japan running news

The 95th National University Track and Field Championships run Friday through Monday at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama. The complete meet schedule and live results are here . The 10000 m races were already held separately earlier this season. Streaming starts at 9:00 a.m. Saturday Japan time, with separate field event channels and Day 2 and 3 streaming here . Top entries in each event with best performance in the qualifying window: Men 100 m Shoma Yamamoto (Hiroshima Univ.) - 10.04 Fukuto Komuro (Chuo Univ.) - 10.07 Naoki Nishioka (Tsukuba Univ.) - 10.09 Riku Oishi (Toyo Univ.) - 10.13 Kaito Kuroki (Chuo Univ.) - 10.14 Ryunosuke Mizuno (Waseda Univ.) - 10.14 Yugo Haitamataira (Juntendo Univ.) - 10.17 Shun Miyashita (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 10.19 200 m Akira Hayashi (Keio Univ.) - 20.36 Tomoru Funaki (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 20.39 Oma Asai (Tsukuba Univ.) - 20.47 Reishin Yamamoto (Toyo Univ.) - 20.49 Shingo Suzuki (Tokai Univ.) - 20.54 Haruto Nakamura (Fukuoka Univ.) - 20.55 400 m Shinya Hayashi...

There's already been a lot going on on the track since the start of July, so let's get to it. The women's 100 mH was the main event at the July 5 Fuse Sprint meet in Tottori, with Hitomi Nakajima turning in the 3rd-fastest time of her career, 12.75 (-0.4), for the win, a time only one other Japanese woman has ever beaten. Yumi Tanaka and Masumi Aoki both turned in quality performances too at 12.89 and 12.97 for 2nd and 3rd. All-time Japanese #4 Midori Mikase had a good one in the women's 100 m too, winning in 11.36 (+0.7). The Hokuren Distance Challenge series kicked off July 4 in Chitose . Tuning up for her 1500-5000-10000 triple at September's Nagoya Asian Games, Nozomi Tanaka won the 1500 m in 4:08.53, then came back to win the 5000 m in a 15:00.61 season best. Bigger news was 3000 mSC NR holder Miu Saito in 2nd, running a PB 15:02.68 to come in at all-time Japanese #8. Collegiate record holder Richard Etir led the men's 5000 m in a 13:08.44 SB, with ...

Four big meets with distance action happened across Japan over the 2nd half of April. Highlights from each of them: Hyogo Relay Carnival - Kobe, 18-19 April Hirokazu Sakai (Senko) set a 2.25 m MR in the men's high jump. Sae Takemoto (Orico) threw 59.68 m to set a new MR in the women's javelin throw. Distance events were pretty low-key, with Ryota Natori (Konica Minolta) winning the men's 10000 m in 28:49.74 and Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu) the women's 5000 m in 15:44.03. National University Individual Championships - Hiratsuka, 24-26 April Miori Kida  (1st yr., Juntendo Univ.) debuted with 4:19.14 MR in the women's 1500 m, going 0.12 under the previous record set last year. Sarah Wanjiru (4th yr., Daito Bunka Univ.) kicked off her senior year by chopping 25 seconds off her own 10000 m MR to by over a minute in 31:23.69. Mao Kimura (1st yr., Meijo Univ.) had a great debut in 32:31.56 for 2nd, more than 70 sec up on 3rd place. Shunpei Yamaguchi (3rd yr., Waseda ...

There were 2 decently competitive meets in the Tokyo area this weekend. Saturday saw the new year's first edition of the Setagaya Time Trials meet. Takuma Akiyoshi took the men's 3000 m A-heat over his MABP Maverick teammate Festus Kiprono Cheruiyot with a 7:58.32 PB. Cheruiyot just held off 3rd-placer Nao Kurihara 7:59.92 to 8:00.02, with MABP runners taking the top 5 spots. The top 7 in the men's 5000 m A-heat all cleared 14 minutes. Still a 6-way race with 400 m to go, Tatsuya Maruyama of Komori Corp. came out on top in 13:48.49, with 5th-placer Kazuki Ishii of Yakult just over a second behind in 13:49.63. Lacking the gear to stay with them, new American marathon sensation Ethan Shuley fell back to 6th in 13:57.12 in his first-ever track 5000 m, holding off 7th-placer Daiki Nomimura of NTT Nishi Nihon who came up from behind to finish in 13:58.30. Sunday was the 59th edition of the Tokyo Big 6 meet between Waseda University , Meiji University , Hosei Univers...

Women's marathon NR holder and Paris Olympic team member Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) ran Friday's Paris Festival of Running , one of six Japanese athletes across the four main distances at the event. Maeda was 19th of 24 finishers in the elite women's 5 km, running 16:13 to winner Caroline Nyaga 's 14:40. Haruka Ogawa (Rikkyo Univ.) was next in 16:24 for 20th. Tomo Muramatsu (Ritsumeikan Univ.) was the top Japanese woman in the elite 10 km, 13th of 14 in 35:04 over 5 minutes behind winner Likina Amebaw . The men had a little more success, with Naoki Ota (Yakult) 7th of 11 in the elite 5 km in 14:03 and Shunpei Yamaguchi (Waseda Univ.) 9th in 14:10. Hagos Gebrhiwet won in 13:24. Jemal Mekonnen won the elite 10 km in 27:43 by 1 seconds over Hillary Kipkoech , with Haruto Ishizuka (Waseda Univ.) 22nd in 30:06. Two days later at the Paris Marathon , men's Olympic marathon team alternate Yuki Kawauchi (ANDS) continued the downward trajectory of his performances this ...

  A group of seven high schoolers dropped fast 5000 m times at the 310th Nittai University Time Trials meet in Yokohama on Nov. 25. Racing corporate leaguers Kenyan collegians in the Nittaidai Challenge Games fast heat, 3rd-years Kaito Iida (Izumi Chuo H.S.) and Shunpei Yamaguchi (Saku Chosei H.S.) ran 13:34.20 and 13:334.59, the 4th and 5th-best ever by Japanese high school boys. Prior to this race, Iida's PB was 13:57.62 from April this year, with Yamaguchi having run a PB of 13:52.73 in September. At the 2023 National High School Championships Iida was 9th and Yamaguchi 10th. Other Saku Chosei H.S. runners also set new PBs at Nittai. Running in Heat 22, 2nd-year Kazuma Shino ran 13:55.79 and 3rd-year Toma Yoshioka 13:56.99, the first time under 14 minutes for both. At an earlier Nittai Time Trials meet in late September four other Saku Chosei runners broke 14, meaning the all-Japanese team now has six boys at 13 minutes. With 2nd-year Tetsu Sasaki having run a PB 14:03.51 ...

There's a first time for everything. In the last major ekiden of the season, 37-year-old Yuichiro Ueno , head coach of the Rikkyo University team that ran the Hakone Ekiden three weeks ago, anchored the Nagano prefecture team to a second-straight course record win at the 28th National Men's Ekiden in Hiroshima. Nagano's Soma Nagahara got things off to a solid start, going one-on-one with favorite Sonata Nagashima of Hyogo on the 7.0 km 1st leg, both going under the old stage CR with Nagashima 1st in 19:39 and Nagahara only 2 seconds back. Over the next two stages Nagano dropped to 4th 20 seconds off the lead, but a pair of new CR from 4th and 5th runners and Saku Chosei H.S. teammates Shunpei Yamaguchi and Hiroto Yoshioka put the team 37 seconds ahead. 6th runner Riku Kobayashi extended that to 49 seconds, giving Ueno a margin of error of just over 3 sec/km on the 13.0 km anchor stage. Ueno first ran the National Men's Ekiden 20 years ago, passing 17 people on...

The National High School Ekiden took place Dec. 25 in Kyoto with a live nationwide ad-free broadcast on NHK . In the girls' race , Nagano Higashi H.S. ran a perfect second half to run down 2021 national champ Sendai Ikuei H.S. on the anchor stage for its first-ever national title. In the boys' race , Kurashiki H.S. broke the overall course record by 8 seconds to win for the 3rd time in the race's 73-year history, with runner-up Saku Chosei H.S. running the fastest-ever time by an all-Japanese team thanks in large part to a brilliant run from 5000 m H.S. NR holder Hiroto Yoshioka . 7th last year, the Nagano Higashi girls got off to a good start with leading runner Kanoko Nawa 4th and just 6 seconds off the lead. Sendai Ikuei's Daisy Jerop put the defending champs into the lead on the second leg, with its next two runners Misaki Nagaoka and Kurea Watanabe holding that position. But a stage win from Nagano Higashi's fourth runner Yuka Sato cut Sendai Ikuei...