japan running news

The SG Holdings men's corporate team announced on Oct. 1 that long-distance athletes Hyuga Endo and Yuichiro Nishikawa have joined its roster after leaving the Sumitomo Denko team. Endo, 28, won the Junior Olympics 3000 m while at Koriyama Nishi J.H.S. before going on to Gakuho Ishikawa H.S. where he was the the top Japanese placer in the 5000 m at the National High School Championships 2 years in a row. After graduating from Gakuho Ishikawa he joined the Sumitomo Denko team, winning the National Championships 5000 m in 2021. He won gold at the 2023 Asian Championships and represented Japan at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. "I will give everything I have as part of the team and work hard toward helping it win the New Year Ekiden," he said of his new environment. Of his personal goals he said, "I want to focus on the 5000 m and reach new levels to compete internationally." Nishikawa, 28, was a member of Tokai University 's winning teams at the H...

Hayashi Morozumi , 59, has stepped down as head coach at Tokai University following its 12th-place finish at this year's 102nd Hakone Ekiden. Morozumi will serve in an executive advisory role to Noriaki Nishide , 51, who moves up from the Tokai coaching staff to take on head coach duties. Morozumi came to at his alma mater Tokai in 2011 after serving at head coach at Nagano's Saku Chosei H.S. , where the team won the 2008 National High School Ekiden anchored by future marathon NR holder Suguru Osako . In 2019 Morozumi led Tokai to its first-ever Hakone title, making him the only coach to win both the biggest high school and college titles in his career. When Morozumi became head coach at Saku Chosei in 1995 he personally drove a bulldozer to build a cross-country loop at the school, combining his innovative coaching theory with deep passion to build the Saku Chosei program from zero to national championships in just 13 years. Along with Osako, now 34, some of his key proteges ...

The winner of the first Marathon Grand Championships Olympic trials race is starting down a new road leading back to the Hakone Ekiden. Set to retire at the end of March, 2021 Tokyo Olympics marathon team member Shogo Nakamura (33, Fujitsu) will take over as head coach at Meiji Gakuin University in April in a quest for its first-ever Hakone appearance. According to a source involved in the situation, Nakamura has been hired to lead Meiji Gakuin to Hakone by the 2028-29 academic year. Nakamura's career as an athlete garnered great respect, especially his serious attitude toward competition and the patience and endurance he developed through marathon running. Still on the cusp of retirement, Nakamura is unproven as a leader. But last year he entered the Waseda University Graduate School of Sport Science with the aim of becoming a professional coach. While balancing his academic work with his racing he studied top sports management at the same place Susumu Hara , head coach of 9-t...

Earlier this month Aoyama Gakuin University broke its own course record to win the 102nd Hakone Ekiden , its 9th overall win and second three-peat. But in the background behind the brilliance of the almost unbeatable champion, one rookie on another team ran well in hopes of making the people back home who were still recovering from the Noto Hanto earthquake happy. To make that happen the same athlete left his position with one of the top corporations in the world to go to university with Hakone dreams. Let us tell you about Yamato Sugasaki , another Hakone Ekiden story. Born in Toyota, Aichi, Sugasaki played soccer through junior high school. But when he went to Toyota Kogaku Gijutsu H.S. , a private training school operated by the Toyota corporation, he switched to the track and field team. Sugasaki had watched the Hakone Ekiden on TV since he was a kid and decided that he wanted "to try something new," he says. His 3rd year of high school Sugsaki's times began to appr...

Entry lists are out for the 102nd Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2-3. Performances exploded in the 10000 m and half marathon this year, and Japan's university teams are better than ever. With 21 teams of 16 entrants and 10 starters each, 12 teams have a 10-man 5000 m average under 14 minutes and 3 under 13:45, with 11 teams having at least one runner with a PB under 13:30. In the 10000 m 19 teams have a sub-29 average, 3 are under 28:30, and one, Chuo University , averages an incredible 27:55.98. 13 teams have at least one runner with a PB under 28 minutes, Chuo having 6 and Aoyama Gakuin University 5. 5 teams have a runner under 27:30. 19 of the 21 teams average under 63 for the half marathon and 3 sub-62, with 10 teams having at least one runner under 61 minutes and 2 with someone under 60 minutes. Koku Gakuin University  was ranked 4th at October's Izumo Ekiden , where it won, and 1st at November's National University Ekiden , where it was 4th. At Hakone it's ranked #1, th...

#3-ranked Komazawa University came on strong over the second half of the National University Ekiden to take a record 17th national title, more than any other program in the national championship race's 57-year history. It had its share of dominant single-stage runs, but more than that this year's Komazawa lineup was consistent across the board, the only school to put all 8 of its runners into the top 5 on their stages, all but 2 of them in the top 3. Over the first 2 legs it was never more than 3 seconds out of 1st, moving up into that position by 1 seconds on the 3rd leg with a good run from 4th-year Yudai Kiyama . 3rd-year Kaisei Yasuhara was the weakest link with only the 5th-best time on the 4th leg, dropping Komazawa back to 4th and 35 seconds behind #2-ranked Chuo University 's Daichi Shibata . But on the next leg Komazawa 4th-year Aoi Ito turned it back around with the biggest run at this year's Nationals, running 35:01 for the 12.4 km 5th leg, 17 seconds unde...

Popular opinion was that 2024 national champion Koku Gakuin University was down on strength this year following the graduation of its two best runners Kiyoto Hirabayashi and Ayumu Yamamoto . But the season-opening Izumo Ekiden earlier this month set people straight. Ranked #4, KGU took the lead early in the 2nd half of the race there and led the rest of the way to win Izumo for the 2nd year in a row. At Sunday's National University Ekiden they're coming into the race ranked #1, the only team in the field with 8 men having 5000 m bests under 14 minutes, 8 under 29 minutes for 10000 m, and 8 under 63 for the half marathon. 7 of those half marathoners are under 62, and an incredible 4 are under 61. With Nationals having 8 legs averaging 13.35 km, the last 2 close to the half marathon in length, chances are good of another KGU win. On paper Chuo University is KGU's closest competitor, but at Izumo Chuo was ranked #1 and finished only 10th. Maybe they'll pull it togethe...

Now running for the Sunbelx corporate team on an individual pro contract, Hibiki Yoshida (22) tuned up for his debut at the July 25 Fuji Mountain Race with a test run to the peak of Mount Fuji at 3776 m. Covering the distance from the Fifth Station to the summit, 6 km with 1520 m elevation gain on rough trails, in 2 hours, Yoshida said, "It was fun!" As a 4th-year at Soka University this past January Yoshida ran the highly competitive Second Stage at the 101st Hakone Ekiden, covering the 23.1 km net uphill leg in 1:05:43, the fastest time ever run by a Japanese athlete and equivalent to a 1:00:02 half marathon. After Hakone Yoshida said that post-graduation he planned to pursue a career in both traditional running and in trail running. His first big trail race will be the Fuji Mountain Race's 78th edition. The Fuji Mountain Race is divided into two divisions, a 15 km short course to the Fifth Station with 1480 m elevation gain and the 21 km long course to the summit c...

November's National University Ekiden is the second stop of the three-race university men's ekiden season. Even more than the season-opening Izumo Ekiden, it's pretty much a given that however many teams there are in the field from the Tokyo-area Kanto Region, where almost all the best high schoolers go for university in order to have the chance to run the Hakone Ekiden, the top team from outside Kanto will finish behind all of them. Not including two select teams that don't count in scoring, the 15 Kanto teams at last year's Nationals took the top 15 spots in the field of 25 schools. Koku Gakuin University , Komazawa University , Aoyama Gakuin University , Soka University , Waseda University , Josai University , Rikkyo University and Teikyo University filled the 8-podium to earn places at the 2025 National University Ekiden, with the other 7 having to run yesterday's Kanto Region Qualifier alongside 13 other Kanto-area teams to try to make the return trip. ...

The 40th annual Yaizu Minato Half Marathon and 39th National University Pair Marathon took place Sunday in Yaizu, Shizuoka. Kyosuke Hiramatsu of 2025 Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University took the overall win in 1:03:02. Approximately 50 university athletes from 19 schools across the Kanto Region took part, with the race kicking off in rainy conditions. The lead group went through 5 km in 14:50, with 20 of them sticking close together until late in the race. As people began to fade, the first real move came near 17 km. Hiramatsu went to the front to break the group up, then attacked again at 20 km to get clear of those who were left. Toma Tanaka (Koku Gakuin Univ.) and Yumeto Ito (Chuo Univ.) tried to follow, but Hiramatsu pulled it off perfectly to make it two AGU wins a row following Masaya Tsurukawa 's victory last year. Tanaka and Ito both clocked 1:03:08, with Tanaka getting 2nd and Ito 3rd. Ryusei Kawachi (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) was 4th in 1:03:10. In the National ...

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

Sena Minawatari , a 3rd-year at Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University  who revealed in January that he had been diagnosed with malignant lymphoma in November, passed away on Feb. 19. He had just turned 21 two weeks earlier. Following the wishes of his family, Aoyama Gakuin announced the news on its team website on Feb. 21. Titled "In honor of the departure of our dear friend," the announcement read: "We are saddened to announce that Sena Minawatari, part of our team for last year's Hakone Ekiden and this season's National University Ekiden, has passed away. He was an indispensable part of our team, and we would like to express our deepest gratitude and respect for his passion and the achievements it produced. We feel grief and loss at this sudden departure, and we will carry the memories we have with him in our hearts as we continue to move forward. He fought this illness until the very end, and we ask that his memory be looked upon with warmth of heart...

Last month's Izumo Ekiden season opener was unusually action-packed with turnovers in the lead on every stage and a dramatic showdown between anchors Kotaro Shinohara (Komazawa Univ,), Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) and Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin Univ.). All three schools were expected to be up front again at today's National University Men's Ekiden , and race-morning lineup changes unexpectedly put Shinohara, Ota and Hirabayashi against each other again on the 2nd-to-last stage of the day. Komazawa was immediately in trouble when its first two runners Kosuke Shimako and Shunsuke Kuwata tanked, falling to 16th. AGU was out front after two of the eight legs, with Hibiki Yoshida from Izumo 4th-placer Soka University giving him a run for it and both just missing the 2nd leg CR. AGU led the rest of the way, with a 33:03 CR for the 11.8 km 4th leg by Asahi Kuroda giving it a lead of almost 1:30 that it took another CR from KGU's Ayumu Yamamoto to cut back down ...

Komazawa University is trying to line up its fifth-straight National University Men's Ekiden win this Sunday, but after a runner-up finish to Koku Gakuin University last month at the Izumo Ekiden it's got a tough road ahead with two extra stages and a longer average stage length to deal with. TV Asahi has the live broadcast starting at 7:45 a.m. local time, with official streaming on TVer and unofficial streaming on mov3.co . Izumo was an unusually close and exciting race between Komazawa, KGU and Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University that saw the lead change every stage. All three teams were within a few seconds of each other at the start of the anchor stage, where Osaka Marathon winner Kiyoto Hirabayashi of KGU dropped Hakone First Stage winner Kotaro Shinohara from Komazawa and Third Stage winner Aoi Ota of AGU to take the win. KGU looks like the favorite here too, its top-8 10000 m average of 28:16.61 the class of the field and giving it a solid advantage ov...

Juntendo University is one of the true powers of the Hakone Ekiden, with 11 wins in 65 appearances and producing current 3000 mSC and 10000 m national record holders Ryuji Miura and Kazuya Shiojiri . But an investigation by the Weekly Shincho gossip rag has uncovered students' accusations of abuse and power harassment against a famed honorary head coach. The university administration has acknowledged that student athletes were put in danger and indicated that the coach in question would step away from any coaching duties. The accused man is Keisuke Sawaki , 80, former head coach of the Juntendo track and field team and currently serving as a specially-appointed professor and honorary head coach at the university. A Juntendo alumnus and two-time Olympian who competed in long distance track events at both the 1968 Mexico City and 1972 Munich Olympics, as head coach Sawaki led Juntendo to 9 of its 11 Hakone victories. Those successes led to him serving at one point as executive dir...