japan running news

On June 16 the Tokyo Athletics Association announced that 1984 Los Angeles Olympics women's marathoner Akemi Masuda , 57, has been named its new director. Masuda, a frequent commentator on TV race broadcasts, already serves as director of the Japan Para-Athletics Federation and Japan Intellectual Disability Athletics Federation . source article: https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2021061601341&g=spo translated and edited by Brett Larner

Today was the original date of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics women's marathon, before the coronavirus hit, before the IOC moved the race to Sapporo. Two years ago I went out and did test runs on the course on Aug. 2 and Aug. 9 at the actual times that the women's and men's marathons were to have been run this year, taking temperature and humidity readings every half hour. Last year I did it three times, once on Aug. 2 , once on Aug. 5 with European marathon champion Koen Naert of Belgium, and again on Aug. 9 , all at the actual race time. It doesn't really matter any more, but for the sake of completion I decided to do it this year too. If a lot of things had gone differently and the world's marathon women had run the streets of Tokyo today, what kind of conditions would they have ended up actually facing? Only one way to find out. The picture at the top is the view down the marathon gate tunnel into the stadium right at the time the lead women would have b...

After a slow start that saw it playing catchup for the first half of the 35th anniversary East Japan Women's Ekiden  in Fukushima today, the Chiba prefecture team came on strong late in the race with three straight stage wins to put anchor Rika Kaseda safely 2:45 out front with 10 km to go. A smaller version of January's National Women's Ekiden, East Japan features 18 teams made up from the best junior high school, high school, university, club, corporate and pro runners from each prefecture in the region. With their home battered by typhoons this fall the Chiba team hoped to pull of a win to give some inspiration to the people back home. Mai Shinozuka , Chika Kosakai and Rika Minami played a big role on the 6th through 8th stages, giving Kaseda, the silver medalist in the half marathon at this year's World University Games, the margin she needed to have a chance against Tokyo's Hitomi Niiya . Last year, in her first road race back from a five-year retirem...

Ladies and gentlemen, Hitomi Niiya is back. You might remember Hitomi Niiya from the 2013 Moscow World Championships 10000 m, where she led the entire way only to get destroyed over the last lap and finish 5th in 30:56.70. That made her the third-fastest Japanese woman ever over that distance, but not long after that race she quit the sport entirely, getting an office job as far away from athletics as she could and not running for almost five years. But the pull of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is strong, and, now 30, early this year she made the decision to try to make a comeback. Under the eye of former men's 800 m national record holder Masato Yokota she ran a 3000 m and two 5000 m time trials on the track between April and October before choosing the East Japan Women's Ekiden for her return to the roads and the longer distances. The East Japan Women's Ekiden celebrated its 34th running Sunday, 9 stages totaling 42.195 km through the Fukushima countryside with teams...

http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1037349/french-prosecutors-reportedly-investigating-13-million-payment-by-tokyo-bid-team-ahead-of-2020-vote

http://www.zeit.de/entdecken/reisen/2016-02/laufen-tokio-marathon-running-stadt A German-language article on running in Tokyo.

As with last month's World Championships, the lack of leadership of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, its National Stadium and logo scandals, its backtracking in decision making, its complete avoidance of responsibility for its own failures, is a discouraging squandering of the potential that is most definitely there.  Like the way that going out to watch the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifier in person salves the pain of witnessing corporate league and JAAF policy, practice and decision making, there's no better way to be reminded of what a great city Tokyo really is, of what it could be, than to see it on foot.  Running the 40 km +/- around the Yamanote Line, the green circle train line circling the heart of the city, offers a glimpse of some of Tokyo's many faces.  Today's run started and finished at Harajuku Station, heading counterclockwise. photos (c) 2015 Brett Larner all rights reserved

http://www.sankei.com/sports/news/150222/spo1502220024-n1.html translated by Brett Larner Just over 30 minutes into the Tokyo Marathon, 2014 Asian Games silver medalist Kohei Matsumura (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) was already showing strain on his face.  Around 12 km he suddenly fell back from the lead group never to return, finishing 25th in 2:16:25.  "Am I shocked?  I guess so..." he said in a thin voice post-race.  "I felt it in my legs right from the start."  In past races he has been able to pick it up partway through, but this time he was unable to focus and get into a steady rhythm.  "I just couldn't get it together today," he said. Last year Matsumura was the top Japanese finisher in Tokyo, 8th in 2:08:09.  At the Asian Games he won the silver medal in the marathon.  Aware of his status as Japan's top current marathon, pre-race he enthusiastically said, "My goal is 2:07.  I want to live up to expectations."  But those s...

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