japan running news

5th last year, Edion led almost start to finish to win its first-ever national title at the Queens Ekiden corporate women's national championship race Sunday in Sendai. Its lead-off runner Kana Mizumoto opened up a 16-second lead that it held until the 4th leg, when the talented Caroline Kariba from 2024 winner Japan Post ran down Edion's Saya Nakajima . It's hard to fault Nakajima, who was still the fastest Japanese woman on that leg, and in any case Edion's 5th runner Ai Hosoda , 6th at August's Sydney Marathon, caught Japan Post's Kotoka Ota late in the 10.0 km leg to put Edion out front again by 7 seconds. Both Edion anchor Miho Hiraoka and Japan Post's Mao Kogure ran identical times for the 6.795 km 6th leg, 21:24, Hiraoka bringing Edion in to its first-ever win in 2:13:50. It had to have been frustrating for Kogure, who just couldn't close the gap and had to accept 2nd in 2:13:57. 2023 winner Sekisui Kagaku was almost a minute back in 3rd...

Championship ekiden season kicks off Sunday with the Queens Ekiden , the corporate women's national championship race in Sendai, 42.195 km in 6 legs with 24 teams competing to make the 8-deep podium. TBS has the live broadcast starting at 11:50 a.m. local time, with streaming starting on Youtube at 12:10 p.m. Japan Post won its 4th national title last year, running down 2023 winner Sekisui Kagaku and CR holder Shiseido over the 2nd half of the race to take the win. Its entire lineup from last year returns, with a new addition to its 10-runner entry roster in former Meijo University captain Nanase Tanimoto . Sekisui Kagaku is missing one of its strongest people from last year, First Stage winner Erika Tanoura , but has picked up 2023 World University Games 5000 m bronze medalist Risa Yamazaki from Nittai University . A surprise 3rd last year, Shimamura also returns its entire lineup led by Anna Suzuki and Yuna Takahashi . Shiseido ended up 8th last year, the last place earnin...

31 corporate women's teams were in Fukuoka this weekend to go for the 16 remaining spots at November's Queens Ekiden, the corporate women's national championship race. 19-year-old China Nakagawa was a revelation on the opening leg as she took down the leadoff runners from the bigger teams to put Hitachi out front, but on the next stage steepler Manami Nishiyama put Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo out front with a stage-winning 10:57 for 3.6 km. A brilliant run from Nanaka Izawa (Starts) on the first of the race's two long stages interrupted Mitsui Sumitomo's lead, but when Mitsui Sumitomo's Tabitha Njeri outkicked Starts' Esther Wambui it was all Mitsui the rest of the way. Stage-winning runs from last two runners Wakana Kabasawa and Anna Matsuda were enough to give Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo the win in 2:15:53, 48 seconds under the old course record set by Shiseido in 2021 when Kabasawa was a member of that team. Starts ended up a distant 2nd in 2:18:04, with Ten...

Sunday's Princess Ekiden is the qualifying race for November's Queens Ekiden corporate women's national championship race. In contrast to corporate men's teams, who are divided into regions for their qualifying races which they have to run every year because the New Year Ekiden national championships doesn't currently have a seeded podium, the women's system gives the top 8 teams at the Queens Ekiden guaranteed places at the next year's race and sends the rest back to a single qualifying race, the Princess Ekiden. This frees up the top tier of women's teams, currently Japan Post , Sekisui Kagaku , Shimamura , Panasonic , Edion , Iwatani Sangyo , Daiichi Seimei and Shiseido , to do things like this weekend's Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon or overseas races. 31 other teams will race at the Princess Ekiden, 42.195 km in 6 stages, to try to take one of the 16 remaining spots in the Queens Ekiden field. Teams at Princess are listed in the order they finish...

Sunday is the first big race of championship ekiden season, the Queens Ekiden in Sendai, the season-ending national championship for corporate women. 24 teams race 42.195 km in 6 legs, with the top 8 scoring places for 2025. TBS' live nationwide broadcast starts at 11:50, with multi-camera streaming on Youtube above. Last year Sekisui Kagaku won by almost a minute and a half, and with Paris Olympian Yuma Yamamoto , 2023 World Championships marathoner Sayaka Sato on its entry list and collegiate 1500 m record holder Mizuki Michishita having come on board this season it looks like a contender for another win. But last year's runner-up Japan Post got a big boost this season with the addition of its first non-Japanese member, two-time double 1500 m and 3000 m high school champion Caroline Kariba . The Queens Ekiden limits non-Japanese athletes to a 3.8 km leg, so it'd be tough for Kariba to bridge a 1:25 gap by herself with that little ground to work with. But what she can...

On Aug. 26 women's marathon national record holder Honami Maeda of the Tenmaya corporate team talked about her unfortunate withdrawal from the Paris Olympics after suffering a stress fracture. After that she went on leave from the team to focus on her recovery. Q. What have you been doing since the Olympics? Maeda: I've just been back home taking it easy and seeing friends. Taking it slow and relaxing. The stress fracture hasn't fully healed yet, so I have to rest. I don't really have any choice except taking it easy, so it feels different from my normal holidays. When I look back on the whole thing I feel some regret. Q. What makes you feel regret? Maeda: I can't answer that. With no current plans to restart her training, for the foreseeable future Maeda will be just dealing with recovery from her injury. source article: https://www.ohk.co.jp/data/26-20240826-00000019/pages/ translated by Brett Larner

The Princess Ekiden , the official qualifying race for November's Queens Ekiden national corporate women's championships, happens Sunday in rural Fukuoka. 31 teams of 6 women will be racing 42.195 km in pursuit of 16 places at Queens alongside the top tier of podium placers from last year's national championships. TBS will be streaming the race live on Youtube starting at 12:10 p.m., and if you've got a VPN you should be all set. Live results will be posted here . There's a general sense that Japanese women aren't where they used to be, but counter to that trend are a lot of new women's ekiden teams trying to get off the ground. Along with some of the long-established powers like past national champions Universal Entertainment , Tenmaya and Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo , there are relatively young teams like Nitori , Senko and Tokyo Metro trying to qualify for the first time, and newcomers like Bears Camellia making their debuts. Next year expect to see at leas...

The Princess Ekiden , the official qualifying race for the Nov. 27 National Corporate Women's Ekiden, happened Sunday in Munakata, Fukuoka, 31 teams racing 42.195 km in 6 stages to pick up one of the 16 places available at Nationals. It was an unusually dynamic ekiden; except for Fourth Stage winner Teresiah Muthoni (Daiso), every woman who ran the fastest time on her stage did it while taking the overall lead, and 4 of those 5 were from different teams. Up front, Panasonic anchor Sora Shinozakura pulled off a brilliant last-second come-from-behind win to take 1st in 2:18:06. Panasonic was never out of the top 4, 2nd runner Nanami Watanabe taking the lead before the team dropped back again. Shinozakura started the 6.695 km anchor leg in 3rd, 24 seconds behind leader Momoka Hanafusa of the Kyudenko team, and steadily cut down the distance to 1st. It looked like she might run out of road before she got there, but with a hard surge from 400 m out she flew past Hanafusa to take t...

Coming back from a scandal earlier this year in which a non-Japanese former team member spoke out about abusive behavior by male coaches toward the team's female athletes,  Shiseido  was back with what looked like a more positive team culture, dominating Sunday's Princess Ekiden with a course record win. Shiseido didn't quite lead start-to-finish, but it came close. Tomoka Kimura got it rolling with a 21:44 stage record on the 7.0 km opening leg, 38 seconds under the old record.  Former national champ Daiichi Seimei 's Hibiki Sakuragawa  broke the course record on the Second Stage to put her team 5 seconds ahead of Shiseido, but it didn't last long as on the next stage Shiseido's Naruha Sato  retook the lead and built up a margin that Shiseido's last three runners held. Anchor Kain Maeda  brought the team home in 2:16:41 for the full 42.195 km distance, 21 seconds under the previous course record and securing the team's place at next month's Queen...

Championship ekiden season is on the way, and this weekend two of the main events will hold their official qualification races. Saturday in Tokyo's western suburb of Tachikawa is the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai half marathon, a chance for collegiate men to be on the starting line of the world's #1 race this coming January. 10 universities are already qualified for the Hakone Ekiden by having finished in the top 10 at this year's race, and at the Yosenkai another 10 will join them. 41 universities from the greater Tokyo area will run from 10 to 12 men each and are scored on the total time of their first 10 finishers. The fastest 10 teams go on to Hakone, pure and simple. Top individuals from teams that don't qualify will also be named to a select team, as long as they're Japanese citizens, to fill out Hakone's field of 21. NTV will broadcast the race and its tense qualifier announcement ceremony live starting at 9:25 a.m. Saturday local time, with official streami...

It's yet another big weekend of racing in Japan. Saturday sees two of the year's biggest 10000 m meets, both in the greater Tokyo area. At Kanagawa's Keio University the Kanto Region University 10000 m Time Trials will have two tiers of scholarship money from the KGRR for any men who break 29 minutes or 29:20 and for women who go under 34 minutes or 34:20. Most of the top Hakone Ekiden programs will have big numbers of people there, with one of the most notable entries being the return of Meiji University's Hiroki Abe , 27:56.45 this time last year but out with injury so far this season. Most of the top collegians though will be out in Tokyo's western suburbs at Hosei University for the Hachioji Long Distance Meet . 2019 World University Games half marathon medalists Akira Aizawa (Toyo Univ.) and Tatsuhiko Ito (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) are entered, along with #1-ranked 1st-yr Ren Tazawa (Komazawa Univ.) who is also entered at Keio. All three won their stages e...

Honami Maeda age: 23 sponsor: Tenmaya graduated from: Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. best time inside MGC window: 2:23:48, 2nd, 2018 Osaka International Women’s Marathon PB: 2:23:48, 2nd, 2018 Osaka International Women’s Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 15:38.16 (2018) 10000 m: 32:13.87 (2018) half marathon: 1:09:12 (2018) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) 12th, 2019 Tokyo Marathon, 2:31:42 7th, 2018 Berlin Marathon, 2:25:23 2nd, 2018 Osaka International Women’s Marathon, 2:23:48 – PB 1st, 2017 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:28:48 other major results: 3rd, 2019 Hakodate Half Marathon, 1:10:23 3rd, 2019 National Women’s Ekiden Ninth Stage (10.0 km), 31:49 1st, 2018 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:09:12 – PB 5th, 2018 National Corporate Women’s Ekiden Third Stage (10.9 km), 35:15 35th, 2018 Valencia World Half Marathon Championships, 1:12:09 7th, 2017 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:10:22 12th, 2017 Osaka International Women’s Marathon, 2:32:19 2nd, 2016...

Rei Ohara age: 29 sponsor: Tenmaya graduated from: Kojokan H.S. best time inside MGC window: 2:25:46, 2nd, 2019 Osaka International Women’s Marathon PB: 2:23:20, 3rd, 2016 Nagoya Women’s Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 15:39.47 (2016) 10000 m: 31:48.31 (2015) half marathon: 1:09:17 (2015) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) 2nd, 2019 Osaka International Women’s Marathon, 2:25:46 10th, 2018 Berlin Marathon, 2:27:29 8th, 2018 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:27:44 other major results: 2nd, 2019 Sendai International Half Marathon, 1:10:25 4th, 2018 National Corporate Women’s Ekiden Sixth Stage (6.795 km), 21:54 3rd, 2018 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:10:37 5th, 2017 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:09:26 1st, 2017 Osaka Half Marathon, 1:10:02 1st, 2016 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:10:04 3rd, 2016 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:23:20 – PB 2nd, 2015 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:09:17 – PB 22nd, 2015 Beijing World Championships 10000 m, 32:47.74 3rd, 201...

It's one month to go until what's bound to be the best marathon of 2019, Japan's 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon trials, the Sept. 15  Marathon Grand Championship Race . Up to now Japan has typically picked its Olympic and World Championships marathon teams based on performances in a series of specific races, primarily the Fukuoka International Marathon, Tokyo Marathon and Lake Biwa Marathon for men, and the Saitama International Marathon, Osaka International Women's Marathon and Nagoya Women's Marathon for women. This time around they're going with a U.S.-style one-shot trials race, the MGC Race . People had a nearly two-year window from August, 2017 to April this year to hit tough standards to qualify. Only 34 men and 15 women made it, and after withdrawals for the Doha World Championships the MGC Race's final entry list is just 31 men and 12 women. Swedish Athletics Federation official Lorenzo Nesi called it "the most difficult marathon race ever...

Bound for the 2020 Olympic marathon trials MGC Race to be held Sept. 15, Tenmaya teammates Rei Ohara , 28, and Honami Maeda , 23, left July 22 for altitude training in the U.S.A. The pair will be based in Albuquerque, New Mexico at 1600 m elevation until early September, doing the brunt of their preparations for the MGC Race there. Maeda won the 2017 Hokkaido Marathon to become the first woman to qualify for the MGC Race. After that she ran an excellent 2:23:48 at the 2018 Osaka International Women's Marathon and competed at the World Half Marathon Championships. The main event on Sept. 15 will be one without pacers and a field of only 12. "I've never run in a race with so few people before," she said. "I want to run my own race. The last 5 km will be the key." Ohara ran 2:23:20 at the 2016 Nagoya Women's Marathon, missing a place on the Rio Olympic team by 1 second as the second Japanese finisher. "The next few weeks will be an important ti...

At a press conference in Hiroshima on Mar. 20 national 100 yen shop chain Daiso Sangyo announced its sponsorship of the new Daiso women's ekiden team beginning Apr. 1 this year. The new team's inaugural head coach will be local Sera H.S. coaching legend Shinya Iwamoto , 53. The team's initial roster will include five 18-year-old athletes who graduated from high school this month, three of them from Sera including the team's star runner Koto Hiramura . Iwamoto was born in Higashi Hiroshima. As a senior at Sera H.S. he won the Fourth Stage at the National High School Ekiden, going on to attend Fukuoka University. After graduating he became a junior high school teacher before becoming head coach of the Sera boys in 2004. In 2006 Sera won the National High School Ekiden for the first time in 32 years. In 2010 Iwamoto became the Sera girls' head coach as well, and in 2015 the school became only the second in history to win both the boys' and girls' nati...

Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon and Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon pretty much wrapped up qualification for the Sept. 15 MGC Race , Japan's new 2020 Olympic trials in the marathon. There's still a chance for people who haven't qualified yet to get in if they can clear the wildcard standards, 2:24:00 or a two-race 2:28:00 average for women and 2:08:30 or a 2:11:00 average for men, by the end of April. At least two men with good chances of making it, Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) and Asuka Tanaka (Hiramatsu Byoin), are planning to race again in April to try to go that route, and there will probably be others. But realistically the numbers of qualifiers probably won't change too much from what they are now. As of the end of Sunday's races, 14 women and 30 men have qualified. On the women's side, the Tenmaya corporate team, the most successful at putting women on national teams in the marathon, has produced the most qualifiers with three, Honami Maeda...

The 30th Kitakyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden took place Jan. 20 with a 32.7 km course divided into 5 stages for the open division and 6 for the high school division and a start and finish in front of Kitakyushu City Hall. Tenmaya took the top spot in the open division for the first time in 6 years in 1:46:32, while 2018 National High School Ekiden champion Kamimura Gakuen H.S. won the high school division in 1:47:41, its first win in 16 years. Since the start of the year Tenmaya's star runner Rei Ohara has been suffering back pain and came to Kitakyushu undertrained as a result. That didn't stop her from running the fastest time on the anchor stage, covering the 11.4 km leg in 36:33. "Once I got started it was a lot easier to move than I'd expected," she said post-race. "Our first four runners ran really well, and thanks to them I was able to be the one to break the tape at the finish line." A relieved Tenmaya head coach Yutaka Taketomi ...

The organizers of the Dec. 23 Sanyo Ladies Road Race have announced the elite field for this year's 37th running. Honami Maeda of local corporate team Tenmaya and others preparing for next September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials will be in the field, along with national record holder and Rio Olympian Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) who will return to Sanyo for the first time since 2005. The half marathon division promises to be an exciting race between Olympic contenders. Among the eight women to have qualified for the MGC Race so far, Maeda, teammate Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) and Reia Iwade (Under Armour), the 2nd-place Japanese woman at March's Nagoya Women's Marathon, will face off. Others include Fukushi, Asia Games 5000 m team member Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera), under-20 marathon national record holder Ayaka Fujimoto (Kyocera) and Australian Ellie Pashley , who represented her country at this year's World Half Marathon Championships. It looks set to be ...