japan running news

A popular race that brought in 10,000 participants every year pre-pandemic, the organizers of the Shizuoka Marathon have announced that the event is being discontinued due to the difficulties of handling coronavirus protocols and of covering race expenses. Launched in 2014, the Shizuoka Marathon's course passed local landmarks related to shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa and offered views of Mt. Fuji, leading to its popularity as a mass-participation race. But amid the coronavirus pandemic its last three editions were all canceled. On Aug. 23 the Shizuoka Marathon's executive committee, made up of members of the Shizuoka Chamber of Commerce and Industry and of the city government, announced that the race would be discontinued indefinitely. The committee cited the difficulty of preventing crowded conditions and of taking other measures against the coronavirus, as well as paying for the expenses involved in putting the race on amid soaring labor and material costs. A spokesperson for the ...

Welcoming over 10,000 runners every year, the Shizuoka Marathon 's organizing committee today announced the cancelation of next year's race. "Corona case numbers are down right now, but concerns about a sixth wave of infections remain," the organizers said in their announcement. It is the third year in a row that the event has been canceled. Launched in 2014, the Shizuoka Marathon is the largest marathon in the prefecture with over 10,000 participants annually. It was canceled last year in the early days of the pandemic. Next year's race was scheduled to have been held on Mar. 13, but as per their statement the organizing committee remains unconvinced about the future prospects for staging the event safely and opted to instead cancel the race for the third time in a row. Their statement said in part, "Our #1 priority is the health and lives of the runners, race staff, and courseside supporters. We hope that the coronavirus pandemic comes to an end soon and t...

At its general meeting on July 28, the organizing committee of the Shizuoka Marathon came to the decision to cancel next year's race, scheduled for Mar. 14, 2021. With no end to the coronavirus crisis in sight, the organizing committee did not feel it would be possible to follow government coronavirus guidelines and ensure an environment completely free of infection risk for fans, volunteers, staff and others. The Shizuoka Marathon is a popular event that attracts roughly 14,000 runners from across the country and abroad. Following its cancelation this year in the early days of the crisis, this represents the event's second-straight cancelation. Translator's note: Shizuoka is at least the fourth large Japanese marathon of 2021 to have canceled so far. In its last running it had 9,802 finishers along with thousands more in accompanying shorter distances.  A breakdown of the current situation among Japan's 29 main marathons from October through December, representi...

The National Cross-Country Championships were the weekend's most competitive race, but half marathons were the main source of road action. Takumi Obara (Komazawa Univ.) ran the fastest time of the day to win the 41st Inuyama Half Marathon in 1:03:52, outrunning Shoya Kawase (Seigakkan Univ.) by two seconds. Kawase's run was a rare sub-64 from a university man outside the Kanto Region, holding off 3rd placer Shota Ezomori (Waseda Univ.) by four seconds. Honoka Sugiura (Chukyo Univ.) dominated the women's race by nearly a minute to win in 1:13:31. Daiji Kawai (Toenec) won Inuyama's 10 km division in a strong 29:01, with Honoka Wada (Nagano Higashi H.S.) the fastest woman at 33:50. At the 68th Kashima Yutoku Half Marathon , Ryuichi Hashimoto (Juntendo Univ.) won the men's race in 1:04:40, with Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead) taking the women's race in 1:15:01. Hikaru Kumagai (Raffine) ran almost the identical time to Hashimoto to win the 13th Fukaya City...

by Brett Larner It’s still early in the year, but the Japanese men’s major domestic spring marathon season is already reaching its peak with Sunday’s Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon . Lake Biwa was Japan’s first IAAF gold label marathon and is one of its oldest continuous races, but with last weekend’s Tokyo Marathon having joined the Fukuoka International Marathon in 2:05 course record territory it is due for an improvement on Wilson Kipsang ’s 2:06:13 course record. To get there it has enlisted defending champion and Daegu World Championships silver medalist Vincent Kipruto (Kenya) and former junior world record holder Bazu Worku (Ethiopia), both with 2:05 bests. The pair’s duel, or teamwork, up front should be one of this year’s main story lines. Another is Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov’t) and his quest for a 2:07. Kawauchi is the lone A-list Japanese man in the field this year, at Lake Biwa for the sole purpose of joining Japan’s sub-2:08 club. Since his world record-set...