japan running news

by Brett Larner The Nagano Prefecture team staged a coup at Sunday's 25th anniversary East Japan Women's Ekiden in Fukushima, clocking 2:18:36 for the 9-stage, 42.195 km course to beat two-time defending champion Tokyo by over a minute and take its first-ever win at the regional championships. Nagano's Yuko Shimizu, a member of the Japanese national team for the International Chiba Ekiden later this month, got her team off to a strong start with a 2nd-place finish on the 6 km first leg, one second behind Aomori Prefecture's Miho Notagashira in 19:08. Tokyo's Chisa Fujimoto languished far behind, finishing 13th out of 17 in 19:56. While Tokyo spent the rest of the ekiden trying to claw its way back to the front, Nagano's second leg runner Yuka Hakoyama overtook Aomori's Nao Sasaki to build a lead which Nagano never relinquished. The biggest excitement of the day came on the anchor stage where Tokyo's Azusa Nojiri, a former pro XC skier who began running ...

by Brett Larner The team representing Tokyo won its 2nd straight victory at the East Japan Women's Ekiden in Fukushima Prefecture on Nov. 9, outlasting a surprise challenge from the Niigata Prefectural team to take the 2008 title. The East Japan Women's Ekiden features a 9-stage, 42.195 km course and teams made up of star professional, university, high school and junior high school runners from the 18 prefectures in eastern Japan and is one of a series of regional precursors to January's All-Japan Interprefectural Women's Ekiden. Tokyo won comfortably last year but this year was threatened over the entire course by the Niigata team, which had never placed higher than 8th in the event's 23 previous runnings. Niigata's Chiaki Takagi wore down Tokyo's Rie Takayoshi to win the 6 km 1st stage, breaking away at 4 km. Takagi finished the stage in 19:08 to Takayoshi's 19:11. Tokyo's Chisa Nishio overtook Niigata's Moeno Nakamura with 1 km to go on the 4...