japan running news

With the last-second withdrawal of NR holder Kengo Suzuki after a positive COVID test the day before the race, it was up to newbies Yusuke Nishiyama and Gaku Hoshi to represent Japan in the men's marathon at the start of Day 3 of the Oregon 22 World Championships . Nishiyama, who won February's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon in 2:07:47 in his debut, told JRN pre-race that his goals were top 8 and a PB, in that order. He stayed in the lead group for much of the race, but although he dropped off in the later stages and missed both goals, his 2:08:35 for 13th was still the fastest-ever by a Japanese man at the World Championships. Teammate Hoshi, 1st at February's Osaka Marathon in 2:07:31 in his debut, struggled to match Nishiyama, fading to 38th in 2:13:44. In between, longtime Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir , 40, made good on one of his two goals for his 10th-straight World Championships, beating his best-ever Worlds time of 2:16:41 by 5:02 as he ran 2:11...

The biggest news of the Oregon 2022 World Championships Day Two on the Japanese front was the announcement that its top marathon hopes Kengo Suzuki and Mao Ichiyama had both had positive COVID tests along with their coaches and have withdrawn from their races. But there was more positive news. Women's 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka ran 30:39.71 for 12th in the 10000 m, a PB by exactly 21 seconds over the time she ran for 7th at the Tokyo Olympics last summer and moving her up to all-time Japanese #2, 19 seconds off the NR at age 21. Hironaka led the first half of the race and executed almost perfectly even splits: 1000 m: 3:04.80 2000 m: 3:04.04 3000 m: 3:03.03 4000 m: 3:03.20 5000 m: 3:04.21 (15:19.28) 6000 m: 3:07.02 (lost rhythm when Eilish McColgan took lead) 7000 m: 3:04.05 9000 m: 6:06.94 10000 m: 3:02.62 Of course she got dropped easily once things really got moving, Ethiopian Letesenbet Gidey winning in 30:09.94 by 0.08 over Hellen Obiri , but not everyone's a co...

With the New Zealand and Australian summer series rolling on, four Japanese athletes won events at Auckland's Sir Graeme Douglas International meet. Kosei Yamaguchi took the men's 3000 m steeplechase just a fraction of a second off his PB in 8:31.25, resisting the early fast pace set by Yasunari Kusu and then dispatching Australian James Nipperness over the last two laps to take the win. Japan's #3-ranked steepler, Yamaguchi's performance moves up to the cusp of top 45 in the world, limited to three athletes per country, putting this summer's Tokyo Olympics in range. Qualifying for Tokyo for sure in the women's 5000 m was half marathon national record holder Hitomi Niiya . Like Yamaguchi running with early pacing from other Japanese athletes, Niiya mostly soloed her way to a 15:07.02 PB, taking just over 3 seconds off her old best from the 2012 London Olympics and clearing the Tokyo Olympics qualifying standard by almost as much. Niiya said pre-race th...