a meet record to win the best race of the day. One of five men on the start list with bests under 3:40, Kawamura held off a surprise challenge from Yusuke Takahashi (Hokkaido Univ. Grad School) and #2-ranked Keisuke Morita (Subaru) to take the national title in 3:38.45, breaking the ancient 1991-era National Championships meet record by 0.39. It was a close enough finish that both Takahashi and Morita made it under the MR too, Takahashi in a PB 3:38.69 and Morita in 3:38.75. 4th-placer Masato Saiki (Fujisannomeisui) went under 3:40 for the first time in 3:39.58. Just about the only ones to underperform were the two World Championships quota-ranked athletes in the field, Ry...

Not the man Japanese announcers expected to see on the podium, Shunya Takayama delivered Japan's only medal on day four of the Jakarta Asian Games , outrunning national record holder Taio Kanai for bronze in the men's 110 m hurdles. The entire focus of the Japanese coverage was on Kanai, but from the start he was out of form, ultimately finishing only 7th in 13.74. Takayama fought his way up from 4th, leaning so far at the line to overtake Saudi Arabia's Ahmed Khader Almuwallad for the medal that he fell. Wenjun Xie of China took the gold in 13.34 with Kueiru Chen of Taiwan running a PB of 13.39 for silver. National record holder Sho Kawamoto was also out of form in the men's 800 m, 7th in a disappointing 1:50.87. Yume Kitamura and Ayano Shiomi came closer in the women's 800 m but were still out of the medals at 4th and 5th. Likewise in the women's 5000 m, where Rina Nabeshima and Minami Yamanouchi took 4th and 6th, and the women's javelin thro...

Runner-up at June's National Championships, Marina Saito broke through with a women's javelin collegiate national record 62.37 m throw on her last attempt to take silver at the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade. On her second throw Saito marked 61.06 m, the only woman to clear 61 m under Poland's Marcelina Witek threw a PB of 63.31 m on her fifth attempt. Needing a massive throw to retake the top spot, Saito cleared the Japanese university national record by a meter with a PB of 62.37 m and moved up to all-time Japanese #2 but had to settle for silver. The woman whose record she broke, Haruka Kitaguchi , struggled on her first three throws and failed to advance to the top eight, her best throw only 56.30 m. Another medal came in the men's triple jump. Ranked #1 in the qualifying rounds, Ryoma Yamamoto led off with a jump of 16.80 m (+1.7 m/s) that put him into 2nd behind Azerbaijan's Nazim Babeyev . Unable to improve on that, Yamamoto looked set for silver unti...

Ai Hosoda became the first Japanese medalist of the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade, winning bronze in the women's 10000 m to wrap the first day of athletics competition. 【 #台北ユニバーシアード 】 女子10000m 細田あいが銅メダル🥉 （写真：奥井隆史） #陸上 #ユニバーシアード pic.twitter.com/tq9XLAU99r — スポーツナビ・陸上編集部 (@sn_gorin) August 24, 2017 Leading the field with a sub-32 best, 19-year-old Yuki Munehisa led the first 9000 m on the race before being overtaken by Daria Maslova (Kyrgyszstan),   Sanjivani Jadhav (India) and Hosoda. On the last lap Maslova kicked away to gold in 33:19.27 less than 3 seconds ahead of Jadhav, with Hosoda 6 seconds behind for bronze. Munehisa fell to 4th, with third team member Natsuki Sekiya , a favorite to medal in the 5000 m, off her game at 12th in 35:21.19. 【 #ユニバーシアード 】 多田修平(関西学院大) 3組1着 0.0 10.29 スタートから1位をキープし、安定したレース展開でした！ 準決勝進出です！！ #青春に駆けろ pic.twitter.com/I5UBAidmIE — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) August 23, 2017 With the rest of the day devoted to qualifying rounds Ho...

Following protests outside the main stadium that interrupted its opening ceremonies Saturday night , the athletics component of the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade is set to start Wedenesday. As always Japan is sending a solid crew of its A-list collegiate talent to the World University Games, with a team of 24 men and 14 women set to compete over the six day run of athletics. Getting things off to a quick start, London World Championships men's 4x100 m bronze medallist Shuhei Tada (Kwansei Gakuin University) is set to run the first men's 100 m on the first day on competition. Takamasa Kitagawa (Juntendo University), Ryo Kajiki (Josai University), Ryoma Yamamoto (Juntendo Univ.) and Marina Saito (Kokushikan University) will also double back from representing Japan in London to compete in Taipei, Kitagawa in the men's 400 m, Kajiki in the men's 400 m hurdles, Yamamoto in the men's triple jump and Saito in the women's javelin throw. London men's 20 km...

by Brett Larner 【 #世界陸上 🇬🇧 #TBS 8月開幕】 《 #関東インカレ ２日目・桐生祥秀》 期待された桐生のスイッチは入らず。しかし、今季の走りのレベルは「９秒８台レベル」と土江コーチ 続きは https://t.co/Yye7JlUp3n #桐生祥秀 #TBS #世界陸上 pic.twitter.com/3f4yeOjkXq — TBSテレビ陸上 ８月は世界陸上ロンドン (@tbsrikujou) May 26, 2017 Day two of the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships saw one of the the country's greats, Rio Olympics men's 4x100 m silver medalist Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.), lining up in the meet's 100 m for the final time of his college career. Heading into the semi-finals with the fastest time in the heats, Kiryu easily topped the semis with a 10.15 +1.8 m/s to take the top spot among the qualifiers for the final. There he ran 10.24 -0.5 m/s to add one last Kanto 100 m title to his collection. Anchoring Toyo's 4x100 m team he brought them home in 4th in 39.56, leaving just one more event, the 200 m, before he wraps up his final appearance at Japan's best meet. #関東インカレ 橋岡優輝 6回目 8m04 +0.1 跳んだ直後の雄叫び、記録が分かり喜びを爆発させる様子、ス...

by Brett Larner videos by Ekiden News  and no1231y Rio Olympics 4x100 m silver medalist Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) was the hardest-working man in Japan this weekend, running nine races in three days and winning three of his four finals at the 85th National University Track and Field Championships in Kumagaya, Saitama.  Kiryu started off his haul with a meet record 10.08 (+1.1 m/s) to win the 100 m final, following up with a 20.60 (-0.1 m/s) in the 200 m.  Running anchor in the men's 4x100 m, Kiryu made a rare flub, blowing his exchange and dropping Toyo to last in 48.71, showing that the baton work that earned Japan worldwide praise in its silver medal run in Rio isn't always easy and takes hard work to get right.   Cbuo University made it four-straight National titles, winning in 38.92. Coming back from the 4x100 m embarrassment, with his Rio teammate Julian Walsh , who won the National University 400 m final with ease in 45.93, running anchor, Kiryu m...