japan running news

Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed) and Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) won the Sendai International Half Marathon Sunday in Sendai, Shikama in 1:01:31 and Njeri in 1:09:20. Mizuki Nishimura (Tenmaya) was the top Japanese woman at 2nd overall. The men's race went through 5 km in 14:34 and 10 km in 29:22. Shikama ran alongside top competition including Shoki Yamaguchi (Soka Univ.), who has been running well in half marathons this season, and Tokyo World Championships marathon team member Naoki Koyama (Honda). On a course with many small ups and downs, Shikama attacked on a downhill just after 15 km, quickly breaking free of the lead group of 7. 13 seconds up by 20 km, Shikama covered the last 1.0975 km in 3:06 to seal his first Sendai title. A graduate of Juntendo University , Shikama is in his 4th season with Logisteed. At the 2024 National Corporate Half Marathon he ran 1:00:41, and at last year's East Japan Corporate Ekiden he won the Third Stage. In his marathon d...

With Kana Kobayashi the top-placing Japanese woman in the Tokyo World Athletics Championships marathon yesterday at 7th, hopes were high that the men would come through with a medal in the event they care the most about. But alas. Yuya Yoshida was clearly nowhere near his Fukuoka CR-breaking form and was off the back of the lead pack by halfway, ultimately finishing 34th in 2:16:58. Paris Olympics marathon trials winner Naoki Koyama lasted longer but could still only manage a 2:13:42 for 23rd. The surprise was debut marathon NR holder Ryota Kondo , who ran 2:10:53 for 11th in only the second marathon of his career. It's back to the drawing board, but with the JAAF having revised the qualifying standards for the L.A. Olympics marathon trials to prioritize time even more over competitive performance ability, there's not much reason to be optimistic that Japanese marathoners are going to be relevant in championship races anytime in the foreseeable future. Anyway, Tanzanian Alp...

With less than 3 weeks to go until the Aug. 24 deadline to qualify for September's Tokyo World Championships let's take a look at what kind of team Japan might have. In terms of potential medalists there are 6 solid candidates, all the usual suspects. World and Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi leads the women's javelin throw. Ranked 5th, Nanako Fujii has an outside chance in the women's 20 km race walk. On the men's side, Ryuji Miura looks to be a contender in the 3000 mSC where he's ranked 3rd. Toshikazu Yamanishi and Satoshi Maruo are ranked 1-2 in the 20 km race walk, with Masatora Kawano at 3rd in the 35 km race walk. After that it's the always-strong men's 4x100 m, ranked 2nd, although the big question is who is going to be on the team. In the marathon, you want to feel like Fukuoka CR breaker Yuya Yoshida has a chance. The women's javelin, marathon and race walks look like the only events where Japan is likely to field full squads of 3...

Soka University 's Stephen Muthini broke the course record at the Hakodate Half Marathon Sunday to win in a PB 1:01:08. Muthini led from the early going, dragging a lead group of 10 behind him. Past 10 km he picked up the pace, cutting the lead group down to 6, including 2025 Tokyo World Championships marathon team member Yuya Yoshida (GMO). Near 15 km Takuma Yamakawa of Komazawa University went to the front, but Muthini was quick to retake the lead and gradually pulled away from Yamakawa and Yoshida. Yoshida ended up 2nd behind Muthini in a PB of 1:01:23, with Yamakawa 3rd also in a new PB of 1:01:25. Times were fast across the board, with 8 of the top 10 men running lifetime PBs. Yoshida, a 2-time winner of the Fukuoka International Marathon including a 2:05:16 CR last December, is Japan's leading hope of ending its dry spell of World Championships marathon medals, the last being Tsuyoshi Ogata 's bronze at the 2025 Helsinki World Championships. His Tokyo Worlds team...

Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) was back from the dead yet again to win today's Sendai International Half Marathon women's race. Starting out with company from Selly Kaptich (Kyudenko) and Yuri Mitsune (Hitachi), Suzuki was always a step ahead. Putting away Mitsune early in the 2nd half, it took until the last km for her to break Kaptich, winning in 1:11:00 with Kaptich 8 seconds back in 2nd. Mitsune faded over a minute, just hanging on to 3rd in 1:12:02 over Mayuka Fujita (Route Inn Hotels). Ibuki Kaneko (Komazawa Univ.) frontran the early going in the men's race, 7 seconds up on the main group at 5 km in 14:51 but out of the top 20 by 10 km. Andrew Lorot (YKK) took clear control in the 2nd half, 12 seconds ahead by 15 km and pulling away all the way home to the win in 1:01:41. After facing criticism for making the Tokyo World Championships marathon team off the JAAF's JMC series rankings in spite of not having broken 2:10 in his last two marathons, Naoki Koyama (Hon...

  The JAAF held the award ceremony for its Japan Marathon Championship Series IV last night in Tokyo, the whole thing streamed live on Youtube. The two-year series, in this case running from April, 2023 to March, 2025, scores marathoners on time and place in domestic races and high-level international races, with athletes' two best performances combining to give them their series rankings. Series winners score guaranteed places on the 2025 Tokyo World Championships team , with the top 8 women and men earning prize money: 1st: ¥6,000,000 (~$40,000 USD) 2nd: ¥3,000,000 (~$20,000) 3rd: ¥1,000,000 (~$6,700) 4th: ¥800,000 (~$5,300) 5th: ¥700,000 (~$4,700) 6th: ¥500,000 (~$3,300) 7th: ¥300,000 (~$2,000) 8th: ¥200,000 (~$1,300) Points for time are scored according to World Athletics scoring tables, with placing points based on races' designated level. Given the JAAF's financial interests in the big domestic races and the income stream from their TV broadcasts, the scoring system ...

On Mar. 26 the JAAF named its women's and men's marathon teams for September's Tokyo World Championships. On the women's side the team has veterans Sayaka Sato and Yuka Ando off the strength of a runner-up finish for Sato in Nagoya this year and a win in Nagoya last year by Ando, and newcomer Kana Kobayashi , 23, who has risen quickly from being a fun runner at Waseda University last year to a 2nd-place finish in Osaka Women's this year. Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Suzuki was named alternate after finishing 3rd behind Kobayashi in Osaka Women's. On the men's side the team is led by last year's Fukuoka International Marathon CR breaker Yuya Yoshida and this year's Osaka runner-up Ryota Kondo . The 3rd spot on the team is reserved for JMC Series winner Naoki Koyama , who hasn't cleared the 2:06:30 World Championships qualifying standard and has to wait for the May 4 qualifying deadline for confirmation that the 1184 points he has in the Roa...

The Japanese marathon teams will be the most prestigious ones to be on for September's Tokyo World Championships, and with Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon the window for Japanese athletes to get onto the JAAF's shortlist closed. Who's on it? The final decision won't be made until Mar. 26, but let's look through the selection criteria and see who's guaranteed, who's pretty likely, and who has a chance. 1. Marathon medalists at the Paris Olympics - There weren't any, so nobody makes the team this way. Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) and Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) were the top placers, both of them running PBs in the Olympics to finish 6th. You'd think that would count for something a year later, but you'd think wrong. 2. JMC Series IV Champions - The top point scorers in the Japan Marathon Championship Series IV, which ran from April, 2023 to March, 2025, earn places on the marathon teams along with cash prizes. For women that's Yuka ...

The Osaka Marathon is Monday, with a live ad-free national broadcast starting at 9:00 a.m. local time on NHK that you'll probably need a VPN to pick up online. No word yet on live results, but maybe try the separate elite field site . We'll post a link if something surfaces, and whatever we can from on the ground in Osaka. Anyway, there are some pretty good story lines this time around. Last year the big one was Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden Koku Gakuin University runner Kiyoto Hirabayashi winning with a debut and collegiate record of 2:06:18. That was eclipsed at the start of this month by Hiroki Wakabayashi from Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University with a 2:06:07 at Beppu-Oita , and with the arguably more talented 2025-26 AGU captain Asahi Kuroda making his debut in Osaka that might not even last til the end of the month. But you want story? Here's story: On Wednesday right after his 21st birthday Wakabayashi and Kuroda's teammate Sena M...

Another week and another big Japanese road race announces its elite field. This year's Osaka Marathon looks set to be a 2:05 race for the men, with Ronald Korir , Bethwel Kibet , Boniface Kimutai , Abdisa Tola , Derseh Kindie and Yihunilign Adane set to pull NR holder Kengo Suzuki to a good comeback and a crew of 2:06 Japanese men led by Paris Olympian Naoki Koyama and Yusuke Nishiyama to faster PBs. Osaka factors into men's team selection for this year's Tokyo World Championships, so expect it to go big. There are 4 sub-61 half marathoners on the debut list too, led by Ryota Kondo with a 1:00:32 at the 2023 National Corporate Half and last year's Corporate Half winner Shunsuke Shikama , 1:00:41. And hot on the heels of Hiroki Wakabayashi 's 2:06:07 collegiate and debut marathon record in Beppu-Oita on Sunday, his Aoyama Gakuin University teammate Asahi Kuroda , the top Japanese man on the Hakone Ekiden's competitive Second Stage last year and even fast...

Hirabayashi Knocks 'em Out in Osaka - Feb. 25 Fresh off the equivalent of a 1:00:40 half marathon on Day One of the Hakone Ekiden, 21-year-old Kiyoto Hirabayashi of Koku Gakuin University ran a debut and collegiate record 2:06:18 to win the Osaka Marathon. Post-race his coach Yasuhiro Maeda compared Hirabayashi to former NR holder Atsushi Fujita , Maeda's teammate in their days at Komazawa University . Ethiopian Waganesh Nekasha won the women's race in 2:24:20. ASICS Apologizes for Typo on Tokyo Marathon T-Shirts - Feb. 28 Tokyo Marathon sponsor ASICS issued an apology after selling an official t-shirt with a misspelled English word on it even though the misspelling actually increased the shirt's appeal. Sutume Asefa Kebede and Benson Kipruto Run Fastest-Ever Marathons in Japan to Win in Tokyo - Mar. 3 Ethiopian Sutume Asefe Kebede and Kenyan Benson Kipruto ran the fastest times ever produced on Japanese soil, Sutume dropping Rosemary Wanjiru at 40 km to win ...

We've been busy the last few days working with the Mongolian marathon team at the Paris Olympics. Catching up on the Japanese national team's performances over the last 3 days of athletics competition, the big news was of course world champion Haruka Kitaguchi scoring Japan's first and only medal in Paris, gold in the javelin on her first throw. In the final evening session on Saturday Kitaguchi came out swinging with a season best 65.80 m first throw that left the rest of the field fighting for silver. South African Jo-Ane Van Dyk came closest to Kitaguchi's mark at 63.93 m, just holding off Czech Nikola Ogrodnikova for silver by 25 cm. Japan's other javelin finalist Momone Ueda was 10th with a season best 61.64 m throw. Kitaguchi's gold was the first-ever for a female Japanese athlete in the javelin throw and the first by any Japanese athlete since Mizuki Noguchi in the Athens Olympics marathon. Kitaguchi was seriously burned by the JAAF's massive 90%...

Conditions at Sunday's Sendai International Half Marathon were too hot for fast times, but for Paris Olympics marathon team members Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) and Naoki Koyama (Honda) it was a pretty good test run for what they'll up against come August. Marathon NR holder Maeda had no problems soloing the win, running 1:11:17 to finish 1:17 ahead of 2nd-placer Yuki Nakamura (Panasonic). Rie Kawauchi (Otsuka Seiyaku) was 3rd in 1:12:58. Koyama was a little shakier at 6th in 1:03:23 in the men's race, not exactly a bad day but not up to the no-miss form he's had over the last two years either. In his place, Koyama's Honda teammate Ken Nakayama scored the men's win, out kicking Kenyans Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and Benard Kimeli (Fujitsu) on the track to take the win in 1:02:31. Kuira was 2nd in 1:02:32 and Kimeli 3rd in 1:02:36. Sendai International Half Marathon Sendai, Miyagi, 12 May 2024 complete results Women 1. Honami Maeda 1:11:17 2. Yuki Nakamura 1...