japan running news

Already Japan's third-fastest high schooler ever over 3000 m, 16-year-old Keita Sato  (Rakunan H.S.) took another 5 seconds off his best with a 8:00.09 win at Saturday's Kyoto Time Trials meet. A second-year at Rakunan and set to turn 17 later this week, Sato bettered the U18 national record held by Hyuga Endo by almost two seconds, moved up to #2 behind Endo on the all-time high school rankings, and to #3 on the U20 list behind Endo and Athens Olympian Ryuji Ono . Post-race he tweeted, "One step away from 7 minutes! So disappointing. I don't know when the next time I can race is but 7 minutes is definitely coming!" 3000m→8'00"09 7分台まであと一歩だったのでめちゃくちゃ悔しいです😭次はいつ走れるか分かりませんが絶対に7分台出します！ pic.twitter.com/d1y9ClJ5Mp — 佐藤圭汰 (@0rx2k) January 17, 2021 © 2021 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

by Brett Larner Former Sera H.S. standout Charles Ndirangu  (Kenya/Team JFE Steel) continued his second pro season with a win in the Nobeoka Time Trials 10000 m A-heat May 3 in Nobeoka, leading Athens Olympian Ryuji Ono  (Team Asahi Kasei) across the line in 28:56.04.  Asahi Kasei runners made up the major part of the field, taking 7 of the top 10 positions.  Other notables in the race included 2008 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon winner Tomoya Adachi  (Team Asahi Kasei) and 2012 Ohtawara Marathon winner Ryoichi Matsuo  (Team Asahi Kasei). Nobeoka Time Trials Nobeoka, May 3 click here for complete results Men's 10000 m Heat 2 1. Charles Ndirangu (Kenya/Team JFE Steel) - 28:56.04 2. Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei) - 28:56.04 3. Satoru Sasaki (Team Asahi Kasei) - 29:10.14 4. Yoshikazu Kawazoe (Team Asahi Kasei) - 29:21.53 5. Taiki Yoshimura (Ryutzu Keizai Univ.) - 28:28.99 6. Atsushi Ikawa (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 29:30.17 7. Takahiro Mori (Team Asahi...

http://mainichi.jp/sports/news/20121124k0000m050028000c.html http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2012/11/24/kiji/K20121124004624680.html translated and edited by Brett Larner For the third year in a row Team Asahi Kasei  won the seven stage, 78.8 km Kyushu Corporate Men's Ekiden, dominating the race's 49th edition on Nov. 23.  With Olympian Ryuji Ono  taking the lead on the Third Stage with a stage best run, anchor Takuya Fukatsu  setting a new stage record and every team member finishing in the top four on time on their stage, there was little question of the team securing its 42nd win in the event's history. Team Yasukawa Denki  presented a challenge in the early going with Hiroki Kubota running the fastest time on the Second Stage, but anchor Kentaro Nakamoto , the London Olympics marathon 6th placer, faded and could not maintain position.   Team Toyota Kyushu  started slow, only getting into the game with a stage best run by ace Masato Im...

http://www.47news.jp/CN/201102/CN2011021301000297.html http://www.saga-s.co.jp/news/saga.0.1825468.article.html translated and edited by Brett Larner At the 51st Karatsu 10 Mile Road Race , Feb. 13 in Karatsu, Saga, Yuki Iwamoto (Team Mazda) ran 47:20 to take his first win at the race. Known as the "God of the Mountain" during his Hakone Ekiden days at Juntendo University, Masato Imai (Team Toyota Kyushu) was 3rd, while 2004 Athens Olympics 10000 m runner and 2008 Karatsu winner Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei) finished only 26th. In the women's 10 km, Fumiko Hashimoto (Team Shimamura) won in 33:18, while Athens Olympics marathon 7th placer Naoko Sakamoto (Team Tenmaya) finished 18th. Akira Iwasaki (Tosu Kogyo H.S.) won the high school boys' 10 km in a PB of 30:04, while Sayaka Nishimura (Kawatana H.S.) won the high school girls' 5 km in 17:18. 2011 Karatsu 10-Mile Road Race click here for complete results Men's 10 Miles 1. Yuki Iwamoto (Team Mazda) - 47:20...

by Brett Larner With 8 individual day wins and 37 single-stage victories, Miyazaki prefecture easily took down defending champion Fukuoka prefecture to win the 10-day, 72-stage, 1056.6 Kyushu Isshu Ekiden . The Tour de France of Japanese distance running, the Kyushu Isshu Ekiden consists of one loop of the coast of Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu beginning in Nagasaki, heading south, turning and heading north through Miyazaki, and ending in Fukuoka. Miyazaki's team was made up almost entirely of runners from the Asahi Kasei corporate team based in the prefecture. 2010 World Half Marathon 9th placer Tomoya Onishi led the way, winning all three of his stages including a sizzling 43:55 stage record for the 15.3 km Day Three Fourth Stage. First-year Asahi Kasei member Takuya Fukatsu also won all his stages, as did veteran marathoner Tomoyuki Sato , 2009 World Championships 10000 m runner Yuki Iwai and the solid Satoru Sasaki . Olympian Ryuji Ono , out for the entire y...

by Brett Larner The first race of the year kicks off just hours into the first day: the Japanese corporate men's national championship New Year Ekiden . 100 km split into seven stages, the New Year Ekiden is broadcast live nationwide. Now in its 54th year, it has become the main focus of the year for professional Japanese men, with October and November's regional qualifying ekidens taking the place of a fall marathon and, this year, the drive to promote team sponsors pushing the New Year Ekiden ahead of the great Fukuoka International Marathon. Questionable as this may be, the New Year Ekiden is where you see the peak performances happening. On the ekiden's longest leg, the 22.3 km Fourth Stage on the current course, top men such as Keita Akiba (Team Komori Corp.), Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica Minolta) and Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) have run times equivalent to a sub-hour half marathon, well ahead of the official national record. You rarely see the big Japanese n...

by Brett Larner There’s no getting around the hard facts: 2009 was one of the worst years in the modern history of Japanese men’s marathoning. In a time when the world standard has undergone remarkable improvement with the ten fastest times of the year under 2:06 for the first time, Japanese men took a large step backwards. Only one Japanese man, Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku), broke 2:10 this year, the first time this has happened since 1996. The average of the top ten Japanese times of the year, 2:11:21, was also the slowest since 1996. Relative to the world top ten average, 2:05:13, the year was Japan’s worst-ever. To be fair, Japan did manage to take the team bronze medal at the Berlin World Championships, and all three of this year’s major Japanese spring marathons suffered windy conditions, in the case of March’s Tokyo Marathon verging on the extreme. There have also been troughs in the record before when the aging stars of one generation pass their prime before the next h...

by Brett Larner Sunday's Fukuoka International Marathon isn't the only major race happening on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu that day. Across the island in Kumamoto is the 34th Kumamoto Kosa 10 Mile Road Race . What the Ageo City Half Marathon is to half marathons, Kumamoto Kosa is to 10-milers: the deepest, toughest in the world . Where Ageo sees university men lining up by the hundreds to prove to their coaches that they are worthy of running in the Hakone Ekiden, Japan's corporate jitsugyodan runners do Kumamoto Kosa as a selection and tune-up race for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden national championships. Almost everybody who's not running Fukuoka is on the starting line. It's a Japanese-only time trial, thank you very much, as foreign runners are politely given a one-minute head start and scored in a separate "International Division" even though all are based in Japan and run for the same teams as the Japanese runners. Looking at the...

by Brett Larner The fifth meet in the 2009 Hokuren Distance Challenge series took place July 15 in Kitami, Hokkaido, producing three significant results. 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) continued his winning streak, taking the men's 3000 m. His time of 8:09.03 was 12 seconds off his best but the win showed that Ueno is maintaining his competitive edge as he trains in Hokkaido for the World Championships 5000 m. In the women's 5000 m Kenyans Doricah Obare (Team Hitachi) and Christine Muyanga (Team Panasonic) went 1-2 with Obare on top in 15:42.36. The surprise came in 3rd place, as World Championships marathon team member Yoshiko Fujinaga (Team Shiseido) came in just a step behind Muyanga. Earlier in the season Fujinaga had said she wanted to focus on her speed during the track season. While her earlier results had been unimpressive, her run in Kitami suggests she is rounding into form in time to peak in Berlin. The men's 5000 m featured thre...

http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=spo_30&k=2009071100344 translated by Brett Larner At the fourth meet in the Hokuren Distance Challenge series, the July 11 Kushiro meet, Athens Olympian Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei) took the men's 10000 m in 28:27.20. Satoshi Irifune (Team Kanebo), who will run the marathon at August's World Championships in Berlin, was 9th in 28:38.44. Kenyan Doricah Obare (Team Hitachi) won the women's 3000 m in 9:03.32, with Berlin World Championships 5000 m runner Yurika Nakamura (Team Tenmaya) 3rd in 9:11.32. 2009 Hokuren Distance Challenge Kushiro Meet - Top Finishers click here for complete results Men's 10000 m A-heat 1. Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei) - 28:27.20 2. Ryo Yamamoto (Team Sagawa Express) - 28:29.67 3. Takuya Noguchi (Nittai Univ.) - 28:30.06 4. Tsuyoshi Makabe (Team Kanebo) - 28:31.16 5. Michael Gichinji (Aomori Yamada H.S.) - 28:32.40 6. Daisuke Matsufuji (Team Kanebo) - 28:33.12 7. Kazuya Deguchi (Nittai Univ.) - 28:3...

by Brett Larner Six days after completing a rare quadruple with an 800 m meet record at the Kanto Regional University Track and Field Championships, fourth year Daniel Gitau (Nihon Univ.) took down Japanese 1500 m national record holder Fumikazu Kobayashi (Team NTN) with a PB and meet record 3:37.96 in the men's 1500 m at the May 30 Golden Games in Nobeoka . Heavy rain throughout the meet dashed hopes for a new Japanese national record-level performance, but although he missed his own record mark of 3:37.40 Kobayashi's time of 3:38.80 was one of his best since setting the record in 2004. Other noteworthy marks came in the ten heats of the men's 5000 m. The fastest times came in the E-heat, where Micah Njeru (Team Toyota Boshoku) ran 13:22.20, a PB by 0.07 over his time from last year's Golden Games, to take down John Thuo (Team Toyota) for the win by just over a second. Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) continued his return to form after a year of serious illness in 2008, ru...

by Brett Larner Running in heavy rain, Ethiopian 3000 m SC national record holder Yacob Jarso (Team Honda) overcame Kenyan rivals Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) on the last lap in a close three-way finish while university student Mary Wangari Wanjohi (Ritsumeikan AP Univ.) ran a solo race ahead of the field of professional women in the main events of the 2009 Kanaguri Memorial Track and Field Meet, the men's and women's elite 5000 m. The top Japanese competitors in each race, Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) and Yuriko Kobayashi (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) were regrettably absent, leaving the top Japanese positions to Athens Olympian Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei), 4th in the men's race, and #1-ranked university star Kazue Kojima (Ritsumeikan Univ.), 3rd in the women's race. As expected, the men's 5000 m was a battle between Jarso, Ngatuny and Ndamibiri, who together ran under the 8 km road world record during January's...

by Brett Larner The Japanese track season gets underway Apr. 4 in Kagoshima with the 2009 Kanaguri Memorial Track and Field Meet . Named after the ' Father of Japanese Marathoning ,' Shizo Kanaguri , the meet includes events from 4 x 100 m to 5000 m with divisions ranging from elementary school students to professionals and is the first event of the 2009-2010 academic and fiscal year, meaning many athletes will be making their debuts in new uniforms. The highlights are the elite men's and women's 5000 m. The entry list for the elite men's 5000 m promises an exciting race. It's unlikely all the major protagonists will start, but if even half of the big names appear it will be a fantastic matchup. Lining up on one side are the three African runners who ran each other under the 8 km road world record in January's New Year Ekiden, Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.), Yacob Jarso (Team Honda) and Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin). All three are on an improv...

http://kumanichi.com/news/local/main/20090222003.shtml http://www.hokkaido-np.co.jp/news/sports/148677.html http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nsp/item/78969 translated and edited by Brett Larner At the Rikuren-certified Kinaguri Memorial Kumanichi 30 km Road Race in Kumamoto, Kyushu on Feb. 22, Yu Mitsuya of Team Toyota Kyushu, was victorious in his debut at the distance, winning in a time of 1:29:55. Enduring a slow first 10 km in 30:08, Mitsuya ran in the lead pack until 22 km where he attacked with a strong spurt. He broke away from pursuer Yoshinori Oda of Team Toyota just before 27 km and ran alone to the finish in a successful test run for his planned marathon debut next season. "My legs got pretty heavy after 28 km," Mitsuya said afterwards. "I've gotta train more." Having won his own debut marathon at the 1991 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon to qualify for the Barcelona Olympics where he won the silver medal, Mitsuya's coach Koichi Morishita gave him passin...

http://kumanichi.com/fsports/30km/2009/tokushu/kiji01.shtml#01 translated by Brett Larner "I think for me the marathon starts right here," says Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei) of his 30 km debut at the Feb. 22 Kumanichi 30 km Road Race . "I want to see how close I can get to my target, to run the kind of time I'm shooting for." The race is a test run for his marathon debut next season, a long-term preview of his plans to run the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics. Ono's goal in Kumanichi is the course and world record of 1:28:00, held by Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica Minolta). "Last year at the Olympic Trials 10000 m I lost to Matsumiya and didn't get to go to Beijing. If I can break his record then it'll be worth as much as beating the guy himself," he grins, his youth showing in his brash words. After starting the year off strong by winning the New Year Ekiden's first stage Ono's condition went downhill, but since then he has rec...

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/090217/oth0902170859002-n1.htm translated and edited by Brett Larner "I came to Kyushu because I want to run the marathon. Now we're getting close," says Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu). A runner with 5000 m and 10000 m World Championships experience, at age 24 Mitsuya has begun his move up to the marathon. Mitsuya is scheduled to run the Feb. 22 Kumanichi 30 km Road Race in Kumamoto, Kyushu. "If I run well then the marathon is next," he says, hoping that the 30 km race will give him insight into the marathon's 42.195 km. Giving him added motivation is the fact that Athens Olympics 5000 m runner Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei), also 24, will likewise run Kumanichi. Mitsuya is coached by Barcelona Olympics silver medalist Koichi Morishita, who guided Beijing Olympics marathon gold medalist Samuel Wanjiru through his transition to the marathon. Morishita looked towards their plans for the next three years, saying, "Yu do...

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nsp/item/76204 translated by Brett Larner Photo courtesy of Rikuren. Long distance track ace Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) won the 49th Karatsu 10 Mile Road Race on Feb. 8 with the kind of finish Japanese marathon fans love to see. Entering the stadium with just 300 m left to go on the track, Mitsuya outkicked Kenyan leader and 2007 Karatsu winner Silas Jui (Team Nissan) to win by 6 seconds after dueling over the last 6 km of the race. Mitsuya raised his hands triumphantly as he broke the finish tape, smashing through the first gate on the road to his debut marathon. "I think Silas had a cold or something, but we'll see each other again in the [Kumanichi] 30 km race. That's where I really want to win," a sweaty Mitsuya commented afterwards, looking toward his first 30 km race with eager eyes. This 10 mile race and the Feb. 22 Kumanichi 30 km Road Race are part of his development plan for a planned marathon debut next year, a series of t...

by Brett Larner Team Fujitsu anchor Ryuji Matsushita won a spectacular three-way sprint finish over Team Nissin Shokuhin's Yuzo Onishi and Team Asahi Kasei's Tomoya Adachi to bring Fujitsu home in 4:51:55 to its first New Year Ekiden win in ten years on a windy Jan. 1 morning in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. Both Nissin Shokuhin and Asahi Kasei clocked 4:51:56, with Matsushita a step ahead and Onishi outleaning Adachi at the line. Team Fujitsu ran in the second pack for the first three of the 100 km ekiden's seven stages. Former marathon national record holder Atsushi Fujita started the 22.3 km fourth stage in 4th place, passing all three runners ahead of him but being outkicked by one second by Team Komori Corp.'s Keita Akiba. Akiba clocked the stage-best performance in 1:03:04, with Fujita taking a creditable stage-3rd best, putting Team Fujitsu in 2nd place. Team Fujitsu's 5th stage runner Takayuki Ota likewise clocked a stage-3rd best, running 47:42 for the uphil...

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/movie/20081109/20081109_0001.shtml translated and edited by Brett Larner Click here for video highlights of each prefectural team's finish. The 57th Nishi Nihon Interprefectural Kyushu Isshu Ekiden , a 10 day, 72 stage, 1056.2 km competition around the edge of Japan's southernmost main island, wrapped up on Nov. 9 with the Fukuoka Prefectural team taking its 4th consecutive victory. At the end of the previous day Fukuoka was ahead of rival Miyazaki Prefecture in cumulative time and had won 7 of the 9 individual day titles. Fukuoka led the final day for the first of its 7 stages totalling 98.1 km, but Miyazaki ran all out to take the daily lead away, holding down 1st place for the 2nd through 6th stages. Only on the 7th stage did Fukuoka come back to retake the lead, coming to the finish in front of Fukuoka's Nishi Nihon Newspaper Group Head Office in the top spot to tie up 8 of the 10 day victory titles. Fukuoka won its 4th consecutive overall...

by Brett Larner Ryuji Ono`s dream of running in his second Olympic 10000 m came to an end on July 16 with his 2nd place 27:54.28 finish in the Hokuren Distance Challenge Kushiro Meet in Kushiro, Hokkaido. Ono, who runs for Team Asahi Kasei, made the 2004 Athens Olympics 10000 m as an 18 year old high school student. Since mid-May he had come frustratingly close to clearing the Beijing Olympics A-standard three times, running 27:56.86 on May 17, 27:53.19 on June 1st, and 27:55.16 at the National Track and Field Championships on June 26. Team Konica-Minolta`s Takayuki Matsumiya won Nationals and held an A-standard time, meaning that Kushiro represented Ono`s last chance of qualifying in advance of the July 23rd deadline to make the Japanese team. Once again he came up short, finishing just behind winner Nicholas Kamau of Team JAL Ground Service. Other notable results included women`s 1500 m national record holder and Beijing Olympics women`s 5000 m team member Yuriko Kobayashi`s victory ...