japan running news

Saturday is the first day of the Tokyo World Athletics Championships . A quick guide to Japanese athletes in action in the morning and evening sessions: 7:30 - Women's 35 km Race Walk Yukiko Umeno (Juntendo Univ.) - 2:46:53 - 1st, Nationals Masumi Fuchise (Kenso) - 2:52:38 - 3rd, Nationals Maika Yagi (Chiba Kogyo Ginko) - 2:56:18 -  4th, Nationals Prognosis : Umeno is 16th in the field on season best and 20th in the Road to Tokyo rankings. Top 8 is a stretch. 7:30 - Men's 35 km Race Walk Masatora Kawano (Asahi Kasei) - 2:21:47 -  1st, Nationals 2024 Satoshi Maruo (Aichi Seiko) - 2:24:24 -  2nd, Nationals Hayato Katsuki (SDF Academy) - 2:24:38 -  1st, Nationals Prognosis : One of Japan's best chances to score a medal and rack up top 8 placings at this World Championships. Kawano is ranked #2 behind the legend Evan Dunfee of Canada, Katsuki has the 4th-best SB, and Maruo is ranked #5. 9:00 / 10:40 - Women's Discus Throw Qualification Nanaka Kori (Niigata Alb...

A few updates as we get near the bottom of the barrel for qualifying for next month's Tokyo World Athletics Championships. The Asian Throwing Championships in Mokpo, South Korea brought some clarity down around the cusp for qualification in a few events. The biggest result from the Japanese point of view was in the men's javelin throw, where National Championships 3rd-placer Gen Naganuma , currently the 2nd Japanese man in line for a roll down spot behind Rin Suzuki , threw 78.60 m for 2nd. Based on the current Road to Tokyo rankings that was enough to move him up into 35th in the 36-deep javelin quota, bumping down Suzuki who has been in poor form the last two months and threw only 68.85 m for 11th in Mokpo. Sri Lankan Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage won at 82.05 m. The #2 woman on the Japanese women's javelin squad, Momone Ueda threw a PB and championships record 62.20 m for the win over Sri Lankan Dilhani Lekamge , 2nd at 57.53 m. #3 Japanese woman Sae Takemoto was 4th at ...

Just a few days left now before the Aug. 24 deadline for qualification for the Tokyo World Championships and the Japanese athletes on the cusp of making the home team are scrambling to find points to make the cut. The Athlete Night Games meet this past weekend had a big impact, especially in the two toughest squads to make outside the road events, the men's high jump and men's 100 m. 2.27m man Yuto Seko improbably jumped the 2.33m Tokyo standard, knocking last week's big mover Naoto Hasegawa (Niigata Albirex RC) off the team. Asian champion Hiroki Yanagita hit the 100 m standard with a 10.00 (+0.3) PB but will almost definitely still be left off the team in favor of Abdul Hakim Sani Brown , 9.96 last summer but not under 10.31 so far this year. Hurdlers Rachid Muratake , Tatsuki Abe (Juntendo Univ.) and Mako Fukube (NKK) all hit their standards, and Towa Uzawa (JAL) and Hibiki Tsuha (Otsuka Seiyaku) both did well enough in the men's 200 m and men's long ju...

The Gumi Asian Athletics Championships rolled on Thursday and Friday. In top Japanese results: Gold medal favorite Rachid Muratake came through in the men's 110 mH final , the only athlete under 13.3 at 13.22 (+0.7) for the win over China's Liu Junxi and Qin Weibo . Yumi Tanaka added a silver to the count in the women's 100 mH final , 2nd in 13.061 (-0.1) in a photo finish with bronze medalist Wu Yanni of China, 13.068. Indian Jyoti Yarraji won gold in 12.96. Kenyan-born Kazakhstani Daisy Jepkemei outran Ririka Hironaka and Mikuni Yada in the women's 10000 m for gold in 30:48.44, but both Japanese women brought A-game. Hironaka's 30:56.32 for silver was her best time since 2023 and a great step back in the right direction after another round of injury and recovery, with Yada's 31:12.21 for bronze a PB by almost 8 seconds. The up-and-coming Yutaro Niinae ran a season best 8:24.41 for silver in the men's 3000 mSC , 3 seconds behind Indian gold medali...

The grand prix distance events were absent from the program this year at the 73rd Hyogo Relay Carnival , with the top performances in the women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m Asics Challenge races going to steepler Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu) in 15:49.48 and Japan-based Kenyan Emmanuel Kiplagat (Mitsubishi Juko) in 28:12.42. But there were a lot of new meet records, and one national record. Ryosuke Kusumi (Shiga) set a T37-class NR of 58.35 m in the para men's 400 m. Kairi Ikeno (Suma Gakuen H.S.) came less than 2 seconds short of a new high school record in the women's 2000 m , beating her own MR from last year by over 3 seconds in 5:55.36, almost 17 seconds ahead of 2nd place. The top 5 all broke or tied the men's high jump meet record, with both Yuto Seko (FAAS) and Tomohiro Shinno (Kyudenko) clearing 2.25 m and Takashi Eto (Kobe Digital Labo), Chao-Hsuan Fu (Taiwan) and Naoto Hasegawa (Niigata Albirex RC) clearing 2.20 m. Yuki Hashioka (Fujitsu) won the men...

Great conditions on the second day of Japan's National Track and Field Championships , U20 National Championships and Paris Olympics trials helped athletes set new National Championship meet records in the women's pole vault, men's 400 mH, men's and women's 1500 m, and men's 5000 m, with three of the five record setters and guaranteeing themselves places on the Paris Olympics team. Complete results here . Women's Pole Vault Final National record holder Misaki Morota cleared her minimum goal, the win in 4.31 m to score enough points to move from 33rd to 32nd in the 32-deep Paris Olympic quota. Morota took two attempts to get over 4.30 m, but on her first try at a Japanese National Championships meet record 4.41 m she got it done. That gave her enough points to move to 30th, but it would take clearing 4.50, 2 cm higher than Morota's NR, to move to 29th. That proved to be out of range, leaving Morota in good position but still waiting to see the outcome of...

  Summer seemed to finally break right on the autumnal equinox, just in time for the second day of the 2023 National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Gifu. Things kicked off with the women's 10000 m race walk, where Kaori Kawazoe (SDF Academy) took the national title in a leisurely 48:26.31 by 8 seconds over Nami Kumagai (Sekisho). The men's 10000 mRW didn't happen for another 7 hours, but it saw MR holder Koki Ikeda (Asahi Kasei) take the win in 38:46.81 with Ryo Hamanishi (Sunbelx) 8 seconds behind. WR holder Eiki Takahashi (Fujitsu) was 6th in 41:56.86, with Daisuke Matsunaga (Fujitsu) 8th in 42:50.60 in his final race before retiring and becoming an assistant coach at Toyo University . The men's 100 m heats saw some of the aging greats of Japanese men's sprinting back in action after sitting on the bench while younger talent represented in Budapest last month. NR holder Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) won H1 in 10.26 (+2.4), 2010 World U20 Championships...

The 70th National Corporate Track and Field Championships took place Friday through Sunday at Gifu Memorial Center Nagaragawa Field in Gifu. The performance of the meet happened Sunday, when Mako Fukube (NKK) broke her own women's 100 mH NR. Opening with a 13.00 (-1.5) meet record to win her qualifying heat, Fukube was back 3 hours later to run 12.73 (+1.1) in the final. That took 0.09 off the NR she set in the semifinals at July's Oregon World Championships, and put her under the qualifying standard for next summer's Budapest World Championships. Runner-up Masumi Aoki (77 Ginko) ran 13.03 in the final, 0.07 under the old MR, with Chisato Kiyoyama (Ichigo) just off the old MR at 13.12. A near-miss on another NR came in the women's 100 m. Mei Kodama (Mizuno) won her qualifying heat in 11.24 (+1.3), 0.18 under the 2001-era MR and just 0.03 from Chisato Fukushima 's 2010 NR of 11.21. Hopes were high that Kodama would get the NR in the final, but while her 11.39 (...

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...

Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) opened the first day of the 2022 National Track and Field Championships in Osaka by becoming the first athlete at Nationals to score a place on the team for next month's World Championships. Saying post-race that he'd run the 5000 m envisioning the semis at Worlds, Endo hung back in the early stages, moved up to cover a mid-race move by Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu), then kicked away with ease in the last 1000 m to take the win in 13:22.15. Combined with his 13:10.69 in April it was enough to land him on the team. Olympian Hiroki Matsueda (Fujitsu) was 2nd in 13:30.15, enough to move up the world rankings but still short of what he'd need to break into what's left of the quota places. Kanta Shimizu (Subaru) came up from the chase pack for 3rd in 13:31.51, with the next 7 all under 13:40. Shiojiri ended up 9th in 13:40.99, with Takuma Sunaoka (Konica Minolta), sub-13:20 this season, last in 14:53.51. NR holder Naoto Tobe (JAL) was a DNS in...

Road events, combined events and the 10000 m have already been held, but the rest of this year's National Track and Field Championships happen Thursday through Sunday at Yanmar Stadium Nagai in Osaka. Thursday will be streamed above starting at noon local time, with the rest of the days also to be streamed on the same JAAF channel. Just be aware that the main events in the last 2 or 3 hours each day will be on TV instead, either NHK's BS1 or general channels. Nationals this year are mostly about qualifying the Oregon World Championships. The basic rules for selection are that a top 3 finish at Nationals by someone with the standard, either there or earlier in the window, will put them the team. Anyone who makes top 3 without the standard will have until the June 26 deadline to chase it, at which point the JAAF has the option to fill any open slots with people who have the standard or are in the quota in their event without having made top 3 at Nationals. Start lists for Thursd...

In the midst of rapidly rising new coronavirus infection numbers, Osaka held the 88th edition of its prefectural track and field championships at the massive Nagai Stadium over Thursday and Friday's national holidays. Not usually a big draw for high-level talent, the lack of racing opportunities these days meant more big names than usual, including 2017 and 2019 World Championships men's 4x100 m bronze medalist Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko), who won the 100 m final in 10.46 (-0.5), and women's discus throw national record holder Nanaka Kori (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.), who dropped one of ten new meet records at the meet, six by women and four by men. A breakdown of the new records: Seika Aoyama (Osaka Seikei AC) ran the second-fastest 400 m time ever by a Japanese woman, 52.38, to win her qualifying heat in meet record time, going on to win the final in 54.11. Yuzu Nishide (Kansai Gaikokugo Univ.) took almost 15 seconds off the women's 3000 m steeplechase meet r...

2018 World U20 Championships 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka delivered the top Japanese performance on the sixth day of the Doha World Championships. Running the first of two heats in the women's 5000 m, Tanaka started close to PB pace and hung as the pack got faster and faster. Only faltering in the last two laps when the top four women took off, Tanaka held off Canada's Andrea Seccafien and South Africa's Dominique Scott to take 6th, qualifying for the final on time with an 11-second PB and all-time Japanese #3 time of 15:04.66. Post-race she told Japanese media, "I was just hanging on to the back of the pack. In the final I want to run a race I can enjoy." In the second heat, national champion Tomoka Kimura hung with the early slow pace but soon dropped back to finish last in 15:53.08. Her Shiseido teammate Melissa Duncan of Australia took 9th in 15:37.37 but fell short of qualifying for the final. After running a PB of 45.14 in the first round of...

The bronze medalist in the men's 3000 m steeplechase at last summer's Jakarta Asian Games, Kazuya Shiojiri turned in the only medal-winning performance on the opening day of the Asian Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar with another steeple bronze. Shiojiri spent most of the race comfortably in the silver medal position behind Kenyan-born eventual world-leading gold medalist John Koech (Bahrain), but on the last lap Avinash Sable (India) turned in an incredible kick to overtake Shiojiri in the home straight. Side-by-side with Sable over the last lap, Hossein Keyhani (Iran) kicked over a cone and ran a few strides inside the last corner but somehow escaped disqualification for 4th. Japan's Kosei Yamaguchi was 6th. In both the women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m the gold and silver went to African-born Bahraini athletes with Indian runners taking bronze. In the 5000 m, Japan's 2018 World U20 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka relatively listlessly le...