japan running news

  Six more people picked up qualifying spots for next year's MGC Race at yesterday's Hokkaido Marathon in Sapporo, guaranteeing themselves places at Japan's 2028 Los Angeles Olympics marathon trials. In the men's race, Hibiki Yoshida tried to break away from the massive lead group at 30 km, opening a 25-second lead between there and 35 km before getting cut down by the chase trio of Jin Yuasa , Ken Tansho and Masato Arao . All three stayed together until the very end, Yuasa showing the same kind of closing speed he had in winning 2025 Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon and pulling away to win in 2:10:46. The debuting Tansho was next in 2:10:55, with Arao, 6th at last year's Sydney Marathon in an excellent 2:07:42, 3rd here in 2:10:59. By clearing 2:12:00 all three picked up MGC qualifying spots, freeing them up to go overseas next spring. Continuing a great season, Soka University 's Shoki Yamaguchi was 4th in 2:11:47, missing out on trials qualification but bea...

The Hokkaido Marathon happens Aug. 30 in Sapporo. Although it's not a top-tier race on the global schedule, the JAAF gives it special status in qualification for the MGC Race Los Angeles Olympics marathon trials, with 3 spots available to men who run under 2:12:00 and women under 2:32:00. Compare that to the criteria for making the trials by running the WA platinum label Sydney Marathon the same day, where men have to run under 2:06:30 and women 2:23:30 regardless of how they place. It's hard to see that as anything other than disincentivizing Japanese runners from racing abroad, with protecting the JAAF's financial interest in domestic races being the priority over getting the best athletes into the Olympic trials. But anyway, there are pretty good fields of people willing to not step out of line. All 6 women with marathon finishes to their name have run under 2:30 in the last 3 years led by veteran Hitomi Niiya with a 2:21:50 in Tokyo 2 years ago. Most are in the 2:26-2...

The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube. There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km ...

30 km is an under-appreciated distance, and both of Japan's big races at that distance happened Sunday. At the Ome Road Race in western Tokyo's mountains, Sydney Marathon 6th-placer Masato Arao (ND Software) became the first man since the great Kunimitsu Ito in 1985-1986 to win back-to-back years. Arao, who finished 39th of 40 on his leg at the New Year Ekiden last month, stayed in the pack through 20 km before going on the attack, putting over a minute on New Year Ekiden Sixth Stage CR breaker Yudai Shimazu (GMO). Sub-1:31 winning times are rare on the tough and hilly Ome course, but Arao's 1:30:54 almost equaled his 1:30:50 from last year, making him the first Japanese man ever to do it twice and second only to CR holder Ezekiel Cheboitibin . Next up Arao races the Tokyo Marathon, where he is targeting sub-2:06. Shimazu was 2nd in 1:31:58 and Yuta Nakayama (JR Higashi Nihon) 3rd in 1:32:07. Cheboitibin was only 9th, running almost 8 minutes off his CR in 1:36:42. Shi...

The Osaka Half Marathon took another big step up the domestic half marathon rankings from a mass-participation race run alongside the Osaka International Women's Marathon to one of the country's top-tier races. In the women's race, the debuting Jecinta Nyokabi (Denso) went out fast, only to be run down by veteran Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon AC) by 10 km. Nyokabi faded to 6th in 1:10:41, but Yoshikawa pushed on to a PB 1:09:14 for the win. Rina Shimizu (Noritz), Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) and Makoto Tsuchiya (Ritsumeikan Univ.) all broke 70 minutes, Tsuchiya taking the Kansai Region collegiate title in 1:09:32 for 4th overall. Everyone in the top 10 who wasn't debuting ran a PB, a mark of how fast the day was even with cold and windy conditions. The men's race went out on sub-61 pace courtesy of Yudai Shimazu (GMO), then got a big injection of speed when Kyuma Yokota (Toyota Kyushu) took off close to 60-flat pace. Yokota opened a 10-second lead by 15 km, but over ...

The Kobe Marathon happens Nov. 16 with a tweaked course that cuts out the unpopular bridge out to the finish, a change organizers are touting as making it a way faster course. There are some pretty good quality African athletes in the field, with top 2 men Abay Alemu and Elisha Rotich both in the 2:06:50 range in races last year, Alemu with a 2:06:50 for 2nd in Wuxi and Rotich 2:06:54 for 3rd in Paris, and Jackline Chelal dominating the women's field with a 2:20:29 win in Seville in 2023. Kobe is a shortcut for qualification for the MGC Race L.A. Olympic marathon trials, with one spot available to the top Japanese man if under 2:09:00 and the top Japanese woman if under 2:27:00. Only one athlete who looks capable of doing that has taken the bait, Masato Arao doubling back from a 2:07:42 for 6th at August's Sydney Marathon, a breakthrough run that wasn't enough for the JAAF to deign to let him into the Olympic trials. Yuma Morii , Hiromasa Kumahashi and Akihiro Kaneko ...

Compared to yesterday's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai half marathon conditions were tougher for the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon today, and the effects of the warmer weather showed in the results. With people like Tokyo Olympics 10000 m gold medalist Selemon Barega , 57:50 for the half marathon, and 59:30 collegiate record co-holder Richard Etir in the race the men went out in a leisurely 14:52 for the downhill first 5 km, with Sydney Marathon 6th placer Masato Arao in the lead and a pack of over 50 in tow. Victor Kipchirchir made a couple of tries to get things moving, shaking the front pack down to 16 by 10 km and 9 by 15 km. Things really broke up on the same hill that featured near the end of the Tokyo World Championships marathons, leaving it down to Barega, Etir, Benard Kimeli and Paul Kuira with 1 km to go. Barega and Etir were head-to-head heading onto the track, and even though Etir tried to pull off a replay of the Tokyo Worlds men's marathon finish Barega hung on for t...

Following Saturday's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifier half marathon, the weekend's other big half is Sunday's Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon . The Tokyo Marathon Foundation has been trying to get this race off the ground for the last few years, and it is pretty cool. Starting and finishing on the track in the National Stadium built for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and following basically the same course as the one originally planned for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, the MGC Race Olympic marathon trials, and last month's Tokyo World Athletics Championships marathon, it's quickly gotten popular as a mass participation race. But as an elite race it's got a few problems. The uphill finish that was such an important strategic part of the MGC and World Championships marathons means it'll never be as fast as it could be. And its timing in the middle of ekiden season severely limits the number of Japanese athletes and Japan-based Africans who can run it, especially fo...

The National Sports Festival was the main thing happening this weekend, but with ekiden season just kicking off there were track time trial meets everywhere as teams shift focus from summer mileage to sharpening speed. Haruki Niizuma (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) made news with a 13:35.33 win in the junior men's 5000 m Friday at the National Sports Festival, but at Sunday's Nittai University Time Trials meet, held at Keio University this time because of construction work at Nittai, Yota Mashiko (Gakuho Ishikawa H.S.) beat Niizuma's time with a 13:34.84 PB. Mashiko ran in an all-Kenyan lead group and was right there with Victor Kipkirui (Chudenko) and Stephen Muthini (Soka Univ.) til the end, Kipkirui kicking away in the last 100 m to win in 13:33.46 and Muthini next in 13:34.47. Mashiko's time was the best this year by a Japanese-born high schooler, and with Niizuma and Sei Yoshida (Tokai Sapporo H.S.), 13:35.14 in July, right there it looks like it's going to be a ...

Fresh off great Japanese performances at the Berlin Marathon and good ones in the Muenster Marathon and Tokyo World Championships , Ryoma Takeuchi came to today's NN Warsaw Marathon to win it. At July's Gold Coast Marathon he was in 2:07 shape but had a series of setbacks including arriving 24 hours later than planned after heavy rain made him miss his flight, and tripping and falling over the edge of a roundabout near 23 km. Despite that he managed a 2-second PB of 2:08:38 for 3rd. But Takeuchi felt that that didn't reflect the training he'd put in, and he opted to try to fit in another marathon before ekiden season got into full swing. Organizers expected a 2:09:30 race with a lead group of 5-6 up front, but right from the gun Takeuchi was on his own with 2 pacers. Despite excellent weather conditions the pacers struggled to hit the target 3:04/km pace and settled more into a 3:06/km groove, but even that put space between him and the chase group. One lead pacer ...

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun, all rights reserved On Sept. 9 Ai Hosoda (29, Edion), who became the first Japanese athlete to qualify for the MGC Race Los Angeles Olympics marathon trials when she finished 6th at last month's Sydney Marathon , updated her Instagram story to thank everyone who has congratulated her. She posted pictures of cakes decorated with messages of congratulations, bouquets of flowers, and pictures that people had drawn. "I'm happy that everyone celebrated with me," she wrote. "Even the hotel staff gave me flowers. Thank you all very much." Hosoda ran 2:23:27 for 6th at the Sydney Marathon. That cleared the JAAF's criteria for the Olympic marathon trials, sub-2:23:30, making Hosoda the first athlete female or male to score a place on the starting line of the trials race expected to be held the fall of 2027. Right after the race on Aug. 31 she posted, "I finally got to run in the country I always wanted to visit the most....

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun, all rights reserved Last weekend's Sydney Marathon featured one breakthrough performance that was kind of low in the mix. Running his first marathon outside Japan, 25-year-old Masato Arao negative split a 2:07:42 PB, moving up fast over the last 10 km to pass Eliud Kipchoge and finish 6th. With the Sydney course estimated to be about 2 minutes slow with tough hills in the early going, that meant Arao's run was about equal in quality to all-time Japanese #5, the only better marathon by a Japanese man outside Japan being Yohei Ikeda 's 2:05:12 for 6th in Berlin last fall. It was a pretty amazing breakthrough for someone who never made his college team's starting varsity lineup and a year ago was working full-time in his hometown and running for fun. Born and raised way up north in Yamagata, Arao showed a bit of promise at Sakata Minami H.S. , running the First Stage at the National High School Ekiden his first year in 2016 and maki...

Dark horse Masato Arao and Paris Olympics marathon team alternate Ai Hosoda took the top Japanese spots in the TCS Sydney Marathon 's first edition as part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, both finishing 6th. Ranked 20th in the field, Arao, who this time last year was working a full-time job after not getting a corporate team contract post-college, came to Sydney for his international debut with the A-goal of making top 10 off a 1:30:50 win at the hilly Ome 30 km in February and an almost 10-minute PB of 2:08:05 in his second marathon at Tokyo in February. After driving the course and seeing the major hills in the first 15 km he opted out of going with the lead group, deciding to stick with the 2nd group on 2:08 pace until things leveled out after 15 km and seeing how it went. As it turned out the lead group with all the big names was a lot slower than planned, never more than a minute ahead of the 2nd group including Arao, Kento Kikutani , Kosei Machida and Australians Haft...

https://www.athletics.com.au/news/kipchoge-leads-unprecedented-mens-field-at-2025-tcs-sydney-marathon/

  In his debut at the Ome 30 km Road Race Sunday in western Tokyo, Masato Arao (ND Software) won in 1:30:50. En route he split 15:04, 30:10, 45:46 and 1:01:14 while running in the lead pack, but breaking away on a hilly section of the course he was alone by the time he hit 25 km in 1:16:00. Unthreatened the rest of the way, he soloed the last 5 km to take the win. Arao went to Sakata Minami H.S. in Yamagata and Toyo University . After graduating he moved back to Yamagata and started working full-time while continuing to run races as an amateur. In September he ran a PB of 1:02:53 for 2nd at the Ichinoseki International Half Marathon. That attracted the interest of the ND Software corporate team, which he joined on Jan. 1 this year. He ran the anchor stage for the Yamagata team at the National Men's Ekiden on Jan. 19. In 2nd was his ND Software teammate Taiki Suzuki in 1:31:53. Ryo Kuchimachi (Subaru) was 3rd in 1:32:14. Moe Shimizu (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) won the women's ...

by Brett Larner The Osaka International Women's Marathon and Osaka Half Marathon were the weekend's main races, but across the country there was plenty of other action on the roads.  Highlights: In Yamagata, Sakata Minami High School 10th-grader Masato Arao ran 29:27 for 2nd at the  Yamagata Prefecture Winter Road Race 10 km, one second behind winner Shuhei Moriya .  Arao's time was 21 seconds faster than the best-ever track 10000 m time by a Japanese 10th-grade boy, Keigo Iijima 's 29:48.25. Now in semi-retirement and working as an assistant coach for the Hitachi women's corporate team, former high school star Satoru Kitamura won the men's 10 km at Ibaraki's 65th Katsuta Marathon in 30:06.  Hitachi women defended their titles in both the 10 km and marathon, Ryo Koido winning the 10 km in 33:16 and Kana Kurosawa the marathon in 2:43:03 and both slightly faster than last year.  The men's marathon, by contrast, was very slow.  After a 2:13:15 ...