japan running news

It's Sunday, June 24. At the western end of Japan's main island of Honshu the competition at the Yamaguchi National Track and Field Championships has been heating up. On this day alone, the final day of the Championships, the national records have fallen in both the men's 110 m hurdles and men's discus throw. On the very same day, far to the northeast of Yamaguchi at Lake Saroma, Hokkaido, another new record was born . After standing for 20 years, the 100 km ultramarathon world record has finally fallen. The man who accomplished this deed is Nao Kazami (Aisan Kogyo). The previous world record of 6:13:33 was set at Lake Saroma by Takahiro Sunada (Sekisui Kagaku) in 1998. Kazami improved that mark by more than four minutes with a new record of 6:09:14.  "I was targeting place more than time," said Kazami of the race where he needed to finish in the top four to have a chance of being selected for the Japanese national team for this year's Croatia World ...

Running on the same course where Japan's Takahiro Sunada set the road 100 km world record of 6:13:33 twenty years ago, 2:17:23 marathoner Nao Kazami   bested a deep and competitive field to win the Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon in a world record 6:09:14. Part of a front group of at least five that went through the marathon split in 2:33:36, on pace for 6:04:01, Kazami lost touch with the lead as rivals Koji Hayasaka and Takehiko Gyoba surged just before halfway to open a roughly 30 second lead that lasted until nearly 75 km. But in the last quarter of the race Kazami, a graduate of Hakone Ekiden powerhouse Komazawa University , was the only one who could sustain anything close to the early pace, overtaking Hayasaka and Gyoba before pulling away to open a lead of over 11 minutes. Kazami's mark took more than 4 minutes off the world record, and he also bettered the 100 km track world record of 6:10:20 set in 1978 well before he was born by the late Don Ritchie . ...

The IAAF-certified  Lake Saroma 100 km Ultramarathon took place June 25 along the lake's interior shore in the Okhotsk coast towns of Yubetsu, Saroma and Kitami, the selection race for the Japanese national team for the 2018 IAU 100 km World Championships. Three weeks after winning the JAL Chitose Marathon in 2:17:19 , Tatsuya Itagaki (Sapporo Kokusai Univ.) won the men's race for the second year in a row. His time of 6:14:18 was the second-fastest ever run for 100 km on the roads, missing the 6:13:33 world record set at Lake Saroma in 1998 by Takahiro Sunada by just 45 seconds after going through halfway in 3:00:50. In the women's race 2009 Berlin World Championships marathon 7th-placer and 2010 Nagoya International Women's winner  Yuri Kano  (Will Forward RC) ran 7:37:21 to win her debut. 32nd Lake Saroma Ultramarathon Yubetsu, Hokkaido, 6/25/17 Men's 100 km 1. Tatsuya Itagaki (Sapporo Kokusai Univ.) - 6:14:18 2. Yasuyuki Nakamura (Suzuki Hamamatsu...

by Brett Larner @JRNHeadlines pic.twitter.com/uqE9UrqAYw — John O'Regan (@johnoregan777) November 29, 2016 Hideaki Yamauchi become the fourth Japanese man in the last ten years to win the IAU 100 km World Championships , coming from three minutes behind to outrun South Africa's Bongmusa Mthembu , Italian three-time world champion Giorgio Calcaterra and others to win Sunday's race in Los Alcazares, Spain by nearly six minutes.  Yamauchi's winning time of 6:18:22 was the fifth-fastest ever for the 100 km distance , making him the all-time #4 man worldwide just behind world record holder Takahiro Sunada .  Yamauchi's teammates Kaitaro Toike and Yoshiki Takada took 8th and 23rd, giving Japan the team silver medal by a slim margin behind South Africa.  The U.S.A. team took bronze on the strength of two top five finishes. No Japanese women scored individual medals, but with a 5-6-7 finish separated by only 17 seconds the trio of Mikiko Ota , Aiko Kanematsu ...

http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/etc/20160229-OHT1T50037.html http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20160229/ath16022905020006-n1.html  http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20160229/ath16022905030007-n1.html incorporates additional quotes given in interviews with Nippon TV 青学速いほんとに。 #下田裕太 pic.twitter.com/KsCY3A4Zw1 — miho (@tanami_01) February 28, 2016 translated and edited by Brett Larner Taking on the marathon for the first time as a second-year at Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University, Yuta Shimoda , 19, finished 10th overall and 2nd Japanese man at Sunday's Tokyo Marathon in 2:11:34, a new Japanese under-20 record. AGU head coach Susumu Hara , 48, made a strong appeal for Shimoda, already Japan's fastest-ever 18-year-old for the half-marathon, to be named to the Rio Olympics team.  Among the experienced marathoners and other pre-race favorites, Beijing World Championships marathon team member Masato Imai (31, Team Toyota Kyushu), was 13th, the debuting Kenta...

by Brett Larner complete results coming shortly Sunny skies and warm temperatures greeted the 29th running of the world's fastest ultra, Hokkaido's Lake Saroma 50 km and 100 km Ultramarathon .  Predicted temperatures over 25C meant probable slow times on the course that hosts both the men's and women's 100 km world records, but that did not stop defending men's 100 km winner Hideo Nojo (New Balance) from going for it.  An opening split of 36:03 for the first 10 km put him right on the cusp being on track to break 6 hours, but while that was clearly not going to be sustainable Nojo pushed on ahead of Takahiro Sunada 's 6:13:33 world record pace until nearly halfway before the heat got the better of him.  Slowing to close to 45 minutes per 10 km by 70 km, Nojo rallied late in the race and went back under 40 minutes for the final 10 km to take the win in 6:40:15, three minutes slower than his winning time last year but a world lead by seven and a half minutes....

by Brett Larner The organizers of next month's first edition of the new Osaka Marathon have officially made their entry into the already crowded fall marathon season with the release of the elite field for the Oct. 30 race. Topping the men's field with a 2:07:29 best is 2009 Tokyo Marathon champion Salim Kipsang  (Kenya).  His best competition, a surprise entry coming just less than two months after the Daegu World Championships, is 2:08:37 runner Yuki Kawauchi  (Saitama Pref.) who beat Kipsang at the 2010 Tokyo Marathon.  Other overseas runners include Elijah Sang  (Kenya) and Woody Harrelson lookalike Alexsey Sokolov  (Russia), who also ran in the World Championships.  The small domestic field includes Japan's two other top amateur runners after Kawauchi, 2009 Copenhagen Marathon winner Toyokazu Yoshimura  and infamous wig runner Nobuaki Takata . The women's field consists primarily of veterans, led by Olympic medalist Lidia Simon  (R...