japan running news

The organizers of the 38th Osaka International Women's Marathon have announced cancellations from Sunday's race. Mari Ozaki (Noritz) has withdrawn due to sciatic nerve pain, Shiho Takechi (Yamada Denki) with a stress fracture, and Maki Ashi (Kyudenko) and Rie Fujita (Kyocera) with Achilles tendon pain. From overseas, Merima Mohamed (Bahrain) has also withdrawn for reasons unspecified, to be replaced by Abebech Afework (Ethiopia), runner-up at the 2016 Amsterdam Marathon in 2:24:27. source article: https://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20190122/ath19012211020004-n1.html translated and edited by Brett Larner

by Brett Larner 【富士山女子駅伝】 立命館大学が3連覇達成！！ pic.twitter.com/KLGTRxDwgR — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) December 30, 2015 Despite coming up short of replicating its perfect win, six stage titles and the overall victory, at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden , two-time defending champion Ritsumeikan University 's dynasty proved unstoppable as it led start-to-finish to win the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national university title for the third year in a row. Having missed being part of the winning Morinomiyako team, Nanako Kanno , one half of Ritsumeikan's pair of top-level runners, led off with a 6-second lead on the steepest of the first four downhill stages, a lead that grew to 2:22 by the end of another strong run by second-year Kotona Ota , undefeated so far in her university ekiden career.  More dynamic racing happened further back in the field, where last year's runner-up Osaka Gakuin University , 4th-placer Meijo University and 5th-placer Matsuyama University exchanged pl...