japan running news

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...

2026 Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University held a press conference Apr. 4 at its Sagamihara campus announcing that it was adding a women's ekiden team to its track and field program. In its first year the team has only 2 members, Nodoka Ashida of Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. , and Kairi Ikeno of Suma Gakuen H.S . The team's head coach will be Susumu Hara , who coached the AGU men to their second Hakone threepeat this year and had a hand in the GMO corporate team's first-ever New Year Ekiden win. At the press conference he talked about the reasons for launching a women's team, and the harsh realities facing women's track and field. AGU is the undisputed leader in the evolution of the university men's ekiden circuit, but adding a women's team represents a new challenge. Hara cited 3 objectives in expanding the AGU program: "creating an environment where female athletes can balance competition and life events," "expanding the opportunities...

Hosts Japan swept the team titles and won 3 of the 4 individual titles at the 18th Asian Cross Country Championships Saturday in Fukuoka. With the Asian XC races integrated into the National Cross Country Championships the winners of 3 of the main races saw Japanese winners who weren't part of Asian XC scoring, starting off with the U20 Women's 6 km. China 's Jinhua Hu did a lot of the work up front to pull the lead quartet along and was rewarded with the only individual Asian XC title not won by Japan. But in the last km she fell victim to Nami Kawakami , winner of the 1st leg for 2025 National High School Ekiden champion Nagano Higashi H.S. , who outkicked Hu for the overall win and national title in 19:51. Nodoka Ashida was 3rd overall in 19:55, with Yui Onotora and Mona Utsunomiya taking 2nd and 3rd in the Asian XC placing. Japan took the team title over China, with India winning bronze. Yudai Fujii finished strong to win the U20 men's 8 km national title, ou...

The last big women's race of championship ekiden season, the Kitakyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden saw 8 corporate teams square off against 19 of the top high school teams in the country over a 27.2 km race. For corporate leaguers that was divided into 5 legs, with the final leg, 10.4 km, split into two legs for the high school teams. Kairi Ikeno put National High School Ekiden 8th-placer Suma Gakuen H.S. out front on the 5.3 km First Stage, missing the CR by 2 seconds in 16:51. Only 17th at the Queens Ekiden corporate national championships, Kyocera was 5 seconds out front by the end of the 3.8 km Second Stage, but that didn't last long when Yume Yabutani ran a 12:35 CR on the 3.9 km Third Stage to put National High School Ekiden runner-up Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. in the overall lead by 23 seconds. That lead stayed exactly the same over the 3.8 km Fourth Stage, while from behind Denso , which had failed to qualify for the Queens Ekiden, closed to 15 seconds b...

The Osaka team took its 5th national title Sunday at the 9-stage, 42.195 km National Women's Ekiden in Kyoto over Hyogo and Nagano . Nagano's Haruna Tabata opened a 5-second lead on the 6.0 km First Stage, the first time a high schooler had won the opening leg since Ririka Hironaka in 2019. With that momentum Nagano held the lead through the first 6 stages. But a change came on the 4.0 km Seventh Stage. Starting 19 seconds back in 3rd, Osaka's Rio Kawamura put in a brilliant run to overtake both Hyogo and Nagano, handing off with a 16-second lead by the end of the stage. Hyogo went past Osaka on the 3.0 km Eighth Stage to take the top position for the first time, but with only a 5-second gap at the start of the 10.0 km Ninth Stage it came down to a battle between Hyogo anchor Rio Einaga and Osaka's Ayu Henmi . After catching up Henmi stayed locked to Einaga throughout the stage before kicking just past 1 km to go and running away to break the finish line tape in ...

The 2025 National Sports Festival wrapped Tuesday with a short day of only 5 races. Kain Inagaki (Rakunan H.S.) won a good junior men's 3000 m , out kicking Toa Fujita (Toyokawa H.S.) by less than 2 seconds for 1st 8:11.75 to 8:13.95. The junior women's 3000 m was even better, as Nodoka Ashida (Ritsumeikan Uji H.S.) held off a chase pack of 5 to win in 9:02.90. Nami Kawakami (Nagano Higashi H.S.) was 2nd in 9:04.22, with 3rd through 6th place all within 0.90 seconds of her. With NR holder Ko Ochiai having opted for the senior race, the junior men's 800 m wasn't especially fast. Felix Muthiani (Yamanashi Gakuin H.S.) had an easy win over Rakunan's Atsuki Watanabe , running 1:48.65 to Watanabe's 1:49.23. Ayano Shiomi (Iwatani Sangyo) dominated in the senior women's 800 m , winning in 2:02.56. The mixed 4x400 m relay was a lot of fun, with the top 3 teams all within 0.18 and all 3 breaking the meet record. Featuring Osuke Hasegawa , Riko Ono , Akira ...

Host team Kyoto was back on top at Sunday's National Women's Ekiden , taking the lead on the 2nd of the 42.195 km race's 9 legs and rolling on to win its 19th national title in the event's 43-year history in 2:15:26 with 4 individual stage wins. Kyoto's lead runner Kokoro Nakachi was only 3 seconds behind First Stage winner Erika Tanoura of Chiba , and it didn't take much for its next runner Yua Sato to move into the top spot by 3 seconds. That lead grew to 50 seconds at the end of the Fifth Stage before a stage-winning run from Nagano 's Nami Kawakami on the Sixth Stage cut it back to 33 seconds. But driven by stage wins from 7th runner Momoka Onishi and anchor Kaede Kawamura , from there to the end Kyoto pulled away to its final margin of victory of 2:26. Nagano and Osaka were locked in a duel for 2nd for most of the way, but with only 3 km to go on the 10.0 km anchor stage Fukuoka and early leader Chiba caught up to make it a four-way race. Nagano...