japan running news

After having led Surugadai University to its first-ever Hakone Ekiden appearances in 2022 and 2024, Kazuyoshi Tokumoto , 45, announced on Jan. 12 that he is stepping down as head coach. A star Hakone runner during his days at Hosei University , Tokumoto took over as head coach at Surugadai in 2012. In his 10th season in 2021-22 Surugadai made the qualifying bracket at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race, earning the right to make its debut at Hakone 2022. That was followed up with a second appearance in 2024. Assistant coach Nobuhiro Goto , 42, will take over from Tokumoto in the head coach's role. According to a source, Tokumoto had already informed the athletes, their parents and other involved parties of his decision to leave the program prior to making the public announcement. The announcement makes Surugadai the 4th Hakone contender school to replace its head coach for the 2025-26 season, following Asia University , Reitaku University and Meiji University . Others are...

On the first day of real summer weather conditions were hot and humid enough at Kanagawa's Gion Sagamihara Stadium that 3 out of the 4 track 10000 m heats making up the National University Ekiden's Kanto Region Qualifier saw at least one runner get into trouble. In Heat One, Yuto Ono (Shibata Kogyo Univ.) was in trouble after only 3000 m, dropping off the pack and falling to his hands and knees, then getting back up and almost walking his way around another couple of laps. His coach finally stopped him, knocking SKU out of contention to make the seven-deep qualifying bracket for November's Nationals. Heat Two went relatively smoothly, Peter Wanjiru (Daito Bunka Univ.) lapping the entire field before getting caught again by the top few in the chase pack but still winning the heat by almost a minute in 29:00.50. Heat Three saw Taiga Tosen (Surugadai Univ.) staggering in the home straight and falling meters from the finish line, crawling on his hands and knees until his to...