japan running news

Despite sparse attendance, day two of the Doha Asian Athletics Championships saw three world-leading performances, five championships records, eight national records and Japan get onto the medal tally board in a real way after a relatively slow first day . Qatari Abderrahman Samba turned in the performance of the day with a world-leading 47.51 championships record in the men's 400 m hurdles that left Japan's Takatoshi Abe tumbling in the turbulence. World-leaders also came in the men's 800 m via Qatari's Abubaker Haydar Abdalla with a 1:44.33 and the men's javelin with a throw of 86.72 m by Chao-Tsun Cheng of Taiwan. After only winning a single bronze medal on the first day of the championships Japan got rolling with one gold, one silver and two bronze medals. National record holder Yoshihide Kiryu took the gold in the men's 100 m, running 10.10 +1.5. Teammate Ryota Yamagata was a DNS after winning his semifinal in a season best 10.18. Ayaka K...

Avoiding the worst of the typhoon that caused the season-opening national-level high school ekidens and other events to be canceled over the weekend, the National Sports Festival continued through Tuesday after day one and day two of athletics competition. National junior records fell in the women's 5000 m racewalk, where Nanako Fujii (Edion) took 2nd overall in 21:24.40, and the junior men's 110 m hurdles, where Ko Tawada (Ogaki Shogyo H.S.) ran 13.31 (+1.5 m/s) for the win. Tawada also broke the meet record, one of four to be set over the final three days. Along with Tawada's mark, women's 5000 m racewalk winner Kumiko Okada (Bic Camera) set a new meet record of 21:08.97, Takumi Murashim a (Fuji Pref. Sports Assoc.) set a senior men's 800 m meet record of 1:47.45, with his teammate Taio Kanai (Fukui Pref. Sports Assoc.) breaking the senior men's 110 m hurdles record in 13.46 (+1.2 m/s). In distance action the highlight was the junior women'...

The 2018 National Corporate Track and Field Championships continued Saturday at Osaka's Nagai Stadium with a pair of records to mark the day. On the women's side, Nanako Fujii (Edion) set a junior national record of 44:13.37 to finish 2nd in the 10000 m racewalk behind winner Kumiko Okada (Bic Camera). On the men's side, Takumi Murashima (Fukui Pref. Sports Assoc.)  took half a second off the previous 800 m meet record set by former national record holder Masato Yokota , winning in 1:47.97. 2nd and 3rd-placers Taichi Ichino (Roble) and Naoto Arayasu (Fujitsu) were also under Yokota's record, making the 800 m the race of the day. In other noteworthy results, men's 20 km race walk world record Yusuke Suzuki (Fujitsu) returned from a six-month suspension for fudging expense claims to win the 10000 m race walk in 39:05.19.  Joel Mwaura (Kurosaki Harima) won the regular 10000 m in 27:45.31, leading the top five under 28 minutes. 2017 national XC champ Takas...

Front-page news and the top story in just about every mainstream Japanese media outlet,  the 2017 National University Track and Field Championships in Fukui will always be remembered for the first-ever Japanese men's legal sub-10 clocking in the 100 m from Toyo University 4th-year  Yoshihide Kiryu . After his historic 9.98 (+1.8 m/s) national record, Kiryu wrapped his university career by anchoring Toyo's 4x100 m team to a 2nd-place finish and making a major contribution to Toyo's solid 3rd-place in final overall university scoring. His London World Championships 4x100 m teammate Shuhei Tada (Kwansei Gakuin University) was also in good form, breaking Kiryu's old meet record in the 100 m in 10.07 and anchoring Kwansei Gakuin to 3rd in the 4x100 m. But there was no shortage of other record-breaking performances at this year's Nationals. Biggest among those came in the women's 800 m where Nittai University 4th-year  Yume Kitamura set a meet and nationa...

by Brett Larner Kenyan newcomer Lazarus Motanya (Obirin Univ.), winner of the D2 1500 m title at last month's Kanto Regional Track and Field Championships , returned this weekend for his first national title, winning the 1500 m at the National University Individual Track and Field Championships in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa on Friday.  Despite having only the 7th-fastest PB in the final, Motanya had no trouble frontrunning his way to the win against the overly cautious Japanese competition in 3:51.72.  Runner-up Tatsuya Shimizu (Toyo Univ.) was almost three seconds back in 3:54.28 with Chiu-Chin Tseng (Taiwan/National Sports University), one of a number of Taiwanese collegiates joining this year's meet, rounding out the podium in 3:54.39. Motanya was back again on Saturday for the 5000 m but could not match a field that included many of 2012 Izumo Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University 's A-squad.  AGU's Tadashi Isshiki , the course record-setter at February's Kana...