japan running news

The Kansai Region qualifying race for November's 58th National University Men's Ekiden was held June 7 at Yanmar Field Nagai in Osaka. Kyoto Sangyo University won overall, with Osaka Keizai University , Kwansei Gakuin University and Ritsumeikan University taking the other 3 qualifying spots. 1st the last 2 years, Kansai University placed 5th and missed out on making the main event. 12 teams ran in the qualifying race, each fielding teams of 8 split evenly across 4 heats of 10000 m. Their cumulative times determined the team score, with the 4 fastest teams earning spots. The National University Men's Ekiden happens Nov. 1 on an 8-stage, 106.8 km course from Atsuta Jingu in Aichi to Ise Jingu in Mie. Winner Kyoto Sangyo missed out on qualifying last year, but its win this year had special significance as it earned the team its 50th appearance at Nationals. 2nd-year Tsukito Minami brought momentum to the team's performance in the 2nd 10000 m heat. Osaka Keizai 3rd-ye...

  After finishing 15th at the Hakone Ekiden in January and dropping off the Hakone podium for the first time in 20 years, Toyo University  is on a comeback mission. At the May 4 National University Ekiden Qualifying Meet at Kanagawa's Lemon Gas Stadium Toyo finished 5th overall in 3:58:51.88, scoring a place at November's Nationals after missing out last time around. 3rd-year Shion Jinnai , who led the first of the qualifying meet's 4 heats of 10000 m, said, "Our theme this season is 'getting back to our roots.' We have a new captain and some great 1st-years, and we're going for top 3 at Hakone." Jinnai talked about some changes in the team since the disappointing last season, saying, "We're still doing the same group training, but we're also now putting more effort into individual activity out side of that, things like aerobic development outside the scheduled practices. We have team practices twice a day on weekdays when there are class...

The 37th Suffolkland Shibetsu Half Marathon took place July 21 in hot and sunny conditions. Patrick Kamau (Jobu University) won the men's race in 1:03:42, his third-straight Shibetsu win.. In 2nd place and the top Japanese position was Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.) in 1:04:47. Koki Yoshioka (Kyudenko) was 3rd in 1:05:09. In the women's race Kana Kobayashi (Otsuka Seiyaku) won in 1:14:01 by 48 seconds over Yuki Toyoda (Higo Ginko). The top member of Chuo Gakuin's ekiden team, Yoshida ran the competitive Second Stage at this year's Hakone Ekiden. Last year he ran the World University Games half marathon and was the fastest among the Japanese team at 1:02:08 for 4th, helping Japan score the team bronze medal. He has a half marathon PB of 1:00:31 and took 5th in the fast heat at last month's National University Ekiden qualifier. 37th Suffolkland Shibetsu Half Marathon Shibetsu, Hokkaido, 21 July 2024 complete results Men 1. Patrick Kamau (Jobu Univ.) - 1:03:...

Sunday is part two in the Big Three University Men's Ekiden series, the 8-stage, 106.8 km National University Men's Ekiden from Nagoya to Mie. TV Asahi has a 6-hour live broadcast, with English coverage on @JRNLive starting at 7:45 a.m. local time Sunday. Two-time national champ Komazawa University is riding high in its prep for a third-straight title, winning last month's season-opening Izumo Ekiden with a new course record to set itself up for a shot at a rare Big Three triple crown. Each of the three races has a different focus, Izumo's 7.51 km average stage length prioritizing 5000 m and 10000 m credentials, Nationals' 13.35 km average length shifting the balance toward the 10000 m to half marathon range, and Hakone's 21.7 km average pushing half marathon ability up front. Komazawa has it covered. The 8 fastest people on its Nationals roster have average PBs of 13:35.90 for 5000 m and 28:19.32 for 10000 m. None of the 26 other teams in the race are any...

Despite missing star 2nd-year Mebuki Suzuki , last year's national champion Komazawa University  pulled-off a late stage reversal to win a second-straight National University Men's Ekiden title by one of the tightest margins in the race's history.  First-year Shoji Sato  broke the course record on the opening leg by 2 seconds to put Komazawa out front, but a string of weak runs on the middle stages knocked it off the eight-deep podium. It took until the Sixth Stage for Komazawa's luck to turn around with 2nd-year Taiyo Yasuhara  taking them from 9th to 4th. That put #1 man Ren Tazawa  in position to take the lead by 18 seconds over the perpetually strong  Aoyama Gakuin University  with the fastest-ever time by a Japanese man on the stage, 50:36 for 17.6 km. AGU anchor Takayuki Iida  reeled in Komazawa's Yuki Hanao  midway through the 19.7 km stage, but instead of going by he tucked in. Hanao responded by gradually slowing down, saving ...

2021 Hakone Ekiden MVP Vincent Yegon  led Tokyo Kokusai University  to the win at the Kanto Region qualifier for November's National University Men's Ekiden Championships . Twenty schools competed Saturday at Kanagawa's Sagamihara Gion Stadium for the seven spots available at Nationals, every school fielding two runners in each of four heats of 10000 m and scored on the total time of its eight runners. TKU got off to a slow start, outside the top ten after the first race, up to 7th after the second heat with a 9-second margin over Surugadai University , and hanging on to 7th after the third race but seeing its margin drop to just over 2 seconds ahead of Nittai University . Nittai's  Tamaki Fujimoto  took the fourth heat out, but after just 800 m Yegon took over, leading almost the entire rest of the way on sub-28 pace. That burned off most of the competition up front, and with 1500 m to go it was down to Yegon, Hakone rival Philip Mulwa  (Soka Univ.) and Josep...

Ekiden season got off to a rocky start with the cancelation of high-level races like the Izumo Ekiden and East Japan Women's Ekiden. But with the Hakone Ekiden Qualifier and National Corporate Women's Ekiden Qualifier two weeks ago and last weekend's National University Women's Ekiden all going off without any corona-related problems, fears that the whole season would go the way of marathon season have pretty well calmed down. Tomorrow is the next big race, and it's one of the biggest, the National University Men's Ekiden . 25 of the top teams from across the national will compete over eight stages adding up to 106.8 km between Nagoya and Mie, the shortest leg the race's first at 9.5 km and the longest the 19.7 km anchor stage. TV Asahi will be broadcasting the whole thing live starting at 7:45 a.m. Sunday Japan time and running until 13:40. It doesn't look like there's an official live stream, but there are options like  mov3.co ,  iTVer , and  ...