japan running news

  Summer seemed to finally break right on the autumnal equinox, just in time for the second day of the 2023 National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Gifu. Things kicked off with the women's 10000 m race walk, where Kaori Kawazoe (SDF Academy) took the national title in a leisurely 48:26.31 by 8 seconds over Nami Kumagai (Sekisho). The men's 10000 mRW didn't happen for another 7 hours, but it saw MR holder Koki Ikeda (Asahi Kasei) take the win in 38:46.81 with Ryo Hamanishi (Sunbelx) 8 seconds behind. WR holder Eiki Takahashi (Fujitsu) was 6th in 41:56.86, with Daisuke Matsunaga (Fujitsu) 8th in 42:50.60 in his final race before retiring and becoming an assistant coach at Toyo University . The men's 100 m heats saw some of the aging greats of Japanese men's sprinting back in action after sitting on the bench while younger talent represented in Budapest last month. NR holder Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) won H1 in 10.26 (+2.4), 2010 World U20 Championships...

On the second day of track and field at the Tokyo Olympic Games , joint national record holder in the 100 m hurdles  Asuka Terada  became the first Japanese woman since 2000 to make an Olympic semifinal, running just 0.08 off her NR. Running in the fifth heat, Terada had a good start and hung on to clock 12.95 (+0.3), the fastest among time qualifiers. Her NR co-holder Masami Aoki  and veteran Ayako Kimura  both failed to move on, Aoki finishing 7th in the third heat and Kimura 7th in the opening heat. In the men's pole vault, neither Seito Yamamoto  nor Masaki Ejima  advanced out of the qualification round. Both cleared only 5.30 m to finish near the bottom of the field. In the evening session, Yuki Hashioka  had a great showing in the men's long jump qualification round, winning his group with a jump of 8.17 m, third-best in the field overall and one of only three athletes to hit the auto-qualifying standard. National record holder Shotaro Shiroyama...

Held in the stadium where Japan saw its first-ever sub-10 clocking for 100 m, Saturday's new Athlete Night Games in Fukui meet produced four national records highlighted by an incredible men's long jump competition. Yuki Hashioka (Nihon Univ.) opened with a jump of 8.32 m +1.6 m/s that shattered the national record dating way back in 1992 by 7 cm. Hibika Tsuha (Toyo Univ.) followed him with a jump of 8.21 m + 2.0 m/s that put him into the all-time Japanese top three, then bettered that with an 8.23 m +0.6 m/s. Out of nowhere, Shotaro Shiroyama (Zenrin) knocked them both back in the record books on his third jump with a new national record of 8.40 m +1.5 m/s, the #2 mark in the world so far this year and only his second time clearing 8 m with a legal wind. Japanese fans were quick to compare the trio's results to this season's Diamond League meets. DL Shanghai 🥇8m24🥈8m16🥉8m14 DL Lausanne 🥇8m32🥈8m19🥉8m13 DL London 🥇8m37🥈8m32🥉8m11 DL Fukui 🥇8...

Day three of the National Track and Field Championships saw a few of the expected favorites prevail and a few unexpectedly fall short. In the women's 100 m hurdles 2019 Asian champion Ayako Kimura (Edion) won a very close race over Masumi Aoki (Nanajunana Ginko) and Asuka Terada (Pasona Group) in 13.14 (+0.6 m/s) to secure her spot back in Doha this fall. In the men's 400 m hurdles Takatoshi Abe (Yamada Denki) came back from a weak semi-final to win in 48.80, likewise guaranteeing himself a place on Japan's World Championships team. 2nd-place Masaki Toyoda (Hosei Univ.) was also under the Doha standard in 49.05, making himself a likely addition to the final team roster to be announced in September. The women's 3000 m steeplechase saw an under-20 national record as Reimi Yoshimura (Daito Bunka Univ.) broke away from defending champion Yukari Ishizawa (Edion) and the rest of the lead pack after 2000 m to win in 9:50.44. In the race of the day, Ryohei Sakagu...

Japan's National Track and Field Championships kick off this Thursday in Fukuoka. It's the start of an important cycle for Japan, with national representation at this fall's Doha World Championships on the line in the lead-up to next year's Tokyo Olympics. Anyone who has cleared the Doha standard in their event will make the team if they win at Nationals, with other qualifiers and hgh-ranked athletes having to wait until mid-September to learn their fates. Over the next four days JRN will break down the favorites in each event. In the jumps, not a single athlete in any event on the women's side looks to have a realistic chance of making it to Doha without a big PB in the next couple of months. All four of last year's women's national champions, Haruka Nakano (Nippatsu) in the high jump, Juri Nanbu (Chukyo Univ.) in the pole vault, Ayaka Kora (Tsukuba Univ.) in the long jump and Eri Sakamoto (Nihon Shitsunai TC) in the triple jump, return. Of them on...

The JOC has announced a team of 42, 16 women representing 11 universities and 26 men from 13 universities, for track and field competition at next month's 30th anniversary Napoli Universiade . Jun Yamashita (Tsukuba Univ.) is the only returning medalist from the 2017 Universiade on the Japanese team, part of last time's gold medal-winning men's 4x100 m lineup. But medal chances are good in the men's and women's half marathons, both areas of traditional strength, in the men's 20 km race walk, where Masatora Kawano (Toyo Univ.) and Koki Ikeda (Toyo Univ.) have the 2nd and 3rd-best times in the world so far this year, the men's long jump, where Yuki Hashioka (Nihon Univ.) is tied for 4th-best in the world, the women's javelin throw, with Haruka Kitaguchi (Nihon Univ.) throwing 8th-best in the world this season, the men's 400 m hurdles, where Masaki Toyoda (Hosei Univ.) is ranked 18th in the world this season, and the men's pole vault, with M...

The bronze medalist in the men's 3000 m steeplechase at last summer's Jakarta Asian Games, Kazuya Shiojiri turned in the only medal-winning performance on the opening day of the Asian Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar with another steeple bronze. Shiojiri spent most of the race comfortably in the silver medal position behind Kenyan-born eventual world-leading gold medalist John Koech (Bahrain), but on the last lap Avinash Sable (India) turned in an incredible kick to overtake Shiojiri in the home straight. Side-by-side with Sable over the last lap, Hossein Keyhani (Iran) kicked over a cone and ran a few strides inside the last corner but somehow escaped disqualification for 4th. Japan's Kosei Yamaguchi was 6th. In both the women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m the gold and silver went to African-born Bahraini athletes with Indian runners taking bronze. In the 5000 m, Japan's 2018 World U20 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka relatively listlessly le...

6th in the men's pole vault two years ago, Masaki Ejima kept Japan's medal streak at the Tampere World U20 Championships alive with a bronze medal on the fifth day of competition. Both Ejima and silver medalist Zachery Bradford of the U.S.A. cleared 5.55 m on their third attempts and failed to clear 5.60, but as Ejima had struggled at 5.40 m the silver went to Bradford, who had cleared it with ease. Gold went to Armand Duplantis , who set a new championships record of 5.82 m. A highly-anticipated medal failed to materialize in the men's 4x100 m, where the Japanese squad finished out of the medals by an agonizing 0.01 behind Germany, running in the top three throughout the race but outleaned at the line. Both the U.S.A. and Jamaica went under 39 seconds for gold and silver.  Another near-miss came in the women's 10000 m racewalk, where Nanako Fujii set a PB of 45:08.68 but came only 4th. In both the men's 10000 m racewalk and men's high jump Japan scored t...

For the second Universiade in a row Japan pulled off a near-sweep of the half marathon medals, taking all three men's individual medals, women's gold and bronze and both team golds. Komazawa University's Kei Katanishi and Naoki Kudo went 1-2, leaving national university half marathon champion Kengo Suzuki over 30 seconds behind to hold off Uganda's John Kateregga for bronze. Wataru Tochigi took 6th to make it 4 Japanese men in the top 6, the only misstep coming from Takato Suzuki of national champion Aoyama Gakuin University who finished only 12th after scratching in the 10000 m. Not so for women's gold medalist Yuki Munehisa . Munehisa had led most of the women's 10000 m only to get dropped in the last kilometer and wind up outside the medals in 4th. In the half marathon she was bound and determined not to end up the same way again, doing all the heavy lifting to drop Turkey's Esma Aydemir with teammate Saki Fukui in a supporting role. Munehisa ...

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...

With a roster somewhat depleted of top-level talent Japan took no gold but managed to pick up five silver and nine bronze medals at the July 6-9  Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar, India. Japanese women scored the majority of the medals, taking three silver and eight bronze medals to the men's count of two silver, one bronze. Women's 10000 m national champion Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) and men's 110 m hurdles national champ Shunya Takayama (Zenrin) were the only athletes already named to Japan's London World Championships team to participate. Matsuda took the bronze medal in the 10000 m behind Daria Maslova (Kyrghizstan) and national championships 5th-placer Yuka Hori (Japan), while Takayama missed out on bronze by 0.04 seconds as he took 4th in 13.65 (-0.6 m/s). With none of the Japanese medalists clearing London standards at the Asian Athletics Championships there were no additions beyond Matsuda and Takayama to the London team from among those wh...

by Brett Larner #関東インカレ 1部200 予選5組(桐生君) pic.twitter.com/T4NQK1hC74 — たけはら (@imoo47910) May 27, 2017 Following up on his 100 m title and anchor run for Toyo University's 4x100 m team, Rio Olympics men's 4x100 m silver medalist Yoshihide Kiryu rolled on through day three of his final Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships , winning his 200 m heat in 20.79 +1.3 m/s. Where he easily dominated all three rounds of the 100 m, this time Kiryu had pressure. In Heat 3, second-year Jun Yamashita (Tsukuba Univ.) ran 20.71 -0.5 m/s to take the top spot heading into the semi-finals. 男子1部 棒高跳び 優勝🥇 来間弘樹(順大) 5m55 大会新記録🎉 おめでとう🎊 #関東インカレ pic.twitter.com/uUEpxeuuYf — はる (@haru__800) May 27, 2017 After a raft of meet records on the second day of Regionals, two more events saw new records on day three. In the D2 men's javelin throw, little-known Ryoma Nakaura (Ibaraki Univ.) threw a meet record 71.93 m to win by over six meters. The competition of the day c...

by Brett Larner video by Ekiden News The 2016 Japanese National High School Track and Field Championships wrapped up yesterday, highlighted by new high school national records in the girls' 4x400 m relay and boys' pole vault and meet records in those events and the boys' 5000 m race walk, boys' 4x400 m relay and boys' octathlon.  18 events saw athletes break into the all-time Japanese junior and high school top ten lists, a sign of the all-around high level of competition this year. The boys' 5000 mRW was unusually action-packed, with 12 boys breaking the meet record.  Girls' middle and long distance were also strong, with 7 girls under 2:08 in the 800 m, 9 under 4:20 in the 1500 m and 9 under 9:10 in the 3000 m.  In these and other events the top times were even good enough to get into and in some cases top  the U.S.A. high school top ten lists for the year . Below is a list of records and all-time top ten Japanese junior and high school marks set a...

click here for five-channel live streaming of the 69th Japanese National High School Track and Field Championships by Brett Larner videos by Ekiden News #岡山インターハイ #okayama2016 男子棒高跳　江島雅紀　5m43　3回目に成功 日本高校新記録 ★ pic.twitter.com/ddslIjs0zf — EKIDEN News (@EKIDEN_News) July 30, 2016 Back in action after his 6th-place finish at last week's World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, Masaki Ejima (Eda H.S.) cleared 5.43 m to win the 2016 National High School Track and Field Championships boys' pole vault July 30 at Okayama's City Lights Stadium.  Ejima's mark broke the meet record by 2 cm and his own high school national record set earlier this year by 1 cm. 8th in the Bydgoszcz girls' 3000 m and 2nd in June's National Championships 1500 m, Nozomi Tanaka (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) was likewise back in the 1500 m.  In a tight race with teammates Hina Takahashi and Yume Goto , Tanaka tried to frontrun her way to a national title but lost to Takahashi b...

by Brett Larner After building up through the prefectural and regional qualifying rounds, the high school track and field season hits its peak this weekend with the 69th National High School Track and Field Championships at Okayama's City Light Stadium .  Fresh back from Poland, the entry lists feature much of the Bydgoszcz World U20 Championships team including top-8 placers Naoki Kitadani (Kobe Shiritsu Kagaku Gijutsu H.S.) in the men's 400 m, Nozomi Tanaka (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) and Rika Kaseda (Narita H.S.) in the women's 3000 m and Masaki Ejima (Eda H.S.) in the men's pole vault.  A notable absence is sprint sensation Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Josai Prep H.S.), sidelined with injury earlier this season. Watch live streaming of the National High School Track and Field Championships above.   Click here for alternate cameras .  Complete entry lists, the championships schedule and results are available in Japanese here .  Soka University Associate Pr...

by Brett Larner The third day of the World U20 Championships was a good one for the Japanese contingent. Just behind PB runs from Americans Marcus Krah and Amere Lattin , Takumu Furuya ran an Asian junior record of 13.31 for bronze in the men's 110 m hurdles, Japan's first medal of the Championships.  Of the ten other athletes in action today, eight advanced through their heats and semi-finals. Naoki Kitadani and Kazuki Matsukiyo lead the way in the men's 400 m semis, both running PBs to make the final.   Jun Yamashita also delivered a PB in the opening round heats of the men's 200 m, running 20.89 for 3rd in Heat 4 to advance along with Wataru Inuzuka , 4th in Heat 1.  Yamashita ran another PB of 20.67 in the semi-finals to make it to the final, but Inuzuka was cutoff after finishing only 6th in 21.40. Along with Furuya the other men's hurdlers were also strong, both Tatsuhiro Yamamoto and Yoshiro Watanabe advancing in the 400 m hurdles with Watan...