japan running news

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun Even with a few withdrawals there was a massive group of Japanese athletes at the Berlin Marathon this year, most of the group that typically goes to the Chicago Marathon seeming to opt for Berlin instead. With men's winner Sebastian Sawe taking a shot at the world record, Akira Akasaki , Yuhei Urano and NR holder Kengo Suzuki sat back in a 3rd group targeting the JAAF's 2:06:30 standard for 2028 Olympic marathon trials qualification. The group held steady on that pace, quickly passing and leaving behind Hakone fan favorite Aoi Ota , who went out with a 14:26 opening 5 km only to finish in 2:14:02. Suzuki dropped off, but Akasaki and Urano were together through 30 km until Urano did the same. The top Japanese finisher in the Paris Olympics last year, from there Akasaki had what had to have been an incredibly fun last 12 km, picking faster people off one by one as he rolled on. Ultimately he made it all the way up to 2nd in a 2:06:15 PB. ...

Yuka Ando (Wacoal) and Desta Burka (Denso) raced each other to a new Osaka Half Marathon course record, while the men's race saw a very strange apparent DQ of winner Taiyo Iwasaki (JFE Steel). Running with Wacoal male coaching staff member Seiya Morimoto as pacer, Ando set out on pace to go sub-68 with the goal of bettering her 1:08:13 PB from the 2022 National Corporate Half. Burka, who had only run 1:09:31 once in 2021, was right there next to her the entire time as the pace held steady through 15 km. But as Ando started to fade over the next 5 km Burka dropped her and opened a small lead. It looked like the win and CR would be hers, but over the last km Ando fought back and passed her on the track to score the win by 2 seconds in a 1:08:18 CR. "My goal was to beat my PB, but I'm glad I got close," she said post-race. Burka's 1:08:20 was also well under the old CR of 1:09:43 and a PB by over a minute. The men's race saw 42-year-old Mongolian Ser-Od Bat-...

Australian Andrew Buchanan took over a minute and a half off his PB to win the third running of Tokyo's Year-End Half Marathon Dec. 29 in the western suburb of Tachikawa. Conceived of as a race targeting university and corporate league men whose teams had missed out on qualifying for the New Year and Hakone Ekidens and for amateurs to get the chance to run alongside them, the Year-End Half Marathon covers four rolling laps of Showa Kinen Park, the same site used for the Hakone Ekiden Qualifier half marathon and National University Men's Half Marathon. Buchanan ran as part of a lead group of five near 1:03-flat pace, with the group shaking down to four by 15 km. As Buchanan started to push over the final lap longtime leader Koga Matsuo (Josai Univ.) dropped off, leaving Shingo Moriyama (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) and Taiyo Iwasaki (Jobu Univ.) to compete for the win. Neither was up to the task, Buchanan kicking away for the win in 1:02:50 good enough to make him the four...