japan running news

The mile isn't really a thing in Japan, especially on the roads, but it's starting to change a little bit. At Nike's new Ginza Mile road race, even in the middle of heavy rain the top 7 in the men's race all broke the national record of 4:00.02 set in March by Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.). Soma Nagahara (Juntendo Univ.) was first across the line to become the official new NR holder in 3:57.0, just beating Shunsuke Kuwata (Komazawa Univ.) by 0.3 in Kuwata's best race since the NYC Half in March. Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.) and Yuto Miyake (Chuo Univ.) were right behind in 3:57.9 and 3:58.1, and while there doesn't seem to be an official Taiwanese road mile NR it's pretty much a given that the 3:58.9 by Chien Tzu-Chieh (Chuo Univ.) for 5th was Taiwan's best-ever. Women's NR holder Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) easily won in 4:33.8, almost 2 seconds off her NR from 2023, with Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) 2nd in 4:36.87 and Ran Urabe ...

The organizers of the Dec. 18 30th anniversary National Junior High School Ekiden Championships have announced that the race will be broadcast live by BS NTV for the first time in the event's history. First held in Kumamoto in 1993, the National JHS Ekiden has been staged in Shiga, Yamaguchi and Chiba. But despite changes in its venue it has always hosted some of Japan's best future talent in the earliest years of their careers, including Olympians Yuriko Kobayashi and Ran Urabe , 4-time World Championships team member Kazuhiro Maeda , former half marathon and marathon NR holder Yuta Shitara and his twin brother Keita Shitara . NHK and commercial broadcasters have recorded the race for later showing, and last year it was broadcast live on Youtube. But thanks to the efforts of the Shiga T&F Association and sponsor companies this will be its first live TV broadcast. source article: https://www.rikujyokyogi.co.jp/archives/86945 translated by Brett Larner

In the morning session on day four of track and field competition at the Tokyo Olympics, Yuki Hashioka became the first Japanese man since the 1984 Los Angeles Games to make an Olympic long jump top eight. Having jumped 8.17 m in the qualifying round to rank 3rd in the final, Hashioka struggled to perform up to ability. making the top 8 cutoff after three jumps but failing to clear 8 m.  On his final jump he delivered a 8.10 m to place 6th, visibly disappointed but still the best Japanese men's Olympic performance in 37 years and 8 cm further than Junichi Usui 's bronze medal jump in Los Angeles. In the women's 1500 m heats, Nozomi Tanaka  shaved another sliver off her record to qualify for the semifinal in 4:02.33. Past national champion  Ran Urabe  ran a PB 4:07.90 but did not advance. In the evening session,  Ryuji Miura  was the lone Japanese man in the men's 3000 m steeplechase final in just his second serious international race, the first being his n...

The 2020 Queens Ekiden , the season-ending national championships race for Japan's corporate women, was about as good an example as you could ask for of why it takes an entire team to win a top-level ekiden, not just a couple of star runners. Princess Ekiden qualifying race winner Sekisui Kagaku hoped that the addition of middle distance national champion Ran Urabe and half marathon national record holder Hitomi Niiya to its roster would be enough to knock out defending champ Japan Post and take its first-ever national title. Over the first half of the six-stage, 42.195 km race things went according to plan, leading runner Sayaka Sato putting Sekisui Kagaku in 3rd, Urabe moving them up to 2nd, and Niiya delivering a 33:20 course record for the 10.9 km Third Stage, splitting 30:31 for 10 km en route, taking 1:10 off the CR and putting Sekisui 55 seconds out front. Japan Post stayed steady after losing the leading position that its first runner Ririka Hironaka had given it, st...

The 2020 National Corporate Track and Field Championships kicked off Friday in Kumagaya, Saitama on what will probably end up being the last hot day of the year. Defending junior women's 3000 m champ Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) had the performance of the day, exactly tying Kayoko Fukushi 's U20 national record with a negative split 8:52.80 to pick up a second title and move up to all-time Japanese #5 for the distance. Because she turns 20 in November Hironaka's mark won't make her the co-record holder, but as an 8-second improvement over her winning time last year it puts her in position to follow Fukushi as just the second woman under 15 minutes for 5000 m if she gets into the right race. Her first chance comes Sunday where she faces most of the contenders for the Tokyo Olympic team. A few of them turned up in the 10000 m A-heat where women-only marathon NR holder Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) took the race out around 31:30 pace, dueling with 30 km NR holder Honami Mae...

Even more than in Osaka , top-level Japanese athletes turned out in big numbers for the 83rd Tokyo Track and Field Championships , stretched out over a leisurely four-day schedule this weekend at Komazawa Stadium. Despite terrible weather conditions throughout the long weekend they brought new meet records in eighteen events, breaking some records that had stood for over 50 years. All three men's sprints saw new meet records. 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics men's 4x100 m relay silver medalist Aska Cambridge (Nike) ran a meet record 10.29 (+0.3) to win his 100 m opening heat, improved that to 10.26 (-0.3) to take his semifinal, then took the record further again with a 10.22 (-0.8) win in the final. Keigo Yasuda (Daito Bunka Univ.) tied the men's 200 m meet record at 20.97 (-1.0) to win the final. Daichi Inoue (Nihon Univ.) ran 46.81 to break the previous men's 400 m meet record of 47.05, set in 1996 before he was born. Men's middle distance also had new meet r...

Longtime Japan resident Rosemary Monica Wanjiru (Starts) turned in the run of the day at Wednesday's Hokuren Distance Challenge Abashiri meet in Hokkaido, soloing a world-leading 30:38.18 to win the women's 10000 m. In the very early going Wanjiru had company from Tokyo Olympic marathon team member Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal), but for most of the race she was completely on her own at a steady 3:03 to 3:04/1000 m. Wanjiru ended up just short of the 30:35.75 she ran for 4th at last fall's Doha World Championships, but her time bettered the world-leading time by almost a minute and took over 3 seconds off the Japanese all-comers' record of 30:41.85 set two years ago by Pauline Kamulu at the Hokuren Distance Challenge Fukagawa meet. Ichiyama, who ran 32:03.95 for 2nd in this year's Fukagawa meet six days ago, was 2nd again in a PB of 31:23.30 that also bettered the previous world-leading mark of 31:34.94 set by Fukagawa winner Honami Maeda (Tenmaya). Sayaka Sato (Se...

Over 50 Japanese and Japan-based athletes competed with support from JRN in this weekend's Brooklyn Mile Virtual Race , the first virtual race to offer prize money to top elite-level finishers. Athletes submitted GPS data for a one-mile run done anywhere in the world within the race's three-day window, with anyone who cleared times corresponding to specific VDOT levels for their age earning a share of prize money pooled from a percentage of entry fees. The remainder of the entry fees went toward COVID-19 relief in New York. Running in a four-man race in Setagaya, Tokyo, 2017 and 2018's 1500 m national champion and former indoor mile national record holder Ryoji Tatezawa (Yokohama DeNA RC) turned in the fastest time in the event, negative splitting a 4:01 in heavy rain. After missing most of 2019 with injury and somehow pulling it together for a course record win on the Hakone Ekiden's brutal downhill Sixth Stage in January, Tatezawa's run was a successful retur...

This weekend's Brooklyn Mile is being held as a virtual race from Friday through Sunday instead of its usual road mile format. There's no shortage of other races doing the same right now, but Brooklyn has done something unique by setting itself up with a prize money pool pulled from entry fees , with the remaining 80% going to COVID-19 relief charities. It's an innovative idea in which anyone can take part and that gives the faster end of each age group something to shoot for with funding from the mass participants. The current instability in the area leaves a question mark as to how many of those there will be. But on paper at least the potential is there for a very competitive three days, and with everyone around the world looking for ways to adapt racing to the current situation this looks like an approach worth supporting. Over forty elite-level Japanese middle and long-distance athletes, university, corporate league and pro, female and male, will be taking part wi...

Part two in a four-part series of half marathon national record holder Hitomi Niiya and coach Masato Yokota answering questions about her training . Part one here . Niiya:  I didn't think [the national record] would be that hard to break. All I thought about was 3:10/km. When I looked up what Kayoko Fukushi 's half marathon national record was it was 3:11/km pace. To get the record I had to go 3:10 pace. Up to 10 km that'd be no problem. The problem was after that. When I'd done a half marathon before my legs were dead in the second half. That worried me, but not the idea of going for the national record or anything in the training program. 10000 m is my specialty, and the pace there is 3:05/km. My coach suggested setting that pace, 74 seconds for a track 400 m, as the basic reference, no faster. That was the only point that was fixed, but while I didn't think it'd be easy I wasn't worried about stepping up the distance. Q.  Was setting that kind ...

After three straight weeks of road racing that included a half marathon national record , Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku) returned to the track alongside 2019 national champion Tomoka Kimura and teammate Yuka Takashima (both Shiseido) for a 5000 m at Australia's Melbourne Track Classic . Kimura collided with another runner at the start and never regained her composure, finishing 12th in 15:51.92. Takashima and Niiya went straight to the front, with Niiya's training partner Wakana Kabasawa (Keio Univ.) handling pacing duties in the early going. Once Kabasawa stepped off at 1000 m  Niiya took over, leading the rest of the way just off the pace she needed to break her 2012-era PB of 15:10.20. The leaders quickly boiled down to just her and Australians Jessica Hull and Genevieve Gregson . From 600 m out Hull kicked, going on to win unchallenged in 15:06.12. Niiya uncharacteristically dropped Gregson over the last lap, taking 2nd in 15:15.41 with Gregson 3rd in 15:20.60. Jen...

Japanese athletes were busy on the track overseas this weekend. At Friday's Stumptown Twilight meet in Portland, indoor mile Asian record holder  Nanami Arai (Honda) took 2nd in the men's 1500 m in 3:39.58, his second time this season breaking 3:40. It used to be a rarity to see a Japanese man clear 3:40, something that happened once every couple of years, but so far this season four Japanese men have done it a total of six times. If the distance had even a fraction of the prestige of the Hakone Ekiden, or of that it has in the U.S., there's no doubt there'd be more. Speaking of distances with prestige, on the first day of London's Muller Anniversary Games Diamond League spectacular Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) became the third Japanese man to join the sub-10 club, running 9.98 (+0.5 m/s) for 4th in the men's 100 m final. Koike also ran 2nd on the Japanese men's 4x100 m relay team, which clocked a season best 37.78 for 2nd despite featuring only two r...

Wednesday afternoon and evening saw the fourth meet in this year's five-part Hokuren Distance Challenge series, this time in the town of Kitami. The program included the little-raced 2000 m steeplechase as a tuneup for Monday's series-closing Abashiri meet, and in both the women's and men's races the national records went down. A top collegiate steepler while at Kyoto Sangyo University, Yui Yabuta (Otsuka Seiyaku) ran 6:27.74 to break the women's record. In the men's race 1500 m specialist Yasunari Kusu (Ami AC) surprised many by breaking the Japanese national record with a world-leading 5:31.82 despite little experience in the steeple. The women's 3000 m in Kitami was more explicitly set up as a national record attempt, with four of the ten fastest Japanese women ever over the distance lined up to gun for the great Kayoko Fukushi 's 8:44.40 record dating back to 2002. From the gun it was out at NR pace, with pacers Hellen Ekalale (Toyota Jidosho...

On the final day of the 2019 National Track and Field Championships Shunya Takayama (Zenrin) and Kensuke Izumiya (Juntendo Univ.) raced each other to a men's 110 m hurdles national record-tying 13.36. With one of the favorites, Taio Kanai (Mizuno) out after a false start in the semis, Takayama and Izumiya were side by side. In the middle of the heaviest rain of the day they went right to the line together. Izumiya looked as though he had it, but on review Takayama was timed at 13.354 and Izumiya at 13.356, both tying Takayama's national record on official time. Having cleared the Doha standard Takayama earned a place on the national team for this fall's Doha World Championships. The rain also impacted the women's and men's 200 m. Local collegian Mei Kodama (Fukuoka Univ.) won the women's 200 m in 23.80 (-0.4 m/s), a PB but on the slow side for a national championship. Favorite Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Univ. of Florida) fought off Yuki Koike (Sumitomo ...

Day two of the 2019 Japanese National Track and Field Championships saw heavy rain hit the roofless Hakatanomori Field midway through the desultory late afternoon schedule, impacting the men's javelin throw, women's pole vault and women's long jump and leaving the track slick for the evening's main events. Just before the first wave of rain struck, Haruka Kitaguchi (Nihon Univ.), the only woman in the javelin throw to have cleared the Doha World Championships standard, opened with a national championships record 62.68 m that pretty much wrapped up her win. On her fourth throw Kitaguchi extended the record to 63.68 m, her final winning mark and securing her a place in Doha. In the final round of throws Yuka Mori (Nikoniko Nori) unexpectedly bettered Kitaguchi's first-round record with a PB of 62.88 m as the first few drops began to fall. By the time the men's javelin got started it was a full on downpour, with race officials desperately trying to push a ...