japan running news

Avoiding the worst of the typhoon that caused the season-opening national-level high school ekidens and other events to be canceled over the weekend, the National Sports Festival continued through Tuesday after day one and day two of athletics competition.

National junior records fell in the women's 5000 m racewalk, where Nanako Fujii (Edion) took 2nd overall in 21:24.40, and the junior men's 110 m hurdles, where Ko Tawada (Ogaki Shogyo H.S.) ran 13.31 (+1.5 m/s) for the win. Tawada also broke the meet record, one of four to be set over the final three days. Along with Tawada's mark, women's 5000 m racewalk winner Kumiko Okada (Bic Camera) set a new meet record of 21:08.97, Takumi Murashima (Fuji Pref. Sports Assoc.) set a senior men's 800 m meet record of 1:47.45, with his teammate Taio Kanai (Fukui Pref. Sports Assoc.) breaking the senior men's 110 m hurdles record in 13.46 (+1.2 m/s).



In distance action the highlight was the junior women's 3000 m, where…

Most of Japan's distance runners retreat north to Hokkaido for the summer to escape the heat and put in mileage for ekiden season. The four-part Hokuren Distance Challenge series gives them the chance to add some quality into the mix, whether for chasing standards, padding their resumes, or general development.

The main focus of the first part of the 2018 series, held in the town of Abashiri, was on 10000 m for women and 5000 m for men. In cold and rain times weren't especially fast, Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) continuing a solid first season in the corporate leagues with a win in the women's 10000 m A-heat in 32:35.74 and Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) taking the B-heat in 32:55.13. Women also had the option for 3000 m, with Marta Mokaya (Oita Tomei H.S.) beating Ann Karindi (Toyota Jidoshokki) 8:56.40 to 8:59.12.

Kenyan Nicholas Kosimbei (Toyota) fronted the men's 5000 m A-heat in 13:33.97, with Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) taking the top Japanese spot at 8th in 13:…

Saturday night saw another round of mid-season track time trial meets across the country. Leading the way, Saku Chosei High School's Yuhi Nakaya ran the 5th-fastest time ever by a Japanese high schooler, 13:47.22, to take 4th as the top Japanese man behind Ethiopian duo Abiyot Abinet and Yeneblo Biyazen of the Yachiyo Kogyo corporate team and unattached Kenyan James Bunuka Ndiwa in the Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials men's 5000 m A-heat.

Former World Youth and World Junior Championships medalist William Malel (Honda) won the Heisei Kokusai 10000 m A-heat in 28:24.46, with Komazawa University grad Shun Inoura (Yachiyo Kogyo) 2nd in 28:28.49. Two Japanese men in the A-heat, Toshinori Watanabe (GMO) and Kazuki Muramoto (Sumitomo Denki) doubled after running in earlier heats of 10000 m.

Far to the south, the national champion Asahi Kasei corporate team ran almost its entire team in the 10000 m at the Miyazaki Time Trials meet. 2016 national XC champ Takashi Ichida took 1st …

The 2017 National Sports Festival took place over the long weekend, the last major track meet on the Japanese calendar as ekiden season gets into full swing. This year saw one of the greatest women's 3000 m races and certainly the best high school 3000 m ever held on Japanese soil, as 18-year-old Nozomi Tanaka (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) led five high school women under nine minutes to win in 8:54.27.

えひめ国体
女子 少年A3000m決勝ラスト一周

優勝🥇兵庫・田中選手8:54.27 pic.twitter.com/Z4l0wMDr6n — 城戸康志 (@dokidokikouji) October 9, 2017
The daughter of Japan's best female amateur marathoner, 2:29:30 runner Chihiro Tanaka, Tanaka broke nine minutes for the first time in August with a runner-up finish to Kenyan Helen Ekarare (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) at the National High School Championships in 8:59.83. Last month she took that to 8:58.81 at a time trial meet in Shizuoka. At the National Sports Festival she ran at the front of a lead pack of eight featuring five Japanese runners and three Kenyans, the pace close to…

by Brett Larner

Most of the country's corporate leagues held their regional track and field championships this weekend, but superseding them all was the Golden Grand Prix Kawasaki meet.

With a shortage of candidates for the London World Championships men's 5000 m the JAAF doctored in a sub-7:55.00 qualifying standard for men to get into next month's National Track and Field Championships, adding a 3000 m to the normally sprint, middle distance and field event GGP.  In the midst of his best season in years, Yuichiro Ueno (Team DeNA) took it out close to national record pace through the first half before abruptly slowing and dropping off the back. Rio Olympics 10000 m silver medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) took over, with only Evans Keitany Kiptum (Team Toyota Boshoku), Hiroki Matsueda (Team Fujitsu), Hayato Seki (Tokai Univ.) and Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei).

Never do this.
Kiptum looked set for the win with a strong kick over the last 200 m, but Tanui came back…

by Brett Larner
highlights video courtesy of race broadcaster NHK
click here for National High School Boys Ekiden results

2014 national champion Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. ran one of the fastest times in National High School Girls Ekiden history, breaking its school record to win its second national title in three years.

Osaka Kunei got off to a relatively slow start, its leading runner Kanami Sagayama just 10th on the 6.0 km First Stage behind defending champ Sera H.S., last-year's runner-up Tokiwa H.S., powerhouse Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S. and others.  Osaka Kunei's star runner Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu, with an 8:58.86 best for 3000 m while still just 16 years old, got the team back in the game, running the second-fastest time on the 4.0975 km Second Stage to put Osaka Kunei into 1st.

Third and fourth runners Ayaka Murao and Saya Nakajima both won their stages, giving Osaka Kunei a 26-second lead over the relatively unheralded Nagano Higashi H.S. heading onto the 5.0 km anchor …

by Brett Larner

A week after running 9:00.81 to become the fastest-ever Japanese 10th grade girl over 3000 m, Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) was back to break another record.  At Saturday's Challenge Games in Oita Ginko Dome Hironaka ran 15:42.23 to win the women's 5000 m, again the fastest mark ever by a Japanese 10th grader.  10th graders also brought good times in the women's 3000 m and men's 5000 m, where Oita Tomei H.S. resident Kenyans Marta Mokaya and Benuel Mogeni won in 9:06.29 and 13:43.37.  Japanese high schoolers Keita Yoshida (Sera H.S.) and Yuta Kanbayashi (Kyushu Gakuin H.S.) both broke 14 minutes, Yoshida running 13:53.53 for 3rd and Kanbayashi next across the line in 13:59.14.

Faster 5000 m times came Sunday at Yokohama's Nittai University Time Trials, where Jonathan Ndiku (Team Hitachi Butsuryu) came up just short of the fastest 5000 m on Japanese soil so far this year as he won in 13:15.32.  John Maina (Team Fujitsu) and Alfred Ngeno (Team…