japan running news

The U20 Asian Athletics Championships started Wednesday in Dubai, U.A.E. Narumi Okumoto (Hitachi) and Nozomi Kondo (Meijo Univ.) scored Japan's first two medals in the women's 3000 m, running behind leader Yaxuan Li of China over the first 1000 m. Kondo lost touch after the first 1000 m, while Okumoto lasted another 1000 m with Li. Li took gold in 9:12.79, Okumoto silver in 9:25.19 and Kondo bronze in 9:38.91. In qualifying rounds: Both Yuri Nishida (Ritsumeikan Univ.) and Sari Kameda (Kyoto Kyoiku Univ.) won their women's 800 m heats and advanced to the next round, Nishida in a PB 2:07.36 and Kamei in 2:10.87, also a PB. Shota Fuchigami (Waseda Univ.) won his 400 mH heat in a PB 50.19 to make the final. Hiroto Shogomori (Chuo Univ.) was 2nd in his 400 m heat in 47.37, yet another athlete to run a PB, moving on to the semifinals. The lone female sprinter on the Japanese team, Misaki Morimoto (Sonoda Joshi Gakuen Univ.) won her 100 m heat in 12.20 (-1.4) and advance...

Lots of big meets coming up, and entry lists are promising some top Japanese talent at three of the first major ones. On Mar. 7 the JAAF announced a team of 12 men and 12 women for the Mar. 30 Belgrade World Cross Country Championships , with senior men's 10 km 3rd-placer Yuta Bando (Fujitsu) the only one of the top-placing athletes at last month's National Cross Country Championships to pass on running Worlds. There hasn't been any announcement of withdrawals by the JAAF, but as of this writing the official entry lists on the Worlds site list only 5 men and 7 women. All four people on the mixed relay team are there including the Louisiana State University -bound Yuya Sawada (Hamamatsu Shiritsu H.S.) and 1500 m NR holder Nozomi Tanaka (New Balance), but senior men's national champ Tomonori Yamaguchi (Waseda Univ.), the entire U20 men's team, and all but U20 women's 4th-placer Chiseno Ikeda (Ritsumeikan Uji H.S.) are missing. It has to be wrong, right? The...

Japan's National Cross Country Championships happened Sunday on their usual course in Fukuoka, the main event the JAAF uses to choose its teams for next month's Belgrade World Cross Country Championships. Performances at last summer's Budapest World Championships come into consideration, but most of the Belgrade team will be chose from top 8 finishers in the senior races in Fukuoka and top 6 in the U20 races. In the U20 women's 6 km, last year's National High School Ekiden First Stage winner and heavy favorite Narumi Okumoto (Oita Tomei H.S.) led the entire way and ended up with the biggest margin of victory in the four races, winning by 6 seconds over Misaki Shitamori (Kitakyushu Shiritsu H.S.) in 20:16. National High School Ekiden champ Kamimura Gakuen H.S. gave the meet a miss, but boys' champ Saku Chosei H.S. came in strong in the U20 men's 8 km, with Fourth Stage runner-up Yamato Hamaguchi getting the win in 23:35 and Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu...

The National High School Ekiden happened Sunday in Kyoto, its 35th edition for girls and 74th for boys. With last year's 3rd-place Kamimura Gakuen H.S. set to run last year's anchor stage winner Caroline Kariba on anchor again, it was all about trying to open as much room as they could over the first four stages for girls' race favorites Sendai Ikuei H.S. and Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. Sendai Ikuei moved up from 3rd to 1st on the 4.0975 km 2nd leg thanks to a stage-winning run by Daisy Jerop and stayed there over the next two legs. Ritsumeikan Uji was in 2nd the entire way, closing the gap to Sendai Ikuei to 30 seconds by the end of the 4th leg after 3rd and 4th runners Nodoka Ashida and Yua Sato won their stages. Kamimura Gakuen started slow at 13th after the first leg but moved up through the field every stage until it was in 3rd when Kariba started. With 5.0 km to work with she was 50 seconds behind Ritsumeikan Uji and 1:20 behind Sendai Ikuei, an almost impossible ma...