japan running news

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...

The Aug. 31 Hokkaido Marathon elite fields are out. On the women's side, Japan-based Selly Chepyego Kaptich has a big advantage over the rest of the field in terms of PB, 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023 vs. nearest competitor Yuri Mitsune , 5th in Hokkaido last year and 2:29:04 in Nagoya this past spring. Last year's 3rd-placer Ayano Ikeuchi is back too, and with Kaena Takeyama and Yukari Nagatomo both right around 2:30-flat it should be a pretty good race for 2nd. On the men's side the top 2 by time, Yugo Kashiwa and Simon Kariuki , are only a second apart with Kashiwa 2:06:28 in Osaka this year and Kariuki 2:06:29 in Tokyo last year. 6 other men on the list have recent times between 2:07 and 2:09, with 2021 Tokyo Olympian Yuma Hattori a notable name among them. Hokkaido doesn't release its complete entry list in advance, so expect to see a lot more people in the lead packs in both races. And if there is the usual hot weather, expect both races to be about more than j...

a press release from the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon Selly Kaptich of Kenya will stand on the start line for the 39th edition of the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon as the fastest woman in the field. Her best of 2:21:09 could well be under threat on Sunday morning, given the reputation for Frankfurt’s fast course. Impressive though a reading of her career highlights is, including an early sign of talent with a gold medal for 3,000m at the World Junior Championships 21 years ago, what catches the eye is her ability to adapt to a different running and life culture in general, marked by her becoming a member of a Japanese corporate running club almost 20 years ago.  The 36-year-old has run eight marathons in her career so far with the personal best achieved in finishing third in Berlin three years ago. The year of 2019 was indeed a watershed for Kaptich as she firstly ran 2:23:53 to finish fourth in Paris, one of the prime spring marathons on the calendar, before running her best time to-...

by Brett Larner At last . Eight years after Osaka knocked her to the ground , age 33, her last chance for the Olympics before her, Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) finally threw aside the half-assed smirk, the waving, the smile, the shell of cool aloofness that has surrounded her in just about every race in memory, bearing down in a race that mattered, through halfway in 1:10:28 in a race where she had to run sub-2:22:30, wearing down the lead pack, alone after 30 km, no Eastern Europeans to steal the win and break her heart again , a gaunt, gritting, from the heart expression never before seen on her face as she came onto the track, gunning it when her coach lied to her and told her she was 5 seconds behind target, crossing the line in 2:22:17 and turning to check the clock before pumping her first in the air and shouting, "I DID IT!"  Longtime TV announcer and L.A. Olympian Akemi Masuda weeping on the air.  And crying too, Kayoko Fukushi, crying on the track.  Never s...

by Brett Larner Fresh off the suspension of its three-time defending champion Tetiana Shmyrko (Ukraine) for systematic cheating revealed through the biological passport system, the Osaka International Women’s Marathon ’s elite field features a small overseas field that passes muster with IAAF labeling requirements while keeping the Eastern contingent to a bare minimum.  Karolina Nadolska (Poland) returns to Osaka with the fastest recent non-Japanese time in the field, 2:26:31, leading 2014 World Half Marathon Championships bronze medalist Sally Kaptich Chepyego (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) and Seong Eun Kim (South Korea). More key is the domestic field competing for one of the two places still up for grabs on the Rio Olympic team. Half marathon national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal), elevated to the status of 2013 Osaka Women’s champ after Shmyrko’s defenestration, is poised to get the win for real this time as the clear favorite to find herself on the short list a...

by Brett Larner photos by @rikujolove 2013 winner and 2014 World Half Marathon Championships bronze medalist Sally Kaptich Chepyego (Team Kyudenko) returned to the Sanyo Ladies' Road Race half marathon today, breaking her own course record to win in 1:08:17.  A large pack of 15 including Chepyego, top-ranked Japanese women Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya), Michi Numata (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) and Misaki Kato (Team Kyudenko) and 2015 Marugame Half winner Eloise Wellings (Australia) went out conservatively just over 1:10 pace.  The pack shrank to 6 as Chepyego pushed the pace into 1:07 territory approaching 10 km, and with a surge early into the second half she was away.  Chepyego ran free to the end, cutting 7 seconds off her 2013 CR and finishing just outside the top 10 in the world this year. Ohara, already with sub-1:10 credentials to her name, was left chasing Chepyego alongside the debuting Pauline Kamulu (Team Route Inn Hotels).  When Kamulu struggled i...

by Brett Larner National championship ekiden season got off to a good start at Sunday's National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships , where two-time defending champion Team Denso led seven teams under the 2:16:12 course record it set last year on the way to its third-straight win with new records on four of the 42.195 km course's six stages. Denso's Yuki Mitsunobu led off, missing the First Stage record by 1 second as she handed off just behind Ayumi Sakaida (Team Daihatsu).  Denso's next two runners Naoko Koizumi and Yuka Takashima scored records on their stages to give their team a lead that was never broken despite new Fourth and Fifth Stage records by rivals Sally Chepyego (Team Kyudenko) and Risa Yokoe (Team Toyota Jidoshokki).  Denso anchor Nami Hashimoto was the only stage winner not to tie or set an individual record but her 21:26 for the 6.795 km Sixth Stage was more than enough to maintain Denso's lead of almost a minute over Toyota Ji...

http://www.sanyonews.jp/article/265824/1/ translated and edited by Brett Larner The elite field for the 34th Sanyo Women's Road Race on Dec. 23 was announced on Nov. 30.  The first selection race for next March's Cardiff World Half Marathon Championships in the U.K., Sanyo features world-class talent like 2014 Copenhagen World Half Marathon bronze medalist and Sanyo course record holder Sally Chepyego (Kenya/Team Kyudenko), 2015 Marugame Half Marathon winner Eloise Wellings (Australia), 2015 Beijing World Championships 10000 m runner Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) and more.  A large number of women aiming to make next year's Rio Olympic team will be lining up in the half marathon.  Alongside Ohara are 2014 Asian Games marathon 4th-placer Eri Hayakawa (Team Toto), 2014 World Half Marathon Championships team members Sayo Nomura (Team Daiichi Seimei) and Chieko Kido (Team Canon AC Kyushu), and rising young talent like 2015 Hokkaido Marathon winner Yui Okada (Team Ot...

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 The first big 10000 m on the Japanese track calendar, this weekend's Hyogo Relay Carnival is geared up to be a shot at World Championships entry standards and World University Games national team places.  The Grand Prix men's 10000 m features sub-27 world-level medalists Kenyans Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) and Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC) and four others with sub-27:30 bests to pull the top Japanese men along to clear the 27:45.00 Beijing standard.  The only man to do it so far, Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei) with a 27:38.99 last November in Hachioji, is not in the race, but two others who have cleared that time before, Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) and Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) are, along with young stars who have come close like Kenta Murayama (Team Asahi Kasei) and Keita Shitara (Team Konica Minolta).  Especially worth watching is Masato Kikuchi (Team Konica Minolta), who tied the 20 km national record earlier this year on the way...

by Brett Larner Two-time defending champion Tetiana Gamera ran a 2:22:09 Ukrainian national record to win a third-straight Osaka International Women's Marathon in the race's 34-year history.  Gamera went to the front heading out of the park around Osaka's Nagai Stadium and onto the roads before 5 km, challenged only by the last woman to win Osaka before her, 2012 champ Risa Shigetomo (Team Tenmaya).  In that race Shigetomo ran 2:23:23, more than 30 seconds up on Gamera's 2:23:58 best from her 2013 win, but without a sub-2:30 from Shigetomo since then the odds did not look to be in her favor. Shigetomo and Gamera pushed the pace to near 2:22-flat while a chase pack of eight led by 38-year-old Jelena Prokopcuka (Latvia) and 39-year-old Mari Ozaki (Team Noritz) ran closer to 2:24-25 pace.  With a sub-2:22:30 requirement for auto selection to the 2015 Beijing World Championships team Shigetomo and Gamera hit the half in 1:11:15, but at the 180' turn just after ...

by Brett Larner Last year the Tokyo Marathon expanded on its claim to legitimacy as a World Marathon Major with new course records of 2:05:42 and 2:22:23, alongside the London Marathon one of only two races in the world all year to have 9 men sub-2:09 and its grand total of 14 men sub-2:10 making it far and away the deepest race in the world in 2014.  But the absence of much big-name talent and Tokyo's lack of genuine international orientation meant not many people noticed or cared . Continuing to expand on its legitimacy, the Tokyo Marathon has partially remedied that by pulling in both quantity and some quality names for this year's race, especially on the men's side.  All told Tokyo features 21 men with bests from 2:03:02 to 2:09:30, the other spring World Marathon Majors Boston having 15 men from 2:03:38 to 2:09:37 and London 13 from 2:02:57 to 2:09:54.  Alongside last year's Tokyo course record-setting winner Dickson Chumba (Kenya) are Boston and New York Ci...

by Brett Larner A week after the National Women's Ekiden marked the end of the main women's championship ekiden season, 9 pro and university teams and 15 high school teams lined up for the 26th edition of the Kita-Kyushu Women's Ekiden , a 5-stage, 32.8 km race that features an 11.7 km anchor stage split into two for the high school runners.  Last year's winning anchor Misaki Kato got defending open division champion Kyudenko off to a good start with an 18-second lead on the 4.2 km First Stage, and after Kenyan Sally Chepyego was through with the 5.9 km Second Stage Kyudenko's lead was up to well over a minute, a margin they held for the rest of the race to take a second-straight win in 1:45:23. With a long streak of Kita-Kyushu wins behind it, defending H.S. division champion Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. got off to a slow start, 2nd among H.S. teams on the First Stage and more than 30 seconds behind Kato.  2014 National H.S. Ekiden champion Osaka Kunei Joshi Gaku...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20141214-1409007.html translated and edited by Brett Larner 26 teams ran the 34th edition of the 6-stage, 42.195 km National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships in cold and windy conditions Dec. 14 in Sendai, Miyagi.  The Denso team dominated, breaking its own course record in 2:16:12 to score its second-straight win, the first time that a team has defending its national title since Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo completed a hat trick in 2005. Denso started off slow, 29 seconds down from the lead in 12th after the First Stage.  Second Stage runner Naoko Koizumi celebrated her 22nd birthday by running the second-best time on the stage to move Denso up to 3rd.  Up against each team's best Japanese athlete on the Third Stage, Yuka Takashima , 26, ran down leaders Toyota Jidoshokki and Yamada Denki in stage record time to put Denso into the lead.  Takashima ran 34:40 for the 10.9 km stage to beat multiple n...

by Brett Larner video and photos by Ekiden News Second only to May's Prefontaine Classic, one of the world's few remaining ultra-deep 10000 m races went down Saturday in the misty mountains of Tokyo's western suburb of Hachioji at the Hachioji Long Distance Time Trials meet.  Japan-based Million Zewdie (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) ran a PB 27:36.35, the fastest time by an Ethiopian man in 2014, to lead 11 men sub-28 in one of the big tuneups for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships.  Right with him was Kenyan Bernard Kimani (Team Yakult) with a 27:36.60 PB for 2nd, while a few strides back Zewdie's teammate Kassa Mekashaw (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) added to the PB haul in 3rd in 27:38.93. The biggest news from the Japanese point of view came in 4th, where Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei), already the fastest Japanese collegiate ever with a 27:44.30 in the U.K. in 2011, ran 27:38.99 for 4th, all-time #5 in the Japanese record books a...

by Brett Larner Japan's track circuit was busier than usual this weekend with the move of the National Corporate Track and Field Championships from mid-September this year along with time trial meets nationwide as teams prepare for ekiden season.  At the Corporate Championships, Team Kyudenko 's Kenyan ringers Selly Chepyego Kaptich and Paul Tanui were the stars of the show, doubling with wins in the fastest heats of the 5000 m and 10000 m.  Chepyego, the Copenhagen World Half Marathon bronze medalist started things off on Friday night with a 31:38.54 win over Asian Games 10000 m bronze medalist Ayumi Hagiwara (Team Uniqlo), who ran a PB 31:41.80, the best time this year by a Japanese woman, to lead three Japanese women under the Beijing World Championships standard of 32:00.00.  Chepyego returned Sunday to win the 5000 m in 15:14.45 just ahead of ascendant first-year pro Ayuko Suzuki (Team JP Post) whose 15:14.96 was also the best this year by a Japanese woman....

by Brett Larner Alongside Bedan Karoki 's Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon course record , Murayama twins Kenta and Kota 's Kanto Regional University Championships 10000 m double victory and Yoshihide Kiryu 's 10.05 national university record , four of the six regional corporate leagues held their track and field championships over the weekend.  Moscow World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) fronted the corporate regionals' best race with a world-leading 27:16.75 to win the Kyushu region  men's 10000 m over the Koichi Morishita -coached Kenyan Jeremiah Karemi  (Team Toyota Kyushu), 2nd in 27:41.81, and Ethiopian Melaku Abera  (Team Kurosaki Harima), 3rd in 27:42.35. Four of the eight Japanese men to have run sub-2:10 marathons so far this year were also in the race,  Masato Imai  (Team Toyota Kyushu), 2nd in 2:09:30 at February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, topping the group 5th overall in 28:34.75.   Kohei Matsu...

by Brett Larner videoes by Ekiden News 2014 World Half Marathon Championships bronze medalist Sally Chepyego Kaptich  (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) returned to competition this weekend, dominating the women's Grand Prix 10000 m with a world-leading 31:28.07 just a few seconds off her best at the 62nd edition of the Hyogo Relay Carnival in Kobe. Ayumi Hagiwara (Team Uniqlo), one of the big hopes for the next generation of Japanese women, was next across the line in 31:50.85 just ahead of collegiate road 10 km national record holder Kasumi Nishihara  (Team Yamada Denki) who cleared 32 for the first time in 31:53.69.  2014 Marugame Half Marathon winner Eri Makikawa  (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) just missed making it four under the 32 minute mark, running a sizable PB of 32:00.25 for 4th.  19-year-old half marathon junior national record holder Reia Iwade  (Team Noritz) cleared her goal of a sub-32:30 debut, running 32:24.38 for 8th. Newcomer William Malel Sitonek ...