japan running news

by Brett Larner In its third appearance at France's DecaNation Japan turned in its best team performance to date, placing 4th out of 6 teams.   Tomoka Kimura (Team Univ. Ent.) led the way in the women's 2000 m, taking over 6 seconds off the rarely-challenged national record with a 5:47.17 for 2nd, the best placing among any of the ten women on the team.  Her counterpart on the men's squad Masaki Toda (Team Nissin Shokuhin) went one better to win the men's 2000 m in 5:14.39.  Rio Olympian and 2016 national champion Julian Walsh (Toyo Univ.) likewise won the men's 400 m, running 46.09.  Five other men including Walsh's Toyo and Rio teammate Yoshihide Kiryu took 2nd in their events, coming ten points short overall of overtaking Ukraine to make the team podium. DecaNation 2016 Paris, France, 9/13/16 click here for detailed results Women 100 m - Ami Saito (Kurashiki Chuo H.S.) - 11.89 (-0.4 m/s) - 3rd 400 m - Seika Aoyama (Osaka Seikei Univ.) - 54.2...

by Brett Larner National record holder Daichi Sawano (Team Fujitsu) was the lone Japanese athlete in action in a final on Day Four of athletics competition at the Rio de Janeiro, waiting out heavy rain before getting started in the men's pole vault.  Sawano easily cleared 5.50 m on his first attempt but struggled at 5.65 m, seeming to clear it on his third attempt but brushing the bar just enough to be eliminated.  His 7th-place overall finish in the final checks only the second box in the JAAF's modest goal of one medal and five top eight placings in Rio, a goal that at this point looks tough to achieve despite widespread Japanese success in a variety of other sports. National champion Keisuke Nozawa (Mizuno) blasted a 48.62 PB to win Heat 4 of the men's 400 m hurdles, frontrunning the entire race to make the semifinals.  Teammate Yuki Matsushita (Mizuno) was the first non-qualifier in 49.60.  In one of two men's 110 m hurdles heats run as heavy rain set in, ...

by Brett Larner videos by aoshin0507 Following up on Koji Murofushi 's epoch-marking 20th-straight men's hammer national title yesterday, Yuzo Kanemaru  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) led a phalanx of other long-lasting champions in adding to their legacies on the final rainy day of competition at the 2014 Japanese National Track and Field Championships  in Fukushima. Kanemaru had a 10th-straight men's 400 m national title on the line, and with no genuine competition he cruised in for the win in 45.69, only the second Japanese track athlete in history to get the ten-peat.  Women's 400 mH national record holder Satomi Kubokura  (Niigata Albirex RC) ran 56.39 for an eighth-straight national title, while 100 m national record holder Chisato Fukushima  (Hokkaido Hi-Tec AC) picked up the sixth national title of career in 11.69 (-0.3), a fifth-straight win and fourth-straight 100 m/200 m double title.  Following Fukushima and 10000 m champion Yuki Sato  (Team...

by Brett Larner click here for live streaming With the Japanese Federation getting serious about this fall’s Asian Games as Japan’s buildup to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics gets underway, Fukushima plays host to the 98th edition of the National Track and Field Championships this weekend. Several events have seen national records fall this season, and there is the potential for more including one key distance record. Friday Friday’s main long distance race is the women’s 10000 m. Last year Hitomi Niiya lapped the entire field to set a meet record of 31:06.67 for the win, but with Niiya apparently serious about her retirement last year’s 2nd through 4th-place finishers will have a go at succeeding her for the national title. 2013 runner-up Yuko Shimizu (Team Sekisui Kagaku) made a decent marathon debut at London in April and will be returning to the track for her first major race since then. Ayumi Hagiwara (Team Uniqlo) has run big for most of the year since finishing 3rd behing...

by Brett Larner On the third day of competition at the Moscow World Championships the biggest Japanese performances came in the men's 400 m hurdles and men's pole vault. Takayuki Kishimoto  (Team Fujitsu) finished 3rd in his 400 m hurdles heat to gain an automatic qualifying spot for the semi-final, the only one of Japan's four male and female hurdlers to advance at this distance and with a realistic chance of making the final.  In the pole vault, national champion Seito Yamamoto  (Chukyo Univ.) cleared 5.75 m to take 6th, a PB by 4 cm that made him the only athlete in the top ten to set a new PB at the World Championships.  Hammer great Koji Murofushi  (Mizuno) also took 6th, throwing a season best 78.03 m.  Along with hurdlers Satomi Kubokura (Niigata Albirex AC), Yasuhiro Fueki  (Team Aima) and Takatoshi Abe (Chukyo Univ.), men's 400 m national champion Yuzo Kanemaru  (Team Otsuka) also missed out on advancing, finishing last in his semi-f...

Overall:    gold: 4   silver: 6   bronze: 10 Men:    gold: 1   silver: 3   bronze: 4 Women:    gold: 3   silver: 3   bronze: 6 20th Asian Athletics Championships Pune, India, July 3-7, 2013 click here for complete results Men's 200 m Final   +0.7 m/s 1. Xie Zhenye (China) - 20.87 2. Fahad Mohammed Alsubaie (Saudi Arabia) - 20.912 3. Kei Takase (Japan) - 20.918 Men's 400 m Final 1. Yousef Ahmed Masrahi (Saudi Arabia) - 45.08 2. Ali Khamis (Bahrain) - 45.65 3. Yuzo Kanemaru (Japan) - 45.95 Men's 110 m Hurdles Final   +0.1 m/s 1. Jiang Fan (China) - 13.61 2. Abdulaziz Almandeel (Kuwait) - 13.78 3. Wataru Yazawa (Japan) - 13.88 Men's 400 m Hurdles Final 1. Yasuhiro Fueki (Japan) - 49.86 2. Cheng Wen (China) - 50.07 3. Satinder Singh (India) - 50.35 Men's 3000 m SC 1. Tarek Mubarak Taher (Bahrain) - 8:34.77 2. Dejene Regassa Mootoma (Bahrain) - 8:37.40 3. Tsuyoshi Takeda (Japan) - 8...

London, England, 8/6/12 click here for complete results Women's 400 mH Semi-Final Three 1. Muizat Ajoke Odumosu (Nigeria) - 54.40 -  Q , NR 2. Georganne Moline (U.S.A.) - 54.74 - Q 3. Denisa Rosolova (Czech Republic) - 54.87 - q ----- 8. Satomi Kubokura (Japan) - 56.25 Men's 800 m Heat Five 1. Hamada Mohamed (Egypt) - 1:48.05 - Q 2. Sajad Moradi (Iran) - 1:48.23 - Q 3. Kevin Lopez (Spain) - 1:48.27 - Q 4. Masato Yokota (Japan) - 1:48.48 Women's 200 m Heat Three 1. Carmelita Jeter (U.S.A.) - 22.65 - Q 2. Abiodun Oyepitan (U.K.) - 22.92 - Q 3. Sherone Simpson (Jamaica) - 22.97 - Q ----- 7. Chisato Fukushima (Japan) - 24.14 Women's 100 mH Heat One 1. Alina Talay (Belarus) - 12.71 - Q , PB 2. Jessica Zelinka (Canada) - 12.75 - Q 3. Tiffany Porter (U.K.) - 12.79 - Q ----- 7. Ayako Kimura (Japan) - 13.75 (c) 2012 Brett Larner all rights reserved

by Brett Larner photos by Horst Milde Japan's results in the London Olympics women's marathon gave a fair account of the state of the sport in the country, an improvement over Beijing with all three women finishing and two under 2:28 versus one finisher in 2:30:19 four years ago, but where Yurika Nakamura  (Team Tenmaya) was 13th in Beijing the highest finisher this time, autumn 2011 Yokohama International Women's Marathon winner Ryoko Kizaki  (Team Daihatsu), was only 16th.  Despite a fall at a drink station just past halfway, former Team Denso runner Tiki Gelana  (Ethiopia) won gold to continue the legacy of Japan-trained African Olympic marathon medalists, outkicking 2011 Daegu World Championships silver medalist  Priscah Jeptoo  and Russia's Tatyana Petrova Arkhipova , a top-five finisher at both the 2011 and 2012 Tokyo Marathons. 2012 Osaka International Women's Marathon winner Risa Shigetomo  (Team Tenmaya) was among the early pacesette...

by Brett Larner As with the great showdown between Genki Dean  (Waseda Univ.) and Yukifumi Murakami  (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) yesterday, the biggest show on the final day of the 2012 Japanese Olympic Trials came in the javelin.  Murakami's teammate Yuki Ebihara (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) unexpectedly came up with a big throw in the middle of the women's javelin competition, adding 80 cm on to her own national record to score a new NR of 62.36 m.  An A-standard mark, Ebihara led the day's haul of people meeting the Federation's standards for an assured London Olympic position. In the men's 200 m Kei Takase  (Team Fujitsu) likewise earned himself an Olympic spot, running an A-standard PB of 20.42 to take the win.  For a moment it looked as though 2012 Jr. World Champion Shota Iizuka  (Chuo Univ.)  might take the win, but Takase succeeded in easing past into 1st.  Iizuka took 2nd in a large PB of 20.45 and should find himself in London.  Be...

by Brett Larner Click here for JRN's middle and long distance preview. Marathon team medals aside, Japan's only medals at the last Olympics and subsequent two World Championships came in events outside distance running, with the men's 4x100 m relay team winning bronze in Beijing, Yukifumi Murakami  (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) taking men's javelin bronze in Berlin in 2009 and 2004 Athens Olympics men's hammer throw gold medalist Koji Murofushi  (Mizuno) making a comeback for gold last summer in Daegu.  Half of the Beijing relay team, Murakami and Murofushi all return this year to the 96th Japanese National Track & Field Championships , doubling as the Olympic Trials June 8-10 at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, where they earn places on the London Olympic team if they win their events and hold an A-standard mark. Beijing relay team member Shinji Takahira  (Team Fujitsu) leads the way in the men's 200 m, where three men hold Olympic A-standard times.  His training par...