japan running news

Australia's Gold Coast Marathon is back for its 45th running with title sponsorship from longtime partner ASICS. Two-time winner Rodah Tanui is the top name in the women's race with a 2:23:14 in Copenhagen two years ago, with her strongest competition coming from Olympian Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , who set a Mongolian NR of 2:26:32 in Tokyo last year. Zerihun Alemtsehay and Caroline Kilel both have recent sub-2:30 times, and debuting Ethiopian Tegest Ayalew looks to have a sub-2:30 in her too. Pacing is planned to be a 1:12:00 first half, an ambitious goal for pretty much everyone except maybe Tanui. Up front in the men's race are a solid trio of 2:07 runners made up of Ethiopians Gizealew Ayana and Japan-based Derese Workneh , and Kenyan Mathew Samperu . The top tier of Japanese men come in at the 2:08 level, including Mizuki Higashi , Yuki Takei , and Ryoma Takeuchi , a pacer at Gold Coast last year. Past winner Yuki Kawauchi has only run under 2:20 once in 2024 a...

With great conditions at what organizers billed as the highest-label half marathon in the southern hemisphere, the only half marathon in the south with a World Athletics Elite Label or better, Japan's Teruki Shimada and Australian Commonwealth Games champ Jessica Stenson broke the men's and women's course records at the McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon Sunday in Tasmania. The men's race start list read like a rematch of February's Marugame Half Marathon, with most of the 10 fastest men in the race having run there. On the Australian side was an interesting lineup of marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan , half marathon NR holder Brett Robinson , and road 10 km NR holder Sam Clifford , with Teikyo University duo Shimada and Jinya Ozaki and Rikkyo University pair Kento Baba and Hiroto Kuniyasu leading the Japanese contingent in their collective international debuts. Baba, who ran 1:00:26 to finish 2 seconds ahead of Buchanan, was taske...

On 30 August, 2003 Mongolia's Ser-Od Bat-Ochir ran his first global championships marathon at the Paris World Championships. Tonight he'll be the Mongolian flag bearer in the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, and in two weeks he'll be in the marathon. In between he's been in every World Championships marathon, eleven of them, and every Olympic marathon, five. In Paris he'll become the first person to run in six Olympic marathons. The Billboard #1 hit songs at all sixteen of his global championship marathons so far: 30 Aug. 2003 - Paris World Championships - Beyoncé "Crazy in Love" 29 Aug. 2004 - Athens Olympics - Terror Squad "Lean Back" 13 Aug. 2005 - Helsinki World Championships - Mariah Carey "We Belong Together" 25 Aug. 2007 - Osaka World Championships - Sean Kingston "Beautiful Girls" 24 Aug. 2008 - Beijing Olympics - Rihanna "Disturbia" 22 Aug. 2009 - Berlin World Championships - Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta ...

A petition for World Athletics to allow the ten men who made the Paris Olympics marathon quota via world rankings but were replaced by unqualified universality place athletes to run. Sent to JRN by the race director of a major marathon.

Currently the #10-ranked Japanese man in the marathon with the fastest-ever domestic time at the elite Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx) made his international debut at Sunday's Copenhagen Marathon , literally an international debut as it was his first time outside the country. Ichiyama hoped to be in contention to break the 2:08:23 CR and go for the win, and with cool and breezy conditions ran easy in the lead group through 30 km. But something ate away at almost everyone as time went by, several people in the lead men's and women's groups saying humidity, and past 30 km Ichiyama fell off. Falling as low as 9th, he rallied after 40 km to finish 8th in 2:13:07. "It was different than in Japanese races," he said. "I'm used to bigger packs and more even pacing, but this was a kind of racing I hadn't done before. There's a lot to think about. I didn't feel like I was sweating a lot, but I got really thirsty and started sk...

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr...

The rain mostly stopped exactly 10 minutes before the start of the Osaka Marathon , and conditions were actually pretty good for most of what ended up a record-breaking race. Backing off from the organizers planned 3:19/km when the main invited elites told them nobody wanted to go that fast in cold and rain, the women's race was a pack run until the late stages with a group of 7 or 8 stretched out over 5 seconds hitting half in 1:11:38. Shedding one or two at a time as the kilometers went by from there, by 40 km it was down to Ethiopians Waganesh Nekasha and Beyenu Degefa in 2:17:08 with Australian veteran Lisa Weightman 6 seconds back and last year's CR breaker Helen Tola Bekele another 5 seconds behind. Nekasha had the stronger kick and scored the win in 2:24:20, Degefa losing 17 seconds to finish 2nd in 2:24:37 and both just over a minute of their bests. Weightman followed up her 2:24:18 in Valencia in December with a 2:24:43 for 3rd to solidify her claim to a spot on wh...

The Inuyama Half Marathon and National Cross Country Championships are happening Sunday, with Japan's team for March's Belgrade World Cross Country Championships to be mostly drawn from top placers in the different divisions at Nationals. It's being streamed above starting at 10:20 local time, with fields including Takuya Hanyu , Ryuto Igawa , Hazuma Hattori , Yuta Bando , Tomonori Yamaguchi and Masato Imai in the senior men's 10 km, Momoka Kawaguchi , Nana Kuraoka and Chika Kosakai in the senior women's 8 km, Sota Orita , Ryuto Kawahara , Tetsu Sasaki , Shunsuke Kuwata and Soma Nagahara in the junior men's 8 km, and Narumi Okumoto and Nodoka Ashida in the junior women's 6 km. But the main race Sunday is the Osaka Marathon . One of the world's biggest mass-participation marathons, Osaka has deep elite fields especially on the men's side. That's not surprising since for Japanese men it's one of the designated races where they have a...

photo by Eldoreso , used with permission Japan's last two big marathons of the year both happened Sunday at the Fukuoka International Marathon and Hofu Yomiuri Marathon . Both came down to sprint finishes between a lead pack of four, and both saw past championships back on the top spot on the podium. Fukuoka only lasted through 15 km on the target pace for Japanese favorite Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima) to hit the 2:05:50 he needed to replace Suguru Osako (GMO) on the Paris Olympic team. Past 15 it slowed, with a halfway split of 1:03:00 that the lead group held until 30 km. At that point it was a lead group of six, with Hosoya, 2021 Fukuoka winner Michael Githae (Suzuki), 2017 Fukuoka winner Sondre Nordstad Moen (Norway), Chinese duo Shaohui Yang and Peiyou Feng , and two-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist Abel Kirui (Kenya). The pace slowed between 30 and 35 km once the pacers stopped, but even so Feng and Kirui lost contact, leaving the other four on track ...

Sunday is a big day for road racing in Japan, with three major races, the Fukuoka International Marathon , Hofu Yomiuri Marathon and Kumamoto Kosa 10-Mile Road Race  all happening. Even before them there's a big event Saturday, a one-day mini edition of the Nittai University Time Trials track meet in Yokohama with a large number of people who raced last weekend's Hachioji Long Distance meet or Queens Ekiden on the start lists. Fukuoka is really the main event, set up to try to get one runner, 2:06:35 man Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima), to the 2:05:50 he needs to steal the third spot on the Paris Olympic team from the 3rd-placer at October's Olympic marathon trials, former NR holder Suguru Osako (GMO). Hosoya fell in the trials and dropped out. Since then he's run well in shorter races and doesn't seem to have any lingering damage, but considering that he's never broken 2:08 again since his 2:06:35 at the Miracle at Lake Biwa in 2021 it'd be a stretch fo...

Stellar conditions and a solid fields meant times were going to be fast at the Ageo City Half Marathon , and in both the women's and men's races the front end took full advantage of the day. In the midst of the super-deep men's field Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , the top Mongolian in this summer's Budapest World Championships marathon and in last month's Hangzhou Asian Games marathon, ran steady and strong, splitting 33:29 at 10 km, 1:10:38 pace, before pushing the 2nd half. Khishigsaikhan crossed the finish line 1:10:32, 1:22 under the old course record, 3:35 ahead of 2nd-place Kana Kobayashi , and a massive 4:16 off the Mongolian women's national record. Khishigsaikhan is currently training in Japan and ran Ageo in prep for next month's Taipei City Marathon, where she was 3rd last year. The men's race went out hard, with Kenyan Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.), NR holder Yusuke Ogura (Yakult) and the ambitious Rei Matsunaga (Hosei) leading the ...

When Mongolia's Ser-Od Bat-Ochir  ran his first World Championships marathon in 2003 George Bush Jr. was in his first term and Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" was at the top of the charts. He's run every Olympic and World Championships marathon since then, all 15, and tomorrow does #16 in Budapest. He's an unsung hero of the sport, and the New York Times' Scott Cacciola  tells his story: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/26/sports/ser-od-bat-ochir-mongolia-marathon.html?unlocked_article_code=tCG44J-iVn5bRvTp8Od9VzH33-3gzX2oAaFl7wGlaiZz8oemVisp3K_u2-UBFfIbag_kgKEITYJSJbyJkRfkqUxQZD3nORmRusvuvRY_J-489inBLKKbTFGeVJzcwYCqcJl-ZBz6oOZnUjt4iLpnyIKvSB-LEIwOhiOqHGzpt2dpgdOEmnaRrTYxIwBQMrtDcT_HpRbQ6CEOYDehokPfkOZRBG-DvAljpvOIE94DHlQR7kXsMop7uEGyBGTAMYCwtgs3465VXhu8R5AmwDqxY7L9SJ03o5J-udMfSCin35q6dfpDqplLajZSNCSuW2zMNuIKcm8ntqDEuuYE2QCfSv3UYpfZmWvNwpFz&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare photo © 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

The continuing decline of Twitter has had me thinking about ways it's impacted my life over the last 12 and a half years, from people I met there who became friends in real life, to people I'll never meet in person but would still consider friends, to work opportunities around the world, to intangible things like bass legend Jah Wobble liking a tweet of mine about being happy after a marathon I did earlier this year. After the current management took over someone had a thread going asking for concrete examples of Twitter's real-life impact. My contribution was about Mongolian marathon national record holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir , who had asked me almost two years ago to find him a new sponsor in Japan after his previous corporate league contact expired. At some point I sent a DM about it to a very tenuous contact I had on Twitter, a Tokyo-area fashion designer I'd never met but had had a short Twitter exchange with a couple of months earlier. The designer couldn't help...