japan running news

  After three days of athletics competition at the Hangzhou Asian Games Japan has yet to score gold, but its haul of silver and bronze medals more than doubled over the course of the two days. Men's 400 m NR holder Kentaro Sato took silver Saturday, starting slow as Fuga Sato did the leading in the first half of the race, then reeling in the competition over the last 120 m. Asian record holder Yousef Ahmed Masrahi of Saudi Arabia got away from him, just, winning gold in 45.55 with Sato in 45.57. Bahraini Abbas Yusuf Ali knocked Fuga Sato off the podium with a PB 45.65, Fuga 4th in 45.70. It took til Sunday night for the next medal to land, with Ryoma Aoki and Seiya Sunada going 2-3 in the men's 3000 m steeplechase. Favorite Avinash Mukund Sable of India took it out fast with a 2:40.97 first 1000 m, too fast to sustain but enough to set put him far out front for most of the race. Sable led at 2000 m with 5:27.48 before starting to fade, giving Aoki hope as he closed har...

The Budapest World Championships got off to a rocky start for the Japanese team as it came up empty-handed in the opening event in one of its two best shots at a medal. Silver medalist in the last two global championships, Koki Ikeda took the men's 20 km race walk out hard only to fade abruptly at 15 km and finish 15th in 1:19:44. Two-time defending world champion Toshikazu Yamanishi faded even earlier, ultimately landing 24th overall and 4th out of the four Japanese men in the race in 1:21:39. 24-year-old Yuta Koga took the top Japanese spot at 12th in his World Championships debut with a 1:19:02 season best, 1:15 out of the medals in a race that saw gold medalist Alvaro Martin of Spain clock a world-leading 1:17:32 and 2nd through 6th set new national records. Eiki Takahashi was 21st in 1:20:25. Fresh from doing her final training in St. Moritz, women's 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka bookended the day with a good comeback run in the 10000 m after a long season of rec...

Sumire Hata moved up a level globally with a 6.97 m +0.5 m/s Japanese national record to win the women's long jump gold medal on day 3 of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships. Already in first with a 6.74 m +1.7 m/s jump in the 4th round, Hata closed with the 6.97 m jump, the 4th-furthest in the world so far this year, to increase her margin over silver medalist Shaili Singh of India to 0.43 m. Bronze medalist Jiawei Zhong was another 8 cm back at 6.46 m. Another big gold came in the men's 100 m, where Hiroki Yanagita followed up on his 10.10 PB in the first round with a dominating 10.02 +0.0 m/s for gold, winning by 0.17 and moving up to all-time Japanese #7. National champion Ryuichiro Sakai was 6th in 10.26. With many of the main names in Japanese men's spring struggling this season as they hit mid and late career phases, Yanagita's jump up in performance couldn't have come at a better time. Still another was in the men's 110 mH. Shunya Takayama was...

We'd like to give you preview and streaming info for the Asian Athletics Championships starting tomorrow in Bangkok, Thailand, but there's not a lot to go on. Streaming should be here under the "Live" tab , but as the JAAF site notes , "There's a chance a link to streaming might be released right before the start. If one is announced, we'll let you know." 42 countries are set to compete, but no overall entry lists have been made public anywhere we've looked. The Asian Athletics Association site isn't very helpful either, its top story being the federation bureaucrats' "Gala and Awards Celebration for the 50th Anniversary of Asian Athletics Association" and almost nothing about its championships apart from a statistics PDF that starts off with a long autobiography by an AAA exec. The meet schedule is up and it has links to event start lists, but nothing has been added there yet. So, about all we can tell you right now is about...

The JAAF has announced a team of 58 for September's rescheduled  Hangzhou Asian Games , something on a par with the Commonwealth Games but with a bigger share of the world's population. 22 women and 36 men will stretch out a long season spanning over two months from the Bangkok Asian Championships to the Budapest World Championships to Hangzhou in quest of points for next year's Paris Olympics. Women 100 m Arisa Kimishima - 11.36 200 m Arisa Kimishima - 23.17 800 m Ayano Shiomi - 2:02.57 1500 m Yume Goto - 4:09.41 5000 m Ririka Hironaka - 14:52.84 Yuma Yamamoto - 15:16.71 10000 m   Ririka Hironaka - 30:39.71 Haruka Kokai - 32:01.83 100 mH   Masumi Aoki  - 12.86 Yumi Tanaka - 12.89 400 mH   Ami Yamamoto - 56.06 Pole Vault Misaki Morota - 4.41 m Long Jump   Sumire Hata - 6.75 m Triple Jump   Mariko Morimoto - 14.16 m Javelin Throw Sae Takemoto - 62.39 m Marina Saito - 62.37 m 20 kmRW Nanako Fujii - 1:28:58 Yukiko Umeno - 1:33:38 35 kmRW Maika Yag...

The JAAF has announced a team of 78 for the Bangkok Asian Championships July 12-16 in Thailand, perfect parity with 39 women and 39 men. Out of the Japanese athletes to have already cleared the Budapest World Championships qualifying standard and be named to Japan's team for Worlds, only Shunya Takayama is scheduled to compete in Bangkok in the 110 m hurdles. 34 of the Asian Championships are currently in the quota for their event for Budapest. Another half dozen including Arisa Kimishima , Maki Saito , and Hikaru Ikehata are on the cusp of making the quota. For that half of the team, the chance to score area championships placing points for world rankings make the Asian Championships critical to their chances of representing Japan in Budapest. A bit surprisingly, no men's relay teams, one of Japan's areas of strength in recent history, are entered. Athletes in bold are currently in the Budapest World Championships quota for their listed event. Athletes in bold and un...

Heavy rain in Osaka on the leading edge of a passing typhoon meant most of the field events on the day 2 program at the 107th National Track and Field Championships and 39th U20 National Championships got bumped to the morning of day 3, but on the track men's 1500 m NR holder Kazuki Kawamura (Toenec) dropped a meet record to win the best race of the day. One of five men on the start list with bests under 3:40, Kawamura held off a surprise challenge from Yusuke Takahashi (Hokkaido Univ. Grad School) and #2-ranked Keisuke Morita (Subaru) to take the national title in 3:38.45, breaking the ancient 1991-era National Championships meet record by 0.39. It was a close enough finish that both Takahashi and Morita made it under the MR too, Takahashi in a PB 3:38.69 and Morita in 3:38.75. 4th-placer Masato Saiki (Fujisannomeisui) went under 3:40 for the first time in 3:39.58. Just about the only ones to underperform were the two World Championships quota-ranked athletes in the field, Ry...