japan running news

by Brett Larner Tenmaya teammates Rei Ohara and Risa Shigetomo won today's Osaka Half Marathon and Osaka International Women's Marathon with dominating performances.  Ohara, the fastest female Japanese half marathoner of 2015 and second-fastest last year, took the half marathon out hard, splitting 15:58 for the first 5 km, 1:07:22 pace with a 1:08 target.  She faded steadily from there but held on to win by 52 seconds in 1:10:02, bettering her fastest time of 2016 by 2 seconds.  Having missed the Rio Olympic team by 1 second despite running 2:23:20 at last year's Nagoya Women's Marathon, Ohara will line up in Nagoya again in March in hopes of joining the London World Championships team. Her teammate Shigetomo was one step ahead in making that goal a reality.  A member of the 2012 London Olympics and 2015 Beijing World Championships marathon teams, Shigetomo won Osaka in 2012 in 2:23:23, still her PB, to make the London team, and was controversially added to ...

by Brett Larner click here for Day Two results and report The last major track meet of the year on the Japanese calendar, the National Corporate Track and Field Championships kicked off in near-secrecy on Sept. 25 at Gifu's Nagaragawa Field with the men's and women's 10000 m races.  Organizers hit back at the increasing number of fans turning up at their meets and sharing pictures and videos on social media with a ban on use of all cameras including phones unless owners registered with them in advance and paid a fee.  Most fans gave the meet a miss as a result, with relatively empty stands and lack of online chatter seeming to indicate success in organizers' attempts to prevent their work from becoming popular among the general public. Beijing World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) outran a solid field of Japan-resident Africans to win the men's A-heat in 27:37.13 six seconds ahead of runner-up James Mwangi (Team NTN).  Bernar...

by Brett Larner Japan's major mid-summer distance series, the Hokuren Distance Challenge kicked off later than usual this week with meets in the towns of Shibetsu and Fukagawa on the northern island of Hokkaido, where distance runners from high school to pro head in the summer to escape the heat and put in mileage for the fall ekiden season. At the series-opening Shibetsu Meet, the biggest news came in the men's 5000 m A-heat.  Last December Fukushima 10th-grader Hyuga Endo (Gakuho Ishikawa H.S.) exploded into the news with a 13:58.93, the fastest-ever 5000 m by a Japanese 16-year-old.  Now an 11th-grader but still 16 for another month, in Shibetsu Endo smashed his own record with a 13:50.51 PB to finish just behind 2014 Asian Games marathon silver medalist Kohei Matsumura (Team Mitsubishi HPS), the 9th-best time ever by a Japanese high schooler and 2nd-best by an under-18 Japanese runner.  Hilsawat Mamiyo Nuguse (Ethiopia/Team Yasukawa Denki), a newcomer to the Ja...

by Brett Larner videos by Ekiden News Nobeoka is Japan's twin to the United States' Eugene, an isolated mecca of the sport with intense local support driven by the legends of local greats.  Track Town U.S.A. Eugene has 1972 Olympics 5000 m 4th-placer Steve Prefontaine , while Athlete Support Town Nobeoka has twins Takeshi Soh , 4th in the 1976 Olympics marathon, and Shigeru Soh , whose 2:09:06 in 1978 was that time's fastest ever behind Australian Derek Clayton 's short-course world best.  Prefontaine died a rock star death to become a marketing icon for locally-originating global manufacturer Nike, while the Soh twins became the faces of locally-originating global manufacturer Asahi Kasei, first as athletes and then as coaches and staff members, their work in developing the Asahi Kasei corporate team, in creating and operating the Golden Games meet and in supporting children's programs and the local community helping make Asahi Kasei synonymous with distance run...