japan running news

4 meet records fell on the second day of the 2025 National Sports Festival in Shiga. In the junior men's pole vault , Naoya Inoue (Anan Hikari H.S.) was the only one to go higher than 4.80 m, and massively so. Inoue cleared 5.32 m on his 3rd attempt, setting a new MR and beating his closest competition by 52 cm. 800 m NR holders Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) and Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) duly took the 800 m wins here in MR time. Kubo won the junior women's race by over 3 seconds in 2:01.72, with Ochiai winning the senior men's race in 1:45.20. The men's race was actually decently competitive, with Mikuto Kaneko (Arcyell) and Hiroki Minamoto (NTN) going 1:46.25 and 1:46.47, and the top 4 all going under the old MR. Ochiai's success while still a teenager seems to be motivating other Japanese men in what is probably Japan's weakest track event. The other meet record came in the junior men's 100 m B-final , where Sekito Matsushita (Shizuoka H.S....

Japan's biggest and best college meet happens over the next four days at the 102nd Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships . After returning to its traditional home at Tokyo's Olympic Stadium last year, this year it's been banished back out to the woodlands of rural Kanagawa at Sagami Gion Stadium. All four days of the meet will be streamed live. Day one streaming is above and below, with the links to the rest on the KGRR channel on Youtube. Meet schedule and live results are here . From a long distance perspectives there's more racing then ever before, with the D2 men's 10000 m split into two heats and the D2 men's 5000 m having a qualification round. The D1/D2/D3 divisions work a bit differently, D1 being made up of the top-scoring schools overall each year, i.e. those with complete all-around track and field programs, with everyone else like Hakone Ekiden-focused programs Komazawa University and Aoyama Gakuin University in D2, and D3 being t...

The JAAF has set up one last chance for its middle and long distance athletes to hit the qualifying standards for next month's World Championships, adding an early meet to the Hokuren Distance Challenge series today ahead of Sunday's deadline to qualify. Streaming starts at 16:00 local time. A breakdown of the races: Men's 800 m - 16:15 - No Japanese man has ever broken the 1:45.20 Worlds standard, but national champion Mikuto Kaneko (Chuo Univ.) is close at 1:45.85. Given that he's currently 57th against the 800 m's 48-deep quota it'll take a NR for him to make it to Eugene. Women's 1000 m - 16:25 - Nationals 800 m top 2 Ayano Shiomi (Iwatani Sangyo) and Nozomi Tanaka (Jidoshokki) are both relatively close to making the quota, but instead of going for the standard or maxing points they're opting for a go at Tanaka's 2:37.72 NR for 1000 m. Only 3 athletes are entered. Women's 5000 m - 16:40 - Nobody in this race is in contention for the Or...

The National Track and Field Championships wrapped up Sunday in Osaka with a few more additions to the Oregon World Championships team and a few left to wait another two weeks til the qualification deadline. The most emotional performance of the day came in the men's javelin throw. Roderick Genki Dean (Mizuno) won the 2012 National Championships and then took 9th in the final at that year's London Olympics while still a student at Waseda University . Injury setbacks meant it took him until 2020 to break 80 m again, and in all those years he never won another national title. Today he threw 81.02 m on his third attempt, beating runner-up Kenji Ogura (Tochigi Sports Assoc.) by 77 cm for the win. 27th of 32 in the quota pre-Nationals, his mark and win all but guarantee that he'll be in Oregon next month. "It was a long time coming," he said in his victory interview. In the women's 400 mH, Ami Yamamoto (Ritsumeikan Univ.) broke 57 seconds for the first time to...

At the Mar. 19 Melbourne Track Classic in Australia, Tokyo Olympics Japanese national team member Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) ran 8:27.74 to win the men's 3000 m steeplechase. His first steeple race since the Olympics, Yamaguchi was just over 5 seconds off the 8:22.00 qualifying standard for July's Oregon World Championships despite 34˚C temperatures and windy conditions. Yamaguchi was 2nd in last year's National Championships steeplechase in 8:19.96, the 3rd-fastest ever by a Japanese man and enough to qualify him for the Olympic team. At last week's Sydney Track Classic he ran a 3000 m PB of 7:56.16 for 10th. Also in Melbourne, sprinter Jun Yamashita (ANA) was 5th in the men's 200 m in 21.18 +2.2 m/s. Akiko Ito (Cerespo) was also 5th in the women's 400 m hurdles in 59.18, improving on her time in Sydney. Mikuto Kaneko (Chuo Univ.) ran 1:49.33 for 7th in the men's 800 m, almost 4 seconds off his all-time JPN #3 best of 1:45.85. Ryoji Tatezawa (DeN...

The Sydney Track Classic , a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze Label meet, took place Mar. 12 in Sydney, Australia. In the men's 3000 m, Tokyo Olympics 3000 m steeplechase national team member Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) ran a PB of 7:56.19. Yamaguchi split roughly 2:40 and 5:20 en route before picking up the pace over the last 1000 m to go under 8 minutes for the first time. Yamaguchi ran as a tune-up for the steeple at next weekend's Melbourne Track Classic. Among other Japanese athletes, in the men's 800 m, Mikuto Kaneko (Chuo Univ.) ran 1:47.29 for 3rd in the A-heat, the third-best time of his career. Former national champion Ryoji Tatezawa (DeNA) was last in the B-heat in 1:52.49. Akiko Ito (Cerespo) was 3rd in the women's 400 m hurdles in 59.36, and Ryo Sato (Takatomi Club) took 4th in the men's high jump, clearing 2.11 m. source article: https://www.rikujyokyogi.co.jp/archives/67784 translated and edited by Brett Larner