japan running news

The organizers of the Hachioji Long Distance meet traditionally held in late November at Hachioji's Kamiyugi Field announced this week that the meet's 2026 edition has been postponed until March 6, 2027. Explaining the move, organizers said, "Various circumstances make it difficult to meet the conditions necessary to stage the meet, making it difficult to organize it at its usual time." Using pacers and Wavelight technology to help deliver reliably fast 10000 m times, the meet is a favorite for collegiate and corporate league runners. It occupies a solid place in Japanese long distance history, capped by Mebuki Suzuki 's 27:05.92 national record there last year. By moving the meet to Mar. 6, organizers said, "We are preparing to make this a high-profile event, a place where our best domestic athletes can aim for strong performances and a stage for record-breaking attempts in the lead-up to the 2027 Beijing World Championships." This year's 10000 m Na...

Just over a month since his 17th birthday, Taiju Goto proved his 48.31 U18 WR in the men's 400 mH heats yesterday wasn't a fluke as he bettered that in the final on the last day of the 110th National Track and Field Championships in Nagoya. Slow in the start, Goto picked up momentum coming up to 200 m before really getting into gear, pulling away from the rest of the field in the last 100 m to win in 48.09, another U18 WR, a new U20 NR, and a run that made him the first high schooler ever to with the Nationals 400 mH. Now only 0.20 off the senior NR, Goto joins the list of Rakunan H.S. talent to be re-writing the record books that includes Yoshihide Kiryu , Ryuji Miura , Keita Sato and Toshinari Takaoka . Another Nationals MR went down, this one in the women's 3000 mSC thanks to NR holder Miu Saito . Having taken 3rd in the 5000 m 2 days ago, Saito started out a little on the conservative side with company from last year's winner Manami Nishiyama in the first 1000 ...

Japan's 110th National Track and Field Championships kicked off Friday at the same stadium that will host September's Asian Games. From an international point of view the biggest result was the return of Paris Olympics women's javelin throw gold medalist Haruka Kitaguchi . After a rough year Kitaguchi threw 62.86 m on her fifth attempt, her best throw since last June's Ostrava Golden Spike meet and enough to give her the win by over a meter. It was still almost 4.5 m short of Kitaguchi's NR, but it was a big step back in the right direction. On the track there were a lot of surprising results on the first day, with multiple meet records, near-misses on MR, and fastest-ever qualifying rounds. The race of the day was the women's 5000 m final, where 4-time national champ and NR holder Nozomi Tanaka tried to make it 5 in a row. With the race going at 15:15-20 pace Tanaka broke away with 4 laps to go, opening a substantial lead over Aichi local Yuma Yamamoto and t...

The National Track and Field Championships happen Friday through Sunday at Paloma Mizuho Stadium in Nagoya. Primetime events will be broadcast on NHK, but the rest of the meet will be streamed on separate field and track channels. Day 1 track events are above, with the rest of the streaming here . Entry lists here . Complete meet schedule: Friday, June 12 13:20 - Women's Discus Throw Final 14:00 - Women's Pole Vault Final 14:05 - Women's 100 m Heats 14:30 - Men's Triple Jump Final 14:38 - Men's 1500 m Heats 15:03 - Women's 100 mH Heats 15:35 - Men's 100 m Heats 15:50 - Men's Discus Throw Final 16:25 - Women's 400 m Heats 16:47 - Men's 400 m Prelims 17:10 - Men's 5000 m Heats 17:45 - Men's Long Jump Final 18:10 - Women's 100 m Semifinals 18:25 - Women's 800 m Heats 18:30 - Women's Javelin Throw Final 18:48 - Men's 800 m Heats 19:15 - Men's 3000 mSC Final 19:35 - Women's 100mH Semifinals 20:00 - Women's 5...

On Aug. 25 the JAAF announced that it has reversed 29-year-old sprinter Fuga Sato 's disqualification in the July 6 National Championships men's 400 m final, giving him the national title for the second time in his career. It is unusual for official results to be amended after the end of the competition. According to the JAAF, there was a discrepancy in officials' interpretation of World Athletics rules in disqualifying Sato. The reversal elevated Sato in the final update to World Athletics' rankings following the Aug. 24 Tokyo World Athletics Championships qualification deadline, moving him up from outside the quota to 46th of 48 qualified athletes. He is now expected to be named to his third-straight World Championships team. The events in question were part of the National Track and Field Championships, which doubled this year as the main selection event for the Tokyo World Championships. Sato finished 1st in the men's 400 m final on July 6 but was ruled to have ...

Japan's National Championships happened Friday through Sunday at Tokyo's National Stadium, the same track where September's World Championships will take place. The biggest result of the weekend came in the women's 800 m, where high schooler Rin Kubo cleaned up the mess caused last when she became the first Japanese woman under 2 minutes but did it at a JAAF-sanctioned time trial meet that hadn't been registered to the World Athletics calendar. In Saturday's final she bettered that time with a 1:59.52, making it a national record that WA will actually recognize. The only other record set came in the women's 5000 m on Friday, where NR holder Nozomi Tanaka set a meet record 14:59.02 to win a competitive race over Ririka Hironaka , 2nd in 15:12.61, and Kana Mizumoto , 3rd in a big PB of 15:13.19. Tanaka doubled back in the 1500 m Sunday, duly winning in 4:04.16. Veteran Tomoka Kimura ran a PB of 4:09.88 for 2nd, giving a big boost to her chances of making i...

The National Track and Field Championships are this weekend at Tokyo's National Stadium on the same track where the Tokyo World Championships will happen in September. Streaming of the first day on Friday is above, with a separate channel for field events here . Streaming will cut off at 18:30, when it switches over to a live broadcast on NHK BS, and then on NHK's main channel at 19:30. Other streaming links: Saturday Track ・ Saturday Field ・ Sunday Track ・ Sunday Field Meet schedule here . Entry list highlights, with athletes' best marks in the Nationals qualifying window: Men's 100 m Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Toray) - 9.96 Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) - 10.02 Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.09 Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) - 10.10 Naoki Nishioka (Tsukuba Univ.) - 10.11 Ryota Suzuki (Suzuki) - 10.12 Naoki Inoue (Waseda Univ.) - 10.12 Ryo Wada (Miki House) - 10.13 Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) - 10.15 Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) - 10.26 Men's 200 m Towa Uzawa (JAL) - 2...

Having bettered the Japanese women's 400 m national record by 0.04 in winning May's Shizuoka International Meet in a 51.71 collegiate record, on June 18 it was learned that Nittai University 3rd-year Arie Flores , 21, has completed the naturalization process and been granted Japanese citizenship. Born in Shizuoka, Flores is the daughter of a Japanese-Peruvian father and Italian-Peruvian mother. Because her citizenship application had not been finalized yet in May, her win in Shizuoka was done under Peruvian citizenship and was not counted as a new Japanese NR. The approval of Flores' application means she is able to run in July's National Championships. She hopes to compete in September's Tokyo World Championships. source article: https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2025061800441&g=spo translated by Brett Larner

The Panasonic women's corporate team announced this week on its official website that Sora Shinozakura has left its program. Shinozakura placed 5th in the 5000 m at last June's National Track and Field Championships, and last Sunday she was 3rd on the opening leg at the National Women's Ekiden while running for the Kanagawa prefecture team. Shinozakura joined Panasonic after graduating from Tachibana H.S. in Kawasaki, Kanagawa. "The Panasonic Angels were a local team based in Kanagawa where I'm from, and they were always something I admired right from my school days," she said. "I'll never forget how happy it made me to put on that blue singlet for the first time. My 5 years as part of the team gave me the chance to concentrate on the sport I love in a fantastic environment, and I got to go places and experience things I never would have imagined. I'm truly grateful. As part of the team I got to hand off the tasuki to some of its more experi...

  At the closing ceremony of the 101st Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 3 at the Yomiuri Newspaper building in Otemachi, Tokyo, Akimu Nomura was named MVP of this year's race for his role in helping Aoyama Gakuin University score it 2nd-straight course record win. Nomura became the first runner ever to break 57 minutes on the 20.8 km downhill Sixth Stage, setting a new CR of 56:47, and was also awarded the Shizo Kanakuri award for exceptional performance and potential. The MVP award is new this year and goes to the outstanding member of the winning team, while the Kanakuri award has been in place since the 80th edition in 2004. The winners of both awards were determined by the KGRR selection committee led by Yasushi Ueda . Nomura told media, "To be honest I didn't think they'd give me both. I would have been happy with either, so I'm really, really happy. When the team started training in April after the 100th last year I said I was going to go for 56 minutes, but it seeme...

At the July 15 Long Distance Time Trials meet in Nara, Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S. 2nd-year Rin Kubo , 16, added the 800 m national record to her national title two weeks ago and 4x800 m NR on Friday, becoming the first Japanese woman to break 2 minutes with a new NR of 1:59.93. The previous NR of 2:00.45 was set on June 5, 2005 by Miho Sugimori . Kubo cut 0.52 seconds off that time, set almost three years before Kubo was born, and in doing it she achieved one of her major goals, becoming Japan's first woman to break the 2-minute barrier. It also majorly improved her own U18 NR of 2:03.13 set at Nationals two weeks ago, and bettered her 2:01.9 split in the NR-setting 4x800 m three days ago where she went through the first 400 m in 56.8. Translator's note: Kubo's 100 m splits per the stadium announcer: 14-28-43-58-1:13-1:29-1:44-1:59.93 Worldwide, her 1:59.93 is the 2nd-fastest U18 time in the world this year behind the 1:57.86 run by 17-year-old Phoebe Gill of Great Britai...

  Off and on rain throughout the day, sometimes heavy, impacted a lot of events on the last day of Japan's National Track and Field Championships , U20 National Championships, and Olympic trials, but at least 6 of the 12 finals saw people seal up places at the Paris Olympics, and one saw a new youth record by its winner. Complete results here . Men's 100 m Final   -0.2 m/s Fastest in the semifinals, Ryuichiro Sakai  did it again in the final to add the 2024 national title to his 2023 win in 10.13 (-0.2). Akihiro Higashida  and Hiroki Yanagita  went a close 2-3 in 10.14, both of them pretty much guaranteeing that they'll be on the Paris team with Abdul Hakim Sani Brown , who sat Nationals out after running the Olympic standard earlier this season. Former NR holder Yoshihide Kiryu  took 5th in 10.20 and will only have a shot at being in Paris as a relay alternate. 1. Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) - 10.13 2. Akihiro Higashida (Sekisho) - 10.14 3. Hiroki Yanagita...