japan running news

In the absence of a full Ethiopian U20 contingent after visa issues, the U20 women's squad led the way for the Japanese team at this year's World Cross Country Championships with a team bronze medal. Yui Onotora had the best individual Japanese placing across any of the day's races at 14th to lead Japan's U20 women, with scoring members Wakana Fukuyama , Mona Utsunomiya and Mei Hosomi all making the top 30. But with Ethiopian women going 1-2-5 they would surely have knocked Japan out of the medals if they'd been able to field a full team. Led by Haruki Niizuma in 15th, the U20 men had the next-best Japanese team placing at 6th, although they also benefitted by one place from the lack of a full Ethiopian team. Junsei Murakami was the only other Japanese runner in the race to make top 30, finishing 21st. The mixed relay team of Takumi Shiobara , Yuzu Nishide , Kiyoto Ono and Momoa Yamada was 10th out of 15, while the senior men took 12th led by Ryuto Igawa in...

Following the track 5000 m held last weekend to pick the lineup for the U20 teams at January's Tallahassee World Cross Country Championships, the JAAF has announced its complete team lineup . The senior men's team features sub-28 runners Ryuto Igawa and Daiki Ozawa , with 31-minute women Momoka Kawaguchi and Wakana Itsuki lead the senior women's squad. The U20 men's team features 6 sub-14 high schoolers led by Haruki Niizuma with a 13:35.33 best, while at 15:27.28 Mei Hosomi leads a U20 women's team made up of a mix of high school runners, collegiate athletes and corporate leaguers. The complete team lineup with track 5000 m / 10000 m bests: Senior Men's 10 km Ryuto Igawa (Asahi Kasei) - 27:39.05 Daiki Ozawa (Fujitsu) - 27:55.74 Hiroto Yoshioka (Juntendo Univ.) - 28:08.02 Yuma Shimoo (NTN) - 28:27.52 Senior Women's 10 km Momoka Kawaguchi (Uniqlo) - 31:57.81 Wakana Itsuki (Kraftia) - 31:58.59 Sora Shinozakura (Yokohama T&F Assoc.) - 32:24.50 Mitsu ...

After the great men's 10000 m and women's 5000 m results on day 1 of the last full Nittai University Time Trials meet of 2025, day 2 brought a lot of great 5000 m times from high schoolers, both at Nittai and at another meet in Kyoto. At Nittai, Bilith Boi (Sapporo Yamanote H.S.) downed 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Subaru) in the last of the 35 heats of 5000 m, running 13:27.52 to Miura's 13:28.61. Ryo Goda (Yasukawa Denki) also got under 13:30, running 13:29.41 for 3rd, with 40-year-old Yuichiro Ueno (Hiramatsu Byoin) rocking on with a 13:32.12 for 4th. James Karuri (Aomori Yamada H.S.) was 8th in 13:35.46, with 17-year-old Naoya Doma (Sera H.S.) running an excellent 13:39.13 for 10th. Samuel Gayu and Yua Hayashi also got under 14 minutes in the same heat to make it 3 sub-14 for Sapporo Yamanote H.S. In Heat 34, Chien Tzu-Chieh (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) ran a Taiwanese NR 13:48.99 for 4th, with Yui Kudo and Yugo Yamamoto running sub-14 to bring the Aomori Yamada...

Host team Kyoto was back on top at Sunday's National Women's Ekiden , taking the lead on the 2nd of the 42.195 km race's 9 legs and rolling on to win its 19th national title in the event's 43-year history in 2:15:26 with 4 individual stage wins. Kyoto's lead runner Kokoro Nakachi was only 3 seconds behind First Stage winner Erika Tanoura of Chiba , and it didn't take much for its next runner Yua Sato to move into the top spot by 3 seconds. That lead grew to 50 seconds at the end of the Fifth Stage before a stage-winning run from Nagano 's Nami Kawakami on the Sixth Stage cut it back to 33 seconds. But driven by stage wins from 7th runner Momoka Onishi and anchor Kaede Kawamura , from there to the end Kyoto pulled away to its final margin of victory of 2:26. Nagano and Osaka were locked in a duel for 2nd for most of the way, but with only 3 km to go on the 10.0 km anchor stage Fukuoka and early leader Chiba caught up to make it a four-way race. Nagano...