japan running news

On July 24 the organizing committee of September's Nagoya Asian Games announced the courses for the marathon and race walk events. The marathon will cover two laps of a roughly 20 km course starting and finishing at Paloma Mizuho Stadium. Athletes will turn right at Mizuho Sports Park West after leaving the stadium and then enter the 20 km loop. The course heads north along the same roads used for the Nagoya Women's Marathon, then turns left at Uchiyama-cho. From there it turns right at Sakuradori Otsu near the Nagoya TV tower, then makes a U-turn at Meijo Park before returning to Mizuho Sports Park West. Although there is minimal elevation change overall, there are some undulations in front of Nagoya City Hall, a key section of the Nagoya Women's Marathon, that are sure to play a critical role in how the Asian Games races unfold. The race walk events will be held on a 1 km loop in the area of Nagoya City Hall, Nagoya Castle, and Aichi Prefectural Government building. A te...

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...

Last year's top 3 Sheila Chepkirui , Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba are back for this year's Nagoya Women's Marathon on Mar. 8, but things are being set up more for it to be a race between Chepkirui, 2:17:49 in Berlin 2023, Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda , 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024. Aynalem has the freshest sub-2:20 of the 3, with neither Chepkirui nor Maeda having done it in 2 years. Maeda's only recent result is a 1:10:07 from Houston last month, but when she ran her NR she didn't have any kind of tuneup race to indicate her fitness so it's probably best not to read too much into that. If it goes out as a 2:18 race those are the only 3 who can probably hang with it. If it turns out to be more of a 2:20 race like when Chepkirui won in 2:20:40 last year then there's a group of 7 at the 2:20-2:22 level who will be in the picture, including Chumba, Selly Chep...

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/Photo Run, all rights reserved On Jan. 8 the Edion women's corporate team announced that Ai Hosoda , 30, will retire at the end of March this year. The Tokyo Marathon will be her last race. At Nagano Higashi H.S. Hosoda ran in the National High School Ekiden her 2nd and 3rd years. During her 3rd year at Nittai University she won both the 5000 m and 10000 m at the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, going on to win the bronze medal in the 10000 m at the World University Games in her 4th year at Nittai. After graduating she joined the Daihatsu corporate team, debuting at the 2019 Nagoya Women's Marathon in 2:29:27. 2 years later she transferred to Edion. She qualified for the Paris Olympics marathon trials at the 2022 Nagoya Women's Marathon and finished 3rd in the trials in the fall of 2023, but was later bumped down to Olympic alternate after another athlete ran a faster time. Instead of the Olympics, Hosoda ran the 2024 Ber...

It's been a busy year, and a record-breaking one that kicked off with a Hakone Ekiden CR by Aoyama Gakuin University and ended with a new men's marathon NR from Suguru Osako . JRN's 10-most read stories of 2025: Tokyo World Championships to Leave Final Decision on Going Ahead in Heat to World Athletics - Aug. 25 After fears of hot conditions were used as a justification to move the Tokyo Olympics marathons to Sapporo, concern was high about the conditions at September's Tokyo World Championships. Ultimately, though, it wasn't much of an issue, with longer distance events being moved slightly earlier in the mornings on which they were scheduled. Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon - Apr. 10 Australian business owner Matthew Inglis Fox who had come to Japan to run the Osaka Marathon was arrested on suspicion of illegally importing cannabis products. After several months of confinement Fox returned to his home...

https://agerpres.ro/english/2025/06/22/romanian-long-distance-runner-delvine-relin-meringor-gets-three-year-doping-suspension--1461627 With Meringor's disqualification Hikari Onishi  moves into 6th in the Nagoya results, Natsuki Omori  to 7th, and New Zealand's Camille French  to 8th. Read the full ADAK decision here .

Heavy-duty favorite Sheila Chepkirui took the win at Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon , pulling away after 30 km to cruise in for 1st in 2:20:40. Erratic pacing early saw the first and second groups only seconds apart for much of the first half of the race, the top group slower than planned and the 2nd group a bit ahead of schedule. At halfway in 1:10:37 the front group included Chepkirui, #2-ranked Ruti Aga and last year's runner-up Eunice Chumba , and Japanese contingent Sayaka Sato , Rika Kaseda , Natsuki Omori and Mao Uesugi . Omori was the first to drop, then Uesugi, then Aga, who ultimately dropped out before 30 km. When the pacers stopped at 30 km Chepkirui made a move that dropped Kaseda and strung out Chumba and Sato behind her, but all four came back together once before another surge put Kaseda away for good. As Chepkirui inched away Sato and Chumba passed each other repeatedly, and Chumba could only watch as the top Japanese runner got away from her again thi...

The Nagoya Women's Marathon , the world's largest women-only marathon and the last race in the selection cycle for September's Tokyo World Championships, happens Sunday. Weather conditions are looking better than what they had in Tokyo and Osaka the last two weekends, 7˚ at the start and rising to 12˚ with sunny skies. The wind looks a bit stronger than ideal, but it could be worse. Fuji TV has the live broadcast starting at 9:00 a.m. Sunday local time, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch the TVer streaming . One option for  a leaderboard is here , and another here . We'll have some coverage on @JRNLive . Just like last time around there are three Ethiopian and Kenyan-born athletes at the top list, this time it being sub-2:20 women Sheila Chepkirui , winner in NYC last year, and Ruti Aga , winner in Xiamen in January, and last year's Nagoya runner-up Eunice Chebichii Chumba . But last year Yuka Ando still pulled off the win, so there's a c...

The Nagoya Women's Marathon has announced 3 withdrawals from Sunday's race. Half marathon NR holder Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku) has withdrawn with an Achilles tendon injury, Gold Coast Marathon CR holder Yuki Nakamura (Panasonic) due to a knee injury, and 2:25:44 runner Kaede Kawamura (Iwatani Sangyo) to run the Mar. 30 Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China. With Niiya's withdrawal the top domestic seed in Nagoya is now Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu), 2:21:55 in Berlin 3 years ago. The complete remaining Nagoya field is here . © 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

The Mar. 9 Nagoya Women's Marathon is the last big elite marathon on Japan's winter schedule, this year with a trio of sub-2:20 runners up front, Sheila Chepkirui , Aga Ruti and Hitomi Niiya . It being a home soil World Championships selection cycle there's decent depth behind them, and 2:21 runner Rika Kaseda looks especially on her game right now with a 1:07:53 PB at the Marugame Half earlier this month. Australian Isobel Batt-Doyle is also trending in the right direction, having run 2:22:59 in her last go in Valencia in December. The debut list is pretty interesting, with women-only half marathon NR holder Rino Goshima , 1:08:03, making her debut, as are 1:09:01 Australian Leanne Pompeani and track runner Yuna Wada . 2018 World Half Marathon silver medalist Pauline Kamulu isn't technically debuting, having run 2:31:04 at last summer's hot and humid Hokkaido Marathon, but with a 1:07:33 in Marugame ahead of Kaseda she has a lot of potential to go 10 minutes ...

The Osaka International Women's Marathon , a selection race for September's Tokyo World Championships, took place Jan. 26 starting and finishing at Osaka's Nagai Stadium. In the field was 65-69 age group world record holder Mariko Yugeta , 66. Amid cold winds blowing through the city she ran 3:09:29. "I don't want to say that it's because I'm getting older, but this is getting more and more demanding and it's getting harder for my body to keep up with it," she said. After finishing the first thing Yugeta said was, "That was a bit disappointing...." with a pained look on her face. Her goal had been to break the 3:01:28 world record she set in the 65-69 age group at last year's Tokyo Marathon. "It was hard out there today," she said with a laugh. "Somebody told me that I look pale." A track runner in university, Yugeta ran her first marathon at the old Tokyo International Women's Marathon when she was 24. After t...

Back where she'd run her best in 2017 only to finish 2nd behind Kenyan-born Bahraini doper Eunice Kirwa , Yuka Ando ran down another Kenyan-born Bahraini named Eunice, in this case 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games gold medalist Eunice Chebichii Chumba , to win the Nagoya Women's Marathon in a 2:21:18 PB. Ando and the other top Japanese women in the race, Ayuko Suzuki and Rika Kaseda , had the hopeless task of running a 2:18:58 to make the Paris Olympics team, almost 3 minutes faster than any of them had run before. Hopeless, but not to say they didn't take a serious swing at it. The first 5 km was perfect, 16:28 projecting to exactly 2:18:58, but after that the quartet of pacers struggled to keep things steady. By 13 km pacers Charlotte Purdue and Judith Korir had dropped out of the lead pack, leaving the other two to try to keep it together. At halfway it was down to the three Japanese favorites, Chumba, Oregon World Championships gold medalist Gotytom Gebreslase and Roma...

Last weekend's Tokyo Marathon sealed up the Japanese men's Paris Olympics marathon team lineup when top Japanese man Yusuke Nishiyama came 41 seconds short of the 2:05:50 he needed to take the spot away from marathon trials 3rd-placer Suguru Osako . Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon officially closes the window for Japanese women, but really it was pretty much slammed shut by Honami Maeda with her 2:18:59 national record in Osaka at the end of January. That was almost 3 minutes faster than what she needed to take trial 3rd-placer Ai Hosoda 's place in Paris. Is there any chance anyone lining up in Nagoya could run 2:18:58 or better? There are some good people on the list, but basically no. Gotytom Gebreslase of Ethiopia has run faster than that with a 2:18:11 for gold at the 2022 Oregon World Championships, but she's the only one. Eunice Chumba and Delvine Meringor are both at the 2:20 level, and out of the top tier of Japanese women Ayuko Suzuki and Rika ...

On Mar. 1 the organizers of the Mar. 10 Nagoya Women's Marathon announced that Ai Hosoda (28, Edion) has withdrawn due to a muscular injury on the inside of her left leg. Hosoda placed 3rd at last October's Paris Olympic marathon trials behind winner Yuka Suzuki and just 7 seconds back from 2nd-placer Mao Ichiyama to take a provisional spot on the Paris team. But at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon Honami Maeda ran a 2:18:59 national record to replace Hosoda on the team. Nagoya is the last chance for Japanese women to make the team, which would require them to be the top Japanese finisher and beat Maeda's time. Hosoda's withdrawal means that her hopes of making the Paris Olympic team have now come to an end. source article: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/5b008a275315959366708842d2411e6658c7ef05 translated and edited by Brett Larner

2022 Oregon World Championships gold medalist and 2023 Budapest World Championships silver medalist Gotytom Gebreslase leads the elite field for the Mar. 10 Nagoya Women's Marathon , the last chance for Japanese women to steal a place on the Paris Olympics team. The last two years Nagoya has had a $250,000 payout for the winner, the biggest in the sport, but with the exchange rate and Japan's economic situation being what it is that's down to $150,000 this year. That's still enough to pull in a big talent like Gebreslase, the only woman in the field positioned to verrrry hypothetically drag one of the Japanese women to the 2:18:58 they'd need to pick up the 3rd Paris team spot. Ai Hosoda was 3rd at October's Olympic trials but was bumped down to 1st alternate by Honami Maeda 's 2:18:59 NR last month in Osaka . Hosoda, Ayuko Suzuki , Rika Kaseda and Yuka Ando have run under or within seconds of the 2:21:41 they needed before Maeda's run, but 2:18 puts...

Komazawa University Takes Overall Hakone Win for First-Ever Triple Crown Ekiden Season Sweep - Jan. 2-3 After winning the first day of the 2023 Hakone Ekiden , Komazawa University joined the exclusive club of teams to pull off the triple crown of wins at the Izumo Ekiden, National University Ekiden and Hakone, dominating the second day to win by just under two minutes over Chuo University . Both teams and 3rd-place Aoyama Gakuin University made the all-time top 10 fastest times , and five men ran the equivalent of a sub-1:01 half marathon. TV viewership was high, with ratings of 35.0% . JRN's pre-race preview . Suzuki, Ichiyama, Koyama and Akasaki Paris-Bound - Japan's Olympic Marathon Trials - Oct. 15 At the Marathon Grand Championship race, Japan's trials for the Paris Olympics and the most difficult marathon ever to qualify for, Yuka Suzuki , Mao Ichiyama , Naoki Koyama and Akira Akasaki all scored places on the Olympic team by finishing in the top two. Ai Hosoda ...

With temps in the high teens the Nagoya Women's Marathon was warmer than ideal, but that didn't stop the expected protagonists from dominating, and in fast times. 2022 winner Ruth Chepngetich soloed the race the entire way, going ahead of the pacers in the first kilometer and splitting between 16:14 and 16:19 for five of the six 5 km splits up to 30 km. She couldn't quite hold it together enough over the last 10 km to give her 2:17:18 CR from last year a serious go, fading from 1:08:47 at halfway to a 2:18:08 for 1st. But that was still enough for her to win by over a kilometer and take home another $250,000. The main chase group of over a dozen skimmed just under 17 minutes per 5 km through a 1:11:20 half split before top-ranked Japan woman Ayuko Suzuki took off when the last pacer stopped. Deshun Zhang and Mao Uesugi initially went with her but soon lost touch, leaving Suzuki to drop an impressive 48-second negative split for a 2:21:52 PB, 10 seconds better than her ...

Two big races cap Sunday's road racing action in Japan. First up is the Nagoya Women's Marathon , where last year's winner Ruth Chepngetich is back saying at the pre-race press conference that she's ready to break the course record. Although she's still listed in the field on the English section of the Nagoya site, oddly she has been dropped from the Japanese section's field listing . She wasn't included in yesterday's announcement of the withdrawal of Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Molly Seidel and Germany's Katharina Steinruck , either language version, so it's possible her absence from the field listing on the Japanese site is a mistake. But it's very odd. Either way, the world's largest women-only marathon has a relatively thin elite field , even thinner with Seidel and Steinruck out. 2021 Valencia winner Nancy Jelagat is the only sub-2:20 runner in the field apart from Chepngetich, with the next tier solidly at the 2:22-2:23 and...