japan running news

The Gold Coast Marathon is always a big stop on the Japanese calendar, with both the men's and women's CR of 2:07:33 and 2:24:22 set by Japanese athletes in the last 2 years and 5 of the last 7 races won by Japanese men. 3 athletes on the entry list in both the women's and men's races have run faster than those times in the last 3 years, and with solid Japanese contingents there's a good chance of new CR. Almaz Kebede , 2022 winner Lindsay Flanagan and Antonina Kwambai have all run 2:23 since 2024 and have 2:25-level Japanese women Aika Murakami and Kaede Kawamura to deal with. The lack of jet lag for the Japanese tends to play in their favor relative to African athletes, so it should be at least a 5-way race up front. Vanessa Wilson is the top domestic entrant with a 2:28:34 in Berlin 2 years ago. 2:06 Kenyans Benson Tunyo , Dominic Ngeno and Elisha Rotich make up the front end of the men's field, with last year's 3rd-placer Ryoma Takeuchi and rece...

Australia's Gold Coast Marathon is back for its 45th running with title sponsorship from longtime partner ASICS. Two-time winner Rodah Tanui is the top name in the women's race with a 2:23:14 in Copenhagen two years ago, with her strongest competition coming from Olympian Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , who set a Mongolian NR of 2:26:32 in Tokyo last year. Zerihun Alemtsehay and Caroline Kilel both have recent sub-2:30 times, and debuting Ethiopian Tegest Ayalew looks to have a sub-2:30 in her too. Pacing is planned to be a 1:12:00 first half, an ambitious goal for pretty much everyone except maybe Tanui. Up front in the men's race are a solid trio of 2:07 runners made up of Ethiopians Gizealew Ayana and Japan-based Derese Workneh , and Kenyan Mathew Samperu . The top tier of Japanese men come in at the 2:08 level, including Mizuki Higashi , Yuki Takei , and Ryoma Takeuchi , a pacer at Gold Coast last year. Past winner Yuki Kawauchi has only run under 2:20 once in 2024 a...

photos © 2025 Victor Sailer/PhotoRun, all rights reserved It was a bit too cold and windy for really fast times and snow started falling over the last quarter of the race, but that didn't stop the top 4 men at the Osaka Marathon from going under the course record. A 1:02:29 first half kept at least 16 men together with the 2:04:56 Japanese national record in sight, among them NR holder Kengo Suzuki in what he hoped would be a comeback run. By 30 km in 1:28:56 the lead group was down to a dozen, still close to NR pace. At the turnaround point just past 30 km the motorcycle cops leading them too far past the turnaround cone, adding about 15 seconds that ended up burning 2 men worst. And just after that, the big uphill just after that really broke things up. Ethiopian trio Yihunilign Adane , Abdisa Tola and Getaneh Molla broke away after the hill, but with 2:05 in sight debuting sub-61 half marathoner Ryota Kondo and 2:06 man Kyohei Hosoya closed hard. 8 seconds back at 40 km, K...

The Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden is the only major championship ekiden that doesn't give podium placers auto-qualification for the next year, forcing corporate men's teams to run the regional qualifiers every November and impacting runners' ability to do a fall marathon. The Olympic marathon trials 3 weeks ago impacted the dynamic this time, as any team that had had someone at the Trials and finished its regional qualifier would make the New Year Ekiden regardless of whether it finished in the bracket. That didn't really come into play much at the Kyushu Region Corporate Ekiden in Fukuoka, where 7 of the 9 teams in contention for 8 qualifying spots had people at the Trials. Kurosaki Harima led start to finish, its lead duo Yusuke Tamura and Sitonik Kiprono both winning their stages to give the team a 31 second lead. Traditional power Asahi Kasei came on strong in the middle of the race with stage wins from Takashi Ichida and Ryo Saito and an excellent new CR of 31:18 fo...