japan running news

Following up last weekend's NR-breaking Marugame Half where the top 24 men went under 61 minutes, today's National Corporate Half Marathon delivered another big one. Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) and Shadrack Kipchirchir (Chudenko) broke away from the pack mid-race and opened a substantial lead, but in the last few km Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx) closed the gap and passed them by. Ichiyama took almost a minute off his PB to win in 1:00:22, the 8th-fastest time ever by a Japanese man. Favorite Tatsuhiko Ito (Honda) closed hard to pass Nishizawa and Kipchirchir on the track but couldn't catch Ichiyama, 5 seconds behind in 2nd in 1:00:27 with Nishizawa right behind in 1:00:29 for 3rd. Coming off an injury in November that held him back at last month's New Year Ekiden , Ichiyama told JRN post-race, "This was a big confidence builder for my next race." That would be next month's Tokyo Marathon. The top 14 men were all under 61 minutes. Compared to that th...

There was just no stopping the best, as three-time defending champion Komazawa University led start-to-finish to win the 8-stage, 106.8 km National University Ekiden for the 4th year in a row. Yushin Akatsu led it off with a great back-and-forth sprint finish battle against Waseda University 's Jumpei Maseda to put Komazawa out front at the first exchange. Keita Sato followed that up with a 31:01 CR on the 11.1 km Second Stage, 27:57 road 10 km pace at age 19, a run that earned him this year's Nationals MVP award. And from there on out Komazawa's lead only grew. Komazawa's remaining six runners all made top 3 on their stages, and despite sunny skies and temperatures that went over 23˚, unheard of for early November, at every exchange its lead was bigger. Anchor Takuma Yamakawa started 2:49 ahead of Aoyama Gakuin University 's Yuto Tanaka and had more than enough room to coast it in for a safety win, but turned in a stage-winning 58:10 for 19.7 km to give Koma...

  Osaka Geijutsu University performing arts major Hikaru Kitagawa kicked off the final day of the Chengdu World University Games with the first Japanese women's gold medal of the games in athletics, winning the half marathon in 1:13:17 by 14 seconds over Turkey's Yayla Kilic Gonen . And winning it in style. 3 seconds behind Kilic Gonen at 20 km, Kitagawa closed from there to the finish in 3:08, or 2:51/km pace, the kind of split you'd more often see in a men's race. You have to wonder if the 20 km split was accurate, but anyway Kitagawa made up 17 seconds in 1.0975 km, which is pretty good. Fatma Karasu made it a Turkish 2-3 with a 1:14:28 for bronze. Rio Einaga of Osaka Gakuin University was 8th in 1:15:34 and national champion Meijo University's Saki Harada 14th in 1:16:36, enough to land Japan the team silver behind Turkey. China took the team bronze. Japanese men usually dominate the World University Games half marathon given their focus on that distance for...

  Waseda University's Yudai Nishi  gave Japan its first silver medal of the Chengdu World University Games on the fourth day of athletics competition, taking 2nd in the men's 200 m final. After winning SF1 in a PB of 20.43 +0.9 m/s, Nishi started conservatively in the final. In the middle of the field coming into the straight, Nishi closed the fastest in the field to move up into 2nd but came up short of catching gold medalist Isadore Matsoso of South Africa. Matsoso clocked 20.36 to Nishi's 20.46, with Amlan Borgohain of India taking bronze with a season best 20.55. Waseda's Aoi Inage was last in 21.10 after having run a PB 20.64 +1.1 m/s for 3rd in SF3. Both Japanese men in the 5000 m heats qualified easily for the final, Komazawa University's Taiyo Yasuhara jogging a 14:42.91 for 5th in Heat 1 and Tokai University's Shotaro Ishihara cruising to 2nd in Heat 2 in 14:31.91. Tsukuba University's Saki Katagihara made it through to the final in the women...

  Sunday is the main event at the 102nd Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships , with finals for the half marathon, 3000 m steeplechase, 800 m and 5000 m. Complete meet schedule and entry lists here . The D2/D3 men's half marathon kicks off at 9:00 a.m., with the D1 race starting 6 minutes later. Runners do four laps of the track, then head out onto the roads for 12 laps of a 1.58 km circuit before returning to finish on the track. 2023 Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University 's Takuma Yamakawa is the fastest man in the D2/D3 field at 1:01:36, with Goki Takayama (Koku Gakuin Univ.) and Komazawa teammate Yuto Akahoshi just behind at 1:01:42 and 1:02:00. Four men in the D1 race have run under 1:03, led by Kazuki Ishii (Juntendo Univ.) at 1:02:20. But there's a lot of potential in newcomer Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.), already 27:51.65 for 10000 m in his first year on the collegiate circuit. The D2 men's, D1 men's and D1 women's 3000 ...

The 102nd Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships continue Friday at Kanagawa's Sagamihara Gion Stadium. Streaming starts at 9:00 a.m. local time on the main feed above, with different camera angles on the secondary feed below. The first middle and long distance event on the day's schedule is the D2 men's 1500 m final at 13:00. #2-ranked Nao Kurihara (3rd yr., Josai Univ.) made it through with a 3:52.14 for 2nd in Heat 1. In the final his main competition will be Heat 2 winner Shunya Udagawa (2nd yr., Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) with a 3:44.03 best, and Udagawa's 3rd-year YGU teammate Soya Katayama and 4th-year teammate Kento Yamauchi . Ranked #4 in the final, Haruto Matsuo (1st yr., Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) could make the podium in his debut. All five women with 1500 m bests under 4:20 made the final at 13:15. Saki Katagihara (4th yr., Tsukuba Univ.) won Heat 1 in 4:26.10, Haruko Hosaka (4th yr., Nittai Univ.) took Heat 2 in 4:26.28, Yuzuha Sawai (4th yr.,...

There were big meets across the country this weekend, but the biggest results were at the Nittai University Time Trials in suburban Yokohama. Across the fastest two 10000 m heats Saturday night, a total of 10 men, 7 of them university athletes, broke 28 minutes. Topping the list was 19-year-old Tokyo Kokusai University 1st-year Richard Etir , who just missed a world-leading time as he blasted a new collegiate record of 27:06.88 to win the A-heat. Emmanuel Maru (Toyota Boshoku) was also under 27:10, taking 2nd in 27:09.96. 2023 Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University added another sub-28 runner to its roster as 4th-year Takumi Karasawa took 5th in 27:57.52, with Waseda University 3rd-year Haruto Ishizuka 6th in 27:58.53. In the B-heat, Yamanashi Gakuin University 2nd-year James Mutok won in 27:50.54, edging Soka University 3rd-year Kamina Leakey by just 0.08. YGU 1st-year Birian Kipyegon was 3rd in 27:51.65. 3000 m was the main event for women at Nittai, with Judy Jepngetic...

Riding the momentum of its Day One win yesterday, Komazawa University dominated Day Two of the 99th Hakone Ekiden for the overall win. Combined with its CR wins at the Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden, the Hakone victory made Komazawa only the 5th school to score the triple crown of major ekiden wins in a single season. It was the first triple crown of head coach Hiroaki Oyagi 's career, his biggest achievement at the biggest road race in the world, the one that has eluded him for decades. And, with his post-race announcement that he will step back from his role as head coach, it was his last. Komazawa started Day Two with a 30-second lead over last year's 6th-placer Chuo University and 2:03 over 2022 Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin University . Following the success of 1st-year Takuma Yamakawa on the uphill 5th leg yesterday, Oyagi opted to put 1st-year Aoi Ito on the steep downhill 6th leg. Ito excelled, outrunning Chuo's Haruto Wakabayashi by 17 seconds to ...

2021 National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University ran an almost perfect season-opener to win the Izumo Ekiden for the first time since 2013. 2nd after a good run from Kyosuke Hanao on the opening leg, 1500 m U20 NR holder Keita Sato had a big impact in his college ekiden debut, putting Komazawa into 1st and beating 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) by 4 seconds to set a new CR of 15:27 for his 5.8 km stage. 27:23.44 10000 m runner Ren Tazawa and 1:00:40 half marathoner Chikara Yamano were both second on the next two stages, but still extended Komazawa's lead to 33 seconds. The weakest link on the team, fifth man Taiyo Yasuhara initially lost 12 seconds to his chasers, but on the second half of his stage he turned it around and reopened Komazawa's lead to 44 seconds, winning the stage on time. Critically, that meant anchor Mebuki Suzuki , a 27:41.68 10000 m runner who lost most of the last year to a stress fracture, could afford to play it safel...

The first meet in this year's Hokuren Distance Challenge  in Hokkaido was the main meet of the weekend, but there was more action near Tokyo than in a normal year too as organizers sought to keep the number of people in one location down. At the HDC Shibetsu Meet the men's 3000 m was the highlight, with Yohei Ikeda  (Kanebo) winning in 7:56.10 to lead the top eight under eight minutes. Even just five years ago it was rare to see more than one Japanese man break eight in an entire year, a sign of how much things have changed in both shoes and priorities.  Titus Wambua  (SID Group) ran 13:22.49 for 1st in the men's 5000 m A-heat, Kenyans sweeping the top four spots. In 5th Kotaro Kondo  set a new school record for ekiden power Aoyama Gakuin University , running 13:34.88.  34-year-old Yuki Sato  (SGH Group) was 6th in 13:35.74, bettering the time he ran at Nationals less than two weeks ago by 3 seconds. Women's results in Shibetsu were low-key, Sakiko Na...