japan running news

Having already eliminated its mass-participation field and over 90% of its staff and volunteers in a pre-emptive bid to stay ahead of the coronavirus situation, with just a couple of days to go the JAAF confirmed that Sunday's Tokyo Marathon would be a go. 24 hours later race director Tad Hayano kicked off the elite race press conference by talking about the difficult position the event is in but expressing optimism about the different races encapsulated in Sunday's marathon. They'll all be broadcast live in 117 countries around the world. A few words on each of them: Women's Wheelchair This was hit hardest by withdrawals, with seven of the ten women scheduled to compete pulling out including top three-ranked women Manuela Schar (Switzerland), Tatyana McFadden (U.S.A.) and Susannah Scaroni (U.S.A.). That leaves #4-ranked Tsubasa Kina (Japan) in the top spot and ready to take advantage of the wheelchair division prize money being doubled this year with addi...

Ethiopia is pretty far down the road to overtaking Kenya as the world's leading marathon nation, and its presence is heavy in both the women's and men's fields for the Olympic year 2020 Tokyo Marathon . Lacking London's star power the Tokyo fields won't win many nominations for best of 2020, but with loads of World Marathon Majors top three finishers and winners of next-tier gold label marathons they're still fields at a level most other races would love to be able to pull off. On the women's side, with PBs of 2:18:34 and 2:18:46 defending champ Ruti Aga and past winner Birhane Dibaba lead a main of twelve top-tier invited elites, of which nine were born in Ethiopia. The other three, Valary Jemeli Aiyabei , nationality transfer Lonah Chemtai Salpeter , and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , were all born in Kenya. With Tokyo not counting in last-chance Olympic qualification for Japanese women the top entrant from outside those two countries is Japan's Haru...

by Ryo Ota On Jan. 21 Tsuyoshi Ugachi (32, Konica Minolta) returned from the Jan. 19 Aramco Houston Half Marathon in Texas, U.S.A., where he paced Hitomi Niiya (31, Sekisui Kagaku) to the win in a 1:06:38 Japanese national record. Ugachi earned praise for his perfect pacing work, which pushed Niiya to take 48 seconds off the former national record of 1:07:26 set 14 years ago by Kayoko Fukushi (37, Wacoal). "Coach Yokota called me up and said, 'We'd really like it if you'd help her get the Japanese record,'" Ugachi said. "I've known Niiya since high school, so I think my name must have come up not just as someone who could set the pace but as someone who could give her a feeling of security and peace of mind to reduce stress during the race." Ugachi has been known for his pure guts racing since his days at Komazawa University , where he played a big role in its 2008 Hakone Ekiden win. He has spent the last ten years at the famed  Konica...

Kicking off the Olympic year in the third year of her comeback from retirement, 2007 Tokyo Marathon winner  Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku) ran a Japanese national record 1:06:38 to win the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in her American debut and first half marathon in 11 years. Running with support from JRN, Niiya brought her high school-era friend Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Konica Minolta), a 1:00:58 half marathoner, to pace her at an even 3:10/km, pace for 1:06:49 with room to spare under Kayoko Fukushi 's 2006 national record of 1:07:26. In cold and windy conditions the pair went out faster than planned, splitting 15:37 at 5 km and 31:10 at 10 km, 1:05:45 pace, leaving a field including 2019 Tokyo Marathon winner Ruti Aga (Ethiopia) and world all-time 6th-fastest half marathoner  Caroline Chepkoech Kipkirui (Kenya) behind. Rounding a turnaround into a long section headed straight into the wind the pace settled down to the planned level with a 15:52 from 10 to 15 km, leavi...

Headwinds in the last 6.5 km and cold rain throughout kept the really fast times from happening as scheduled, but the 2019 Tokyo Marathon  still brought plenty of surprises. #1-ranked Birhanu Legese (Ethiopia) winning the men's race wasn't one of them. The lead pack blasted most of the first half sub-2:04 pace, only breaking up after rounding the 20 km turnaround. Early casualties included last year's 4th-place Gideon Kipketer (Kenya) and Asian record holder El Hassan El Abbassi (Bahrain), but just after the turnaround national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) and 2018 Berlin Marathon 4th-placer Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) dropped back, Osako stopping shortly thereafter. The remaining six split into two trios. In the front group, defending champ Dickson Chumba (Kenya) fell back from Legese and Bedan Karoki (Kenya/DeNA) approaching 30 km before Legese took off after the final pacer said goodbye. On the way down to the 35.8 km turnaround Legese'...

The 2019 Tokyo Marathon is this Sunday. Storylines and subplots of this year’s race: The Women The Tokyo Marathon has its roots as an elite men-only race. It’s taken twelve years since 18-year-old Hitomi Niiya became its first female winner, for no prize money or recognition (“I got a nice finisher’s medal” she told JRN last week), for the Tokyo women’s race to get up to parity with the men’s. It’s been a slow, step-by-step process, but this year at last parity has been achieved. If anything the women’s field is better than the men’s. Even before the withdrawal of the top two men there were more high-level international women in the field than men, and that’s even more so now. Ethiopian power trio Ruti Aga , Boru Feyse Tadese and Yebrgual Melese all have the skills to better Sarah Chepchirchir ’s 2:19:47 course record and its likely replacement, last year’s 2:19:51 win by Birhane Dibaba , Aga talking 2:18:30 at the pre-race press conference. But with six other women in the f...

Hot on the heels of the London Marathon field announcement, the Tokyo Marathon has put its 2019 elite field into the public sphere. With a new date a week later on March 3rd thanks to the impending Imperial succession Tokyo has at last put together a proper elite women's field at parity with the men's field, one including top-level Japanese women for the first time. Change is slow to come, but with this field it looks like it has arrived. 2:18:34 for 2nd in Berlin last year, Ethiopian Ruti Aga leads 14 women with times 2:23 or better in the last 3 years. Half are Ethiopian, two Kenyan, two Bahraini and three Japanese, with two high-level first-timers, Kenya's Joan Chelimo Melly and Japan's Mao Ichiyama , tacked on. #2 through #4-ranked women Boru Feyse Tadese , Yebrgual Melese and Ababel Yeshaneh all ran 2:19 to 2:20 last year, making the chances of an Ethiopian sweep definitely greater than zero. The structure of Japanese national team selection and marketin...

This isn't going to be a race recap. Past Tokyo Marathon champs Dickson Chumba of Kenya and Birhane Dibaba of Ethiopia running smart races, working hard after 30 km to each score a second Tokyo title, Dibaba negative splitting her way to a 2:19:51 PB just 4 seconds off the course record and Chumba running away to win in 2:05:30. London World Championships bronze medalist Amy Cragg living up to her pre-race vow to make the top three in PB time, taking 3rd in 2:21:42. Cancer survivor Satoru Kasuya delivering his best performance since almost dying five years ago, an emotional 2:14:37 for 30th. What this is about is today, the day, the one that's been coming. Yuta Shitara getting it right, strong, unafraid, in control when he needed to be, finding what he needed when it counted, breaking the 16-year-old Japanese national record in 2:06:11 and winning a million dollar bonus for it. But not just him. Hiroto Inoue , just as strong, just as in control, never giving up e...

After stepping up to the big leagues last year with course records in the 2:03 and 2:19 range, the Tokyo Marathon hopes to go one better this year. Men's course record setter Wilson Kipsang (Kenya) is back, stepping up from a 2:03:50 prediction for Tokyo in January to a 2:02:50 world record prediction at Friday's pre-race press conference. In the unmentioned absence of women's course record breaker Sarah Chepchirchir the top-ranked woman is Ruti Aga (Ethiopia), coming in hot off a 1:06:39 win last month in Houston and turning heads at the press conference with a boldly mumbled 2:18:00 prediction. Management for both Kipsang and Aga were skeptical to JRN of their athletes' predictions, people from each camp saying times two minutes slower would be more likely, one minute slower in a best-case scenario. But whatever the prediction, Kipsang was clear to fellow past champs Feyisa Lilesa (Ethiopia) and Dickson Chumba (Kenya) about one thing: he wants a more conser...

A year after running the first-ever 2:03 on Japanese soil, Wilson Kipsang (Kenya) returns to lead the men's field for the 2018 edition of the Tokyo Marathon . Women's champion Sarah Chepchirchir (Kenya), who likewise pulled off the first 2:19 within Japan at last year's race, is nowhere to be found, but in her place are 2017 runner-up Birhane Dibaba (Ethiopia), sub-2:21 women Ruti Aga (Ethiopia) and Purity Cherotich Ronoripo (Kenya), 2016 Tokyo winner Helah Kiprop (Kenya), 2017 World Championships bronze medalist Amy Cragg (U.S.A.) and, in her debut, the great Meseret Defar (Ethiopia). The restructuring of the Japanese Olympic team selection process opened the door halfway for Japanese women to take part in Tokyo, where they have in the past been barred from national team selection. No top-level women seem to have taken the bait, however, leaving the home crowd, a collection of recently-reitred and developing corporate runners and upper-tier amateurs, one level...