japan running news

At Odori Park in central Sapporo, the start and finish point for the Tokyo Olympics women's and men's marathons held on Aug. 7 and 8, it was found that the number of people in the area of the park increased by over 10% during the marathons relative to the same time period a week earlier. Increasing as the end of the race neared, crowd size was 12.7% higher at the finish of the women's marathon on Aug. 7 and 10.3% higher at the finish of the men's marathon on Aug. 8.  The Mainichi Newspaper Corp. analyzed the data, which was collected by Agoop, a subsidiary of mobile phone service provider Softbank. Comparisons were made based on the average number of people present per hour within a 500 m radius of the Odori subway station. The women's marathon began at 6:00 a.m. on Aug. 7. Between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. 31,256 people were present in the area, but from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. that number increased to 35,248. After 8:00 a.m., when Kenyan Peres Jepchirchir  won the go...

A fire was discovered in Sapporo's Odori Park, start and finish point of the Tokyo Olympics women's and men's marathons. Smoke was seen coming from a stump in the park. Three days ago, another stump was found burning suspiciously in Nakajima Park near the marathon course's southernmost point.  Police received a call reporting the burning stump at around 10:00 a.m. on July 29. One of the people who helped put the fire out said, "The smoke was heavy and the fire wouldn't go out even when we poured water on it." Afterward the stump, located behind a public restroom in the Odori Park, appeared charred and blackened.  Several cigarette butts were found at the site, which is to host the Tokyo Olympic Games marathons on Aug. 7 and 8. On the evening of July 26 the other suspicious fire occurred outside the Hokkaido Prefectural Museum of Literature along the marathon course in Nakajima Park. A tree stump next to the sidewalk in front of the museum was found to be b...

At a July 6 meeting, the organizing committee of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games backed Hokkaido governor Naomichi Suzuki 's call last week for people to voluntarily refrain from coming to watch the Olympic marathon and race walk events in Sapporo next month. The requested is intended to reduce the risk of virus transmission by minimizing the number of people coming and going in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. The Olympic women's marathon takes place Aug. 7 from 7:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m., with the men's marathon on Aug. 8 from 7:00 a.m. to 9:40 a.m. The men's 20 km race walk runs from 4:30 p.m. to 6:05 p.m. on Aug. 5, with the men's 50 km walk on Aug. 6 from 5:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and the women's 20 km walk from 4:30 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. on Aug. 7. source article: https://hochi.news/articles/20210706-OHT1T51160.html translated and edited by Brett Larner

With regard to the issue of spectators at the Tokyo Olympics marathon and race walk events, at a road work and budgetary special committee meeting on July 1, Hokkaido governor Naomichi Suzuki  commented, "With a basic principle of asking people to refrain from watching along the course, we would like to seek guidance on effective safety measures (from the organizing committee)" . The Tokyo Olympics marathon and race walk competitions are scheduled to take place in central Sapporo, Hokkaido, from Aug. 5 to 8. source article: https://www.htb.co.jp/news/archives_12229.html translated by Brett Larner

https://www.podiumrunner.com/events/olympics/the-2021-olympic-marathon-course-everything-you-need-to-know/ An article I wrote for Podium Runner about the move of the Tokyo Olympics marathon course to Sapporo, its design process, and the layout of the new course. Features interviews with course designer and measurer David Katz , Olympic test event podium placers Hillary Kipkoech and Katharina Steinruck , and four-time Olympian Rob de Castella .

Last November, as a measure to combat the spread of the coronavirus Hokkaido University  issued a policy banning all student athletes belonging to the university's sports teams from taking part in competitions. Students at the university are now growing more vocal in their opposition to the decision, saying, "It's way too strict compared to other universities." Students are very upset that the May 5 Sapporo Marathon Festival Olympic marathon test event, which goes through the Hokkaido University campus and will include a mass-participation race, will go ahead, saying, "It makes no sense to let the Olympic test race happen on campus while at the same time banning all students from taking part in any competition." Student leaders will deliver a petition with 7,000 signatures on Apr. 7 demanding a relaxation of the ban on competing. "If you don't race against the top athletes in the country then you can't get your racing sense back," said a m...

The race committee for the Tokyo Oympics marathon and race walking events met last week in Sapporo. The courses for both events are undergoing fine-tuning to be officially certified by World Athletics. The planned test event for the marathon was also officially set for May 5 under the name Hokkaido Sapporo Marathon Festival 2021. There have been no major changes to the courses as measured in October. The marathon course will start at Odori Park and cover a roughly 20 km loop through the city of Sapporo before repeating two circuits of the loop's northern half, the only minor adjustment being a 46.67 m shift of the starting line.  Some of the turnaround points on the race walking course have had their radius increased from 4 m to 8 m, making for broader turns. With regard to the marathon test race, plans call for it to consist of an elite half marathon with 80 men and 80 women, as well as a mass-participation 10 km with a field of 2,500. As the half marathon covers almost the entir...

On Dec. 7 it was learned that the organizers of next summer's Tokyo Olympic Games are planning to stage a half marathon test race in Sapporo, site of the Olympic women's and men's marathons, on May 5 next year in order to give their operation of the event a dry run. Organizers are considering whether the event will be open to international entrants or mass-participation runners and plan to announce a final plan for the event before the end of the year. The Olympic marathon course starts at Sapporo's Ohori Park and covers a roughly 20 km loop before two more laps of the 10 km northern half of the longer loop. The first lap is approximately a half marathon in distance. source article: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/4180c5fa717d742f9b93ae11aa66f27823e5d1f7 translated by Brett Larner

Sapporo Beer, a division of Sapporo Holdings, Ltd., will begin selling its limited edition Sapporo Black Label Beer 2021 Hakone Ekiden commemorative can on Dec. 1 at stores nationwide and in its online shop. The can's design features the 21 tasuki of all 20 university teams scheduled to compete and the Kanto Student Alliance select team. The Hakone Ekiden began in the Taisho era, and in its 96 runnings to date it has grown to become a Japanese New Year tradition nationwide. For two days serious ekiden fans and casual viewers alike are captivated by the wholehearted running of 210 young men competing for the honor of their school colors and passing on the tasuki that embodies each of them's hard work, hopes and dreams. In honor of the Hakone Ekiden's 97th running, Sapporo will also present 97 people chosen by lottery with a special Sapporo Beer Commemorative Set. A proud sponsor of the Hakone Ekiden since 1987, in releasing this product alongside the race Sapporo hopes to c...

https://worldathletics.org/news/press-releases/heat-air-quality-conditions-sapporo-tokyo-oly

Pre-corona, today would have been the men's marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, originally in Tokyo, then bumped off to Sapporo. For the sake of completion, for the third year in a row I ran most of the Tokyo course at the time that the race would have happened, starting at 6:00 a.m., taking temperature and humidity measurements every 30 minutes, and finishing back at the Olympic Stadium at 8:15 a.m. around the time that many of the top men would have been coming in. Like last week's run at the original time of the women's marathon, conditions today wouldn't have been a problem for anyone who had done any kind of preparation to run a summertime marathon. Counter to the forecast, which predicted sunny skies the whole way, right before the schedule start time cloud cover rolled in over the city, helping to keep temperatures down. Humidity was high, but as per the forecast the temperature actually went down over the first 90 minutes. The humidity rose in relation to th...

One year before the Tokyo Olympics women's marathon, men's team member Yuma Hattori (26, Toyota) did a test run on the Olympic course in Sapporo. Hattori began at the Olympic marathon course's start point in Odori Park at 7:00 a.m., the same time the main event will kick off, looking focused, serious and silent. He seemed to concentrate on visualizing the event a year distant. After the run, in a telephone interview Hattori's coach Toshinobu Sato commented, "There are a lot of corners and a lot of tight, narrow spots. We'll have to take care about getting tripped up and falling, especially if it's a slow first half." Partway through the run Hattori's hat was blown off by strong winds caused by a cool low pressure system. "The weather is irregular," said Sato of the conditions in Sapporo. "If it's over 20˚C it'll be in the hot weather marathon category. It's not just the ordinary heat of midsummer. It's somethi...

Today was the original date of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics women's marathon, before the coronavirus hit, before the IOC moved the race to Sapporo. Two years ago I went out and did test runs on the course on Aug. 2 and Aug. 9 at the actual times that the women's and men's marathons were to have been run this year, taking temperature and humidity readings every half hour. Last year I did it three times, once on Aug. 2 , once on Aug. 5 with European marathon champion Koen Naert of Belgium, and again on Aug. 9 , all at the actual race time. It doesn't really matter any more, but for the sake of completion I decided to do it this year too. If a lot of things had gone differently and the world's marathon women had run the streets of Tokyo today, what kind of conditions would they have ended up actually facing? Only one way to find out. The picture at the top is the view down the marathon gate tunnel into the stadium right at the time the lead women would have b...

On July 16 Tokyo Olympics marathoner Yuma Hattori (Toyota) talked to media in Abashiri, Hokkaido about his plans for the remaining year before the Olympic Games. "I have a lot of room to develop," he said. "I want to improve both my ability and my competitiveness." Setting himself a high bar to clear before the main event, he said, "I want to do a marathon where I go for breaking 2:05:30." On the 15th Hattori ran a 10000 m PB of 27:56.32 at the Hokuren Distance Challenge meet in Abashiri. "After the race I was relieved that I did it, but if I'm satisfied with a time like this then I'll never medal," he said. His coach Toshinobu Sato indicated that in early August Hattori will do a test run on the Olympic marathon course in Sapporo. In the fall he will do another 10000 m, then a marathon, likely either the Fukuoka International Marathon or Tokyo Marathon. source article: https://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20200716/ath2007161447000...

If things had been different, the Tokyo Olympics would have been starting about a month from now. Due to the coronavirus crisis that's been postponed a year, but in Sapporo work on the marathon course continues to move forward. The roads around Sapporo's Odori Park where the world's top athletes are scheduled to run are being made smooth and clean. Since it began in April, road work on the Olympic marathon course in the city center has been done at night. The course starts at Odori Park. After following a 20 km loop through the city, runners will cover two more laps of the northern half of the loop. The focus of the work being done by the city's department of public works is to minimize the difference in height between manholes and the surrounding pavement in order to reduce the risk of runners falling. Project head Koji Achira commented, "As this is a marathon course our work is being done with great care to make sure there are no differences in height....

At a press conference in Sapporo on June 23, the organizing committee of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games announced plans to have the Olympic marathon course in Sapporo measured and certified before the end of the year. The announcement marked a return to preparation for the Olympics, which had been suspended due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The organizers also plan to stage a test event on the course next year at some point from March through May. Organizing committee executive Yoshiro Mori  commented, "Whether it will be a half or full marathon is still a topic for discussion." City officials have responded positively to requests for use of Ohori Park and other locations, and confirmed that road work on the marathon course is expected to be mostly completed in July this year. source article: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/5f32081ac224265b8564fa6bcb33e2088caa20b0 translated by Brett Larner

On Apr. 6 the city of Sapporo began road repair work on the courses to be used for the marathon and race walks at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021. The roads will be repaved to provide a smooth surface free of cracks and other irregularities that might interfere with the competition. The project's target completion date is mid-June. According to city officials, once the work is completed the new surface will last for a number of years, so there will no need to repeat the work again next year as a result of the Olympics' postponement. The marathon and race walks together utilize 12.1 km of city roads and other roads maintained by the city. Excluding some sections that were repaired within the last five years, a total of 9.4 km will receive resurfacing work. On Apr. 6 work began on scoring and repaving a section of road in the northern area of the city that will be used for the marathon course. source article: https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20200406-0...

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1092745/ioc-tokyo-2020-competition-schedule

If @Tokyo2020 is held outside peak summer months of July/Aug next year, do you want to see marathon and race walks stay in Sapporo or move back to original courses in Tokyo? もし東京五輪が来年7月・8月以外で開催されるとしたら、マラソンと競歩は札幌、元の東京、どちらがいい？ @joc — Japan Running News (@JRNHeadlines) March 25, 2020 On Mar. 27 Governor Yuriko Koike , 67, spoke to the media at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government offices and on a morning news program about the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. "This is heavily premised on the assumption that the novel coronavirus will be under containment. The Olympics were postponed due to the coronavirus problem to begin with, and naturally, a decision should be made only after solving it," she said, emphasizing the expectation that the virus situation will be resolved. Should the Olympics be rescheduled for spring, 2021 or another time outside the peak summer heat, the Governor also expressed her hope that the marathons and race walks would be staged in Tokyo as o...

JAAF director Mitsugi Ogata , 60, spoke to the media Mar. 19 following an executive board meeting in Tokyo. Amidst widespread fears of the spread of the novel coronavirus, Ogata told reporters that April's elite track and field schedule would go ahead as planned, saying, "At the present time we plan to stage everything on schedule so as not to cause inconvenience to our athletes." The JAAF is planning a major Tokyo Olympics test event at the new Olympic Stadium in May. Ogata indicated that this would also be held as planned, saying, "Because track and field is an outdoor event the situation is quite different from that of an indoor event. We have received advice from infectious disease experts and can ensure a reasonable degree of safety." With regard to whether the Olympic test event might be held without spectators Ogata said, "I cannot comment on that. At the present that is not something we are considering." He did, however, indicate that it wo...