japan running news

The NYRR have announced the elite fields for the 2025 United Airlines NYC Half , and 3 top-tier runners from Japanese universities feature prominently in the men's field. Having just lost his 59:32 collegiate record to Komazawa University 's Kotaro Shinohara in Marugame earlier this month , collegiate 5000 m and 10000 m record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University heads to New York fresh off a 1:05:31 CR on the 23.1 km Hakone Ekiden Second Stage , equivalent to a 59:50 half marathon on a rolling net uphill course. That should predict success on the tough NYC course. He'll be the main competition for newly crowned American record holder Connor Mantz , 59:17 in Houston at the end of January, with defending champ and sub-59 man Abel Kipchumba  in contention too after a 59:52 win at last year's Great North Run. Sub-27 10000 m men Mohammed Ahmed and Woody Kincaid are also debuting. Komazawa teammates Yudai Kiyama and Hibiki Murakami earned spots in New York ...

2024 Hakone Ekiden course record breaker Aoyama Gakuin University was 3:16 up on 2023 winner Komazawa University at the end of Day One of the Hakone 2025, an even bigger margin than last year when it was 2:38 ahead of Komazawa and went on to win the 217.1 km overall race in a course record 10:41:25, beating Komazawa by almost 7 minutes. There was almost no chance Komazawa could close the gap today on the return trip of Hakone Day Two. But that doesn't mean they didn't try. Komazawa 3rd year Aoi Ito was just off the CR on the ~800 m downhill 6th leg in 57:38, but even with a run that good he lost ground when AGU's Akimu Nomura proved a hypothetical, breaking the 57-minute barrier for the 20.8 km leg with a 30-second CR of 56:47. Post-race Nomura said that he had spent the whole year training to run 56, and he executed perfectly. And put AGU 4:07 ahead, hopeless, except for a ray of hope. Injured for most of 2024 and running his first race since March on only 6 weeks of...

Komazawa University is trying to line up its fifth-straight National University Men's Ekiden win this Sunday, but after a runner-up finish to Koku Gakuin University last month at the Izumo Ekiden it's got a tough road ahead with two extra stages and a longer average stage length to deal with. TV Asahi has the live broadcast starting at 7:45 a.m. local time, with official streaming on TVer and unofficial streaming on mov3.co . Izumo was an unusually close and exciting race between Komazawa, KGU and Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University that saw the lead change every stage. All three teams were within a few seconds of each other at the start of the anchor stage, where Osaka Marathon winner Kiyoto Hirabayashi of KGU dropped Hakone First Stage winner Kotaro Shinohara from Komazawa and Third Stage winner Aoi Ota of AGU to take the win. KGU looks like the favorite here too, its top-8 10000 m average of 28:16.61 the class of the field and giving it a solid advantage ov...

Ekiden season rolls on, and for everyone who didn't make the top 10 at the Hakone Ekiden's 100th running this past January that means a trip to western Tokyo's Showa Linen Park this Saturday to line up on the runway of the air defense base next door to try to qualify for the 101st Hakone Ekiden . The 43 Tokyo-area universities at the Hakone Ekiden Qualifier Half Marathon , the Yosenkai, each run 10-12 athletes and are scored on the total times of their first 10 finishers. The 10 fastest teams go to Hakone, and the rest go home except for the 10 fastest individuals from non-qualifying universities, who get the privilege of running as part of a select team. NTV will broadcast the Yosenkai and its dramatic announcement ceremony live starting at 9:25 a.m. local time Saturday. If you've got a VPN you should be all set. If not, try mov3.co/ntv . JRN will be on-site at the Yosenkai to cover it live. Chuo University , Tokai University and Tokyo Kokusai University look sure ...

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...

Despite losing Kenyan Peter Wanjiru late in the race, favorite Daito Bunka University repeated as winner to lead the qualifiers for January's 100th Hakone Ekiden at Saturday's Yosenkai Half Marathon in western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park. Collegiate 5000 m and 10000 m record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University led the first 8.5 km in his debut at the distance with a pack of around including lone Japanese man Reishi Yoshida of Chuo Gakuin University right behind. Just before 8.5 km Etir was clipped from behind by Nihon Yakka University 's Dennis Kipruto and turned around to tell him off. A few steps later Kipruto clipped him again hard enough that Etir went airborne horizontal before crashing to the pavement. The favorite for the individual win, Etir never regained contact with the front of the race. And that ended up having profound consequences for Tokyo Kokusai. In Etir's absence Nihon University 's took over at 10 km, quickly getting rid of e...

In January the Hakone Ekiden celebrates its 100th running, and it’s going to be the biggest road race in history. The university men’s ekiden season kicked off Monday with the season-opening Izumo Ekiden, where course record holder Komazawa University followed up last year’s triple crown of wins at all three major university ekidens with a CR-breaking title defense . Saturday is the next important race, the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying half marathon at Tokyo’s Showa Kinen Park, and being the top 13 there is everything. The top 10 teams at the 2023 Hakone Ekiden, Komazawa, Chuo University , Aoyama Gakuin University , Koku Gakuin University , Juntendo University , Waseda University , Hosei University , Soka University , Josai University and Toyo University , secured their places at the 100th. On Saturday 57 other universities will compete for the remaining 13 places at Hakone. It’s an extremely big deal to be in the field at the 100th, with schools like Rikkyo University , Keio...

  November's National University Men's Ekiden is the second of the Big Three University Ekidens that make up the peak of the year for Japanese collegiate men. The top eight teams auto-qualify for the following year, and every year it's a given that they're all going to be from the Tokyo-centric Kanto Region. Another 17 schools have to run regional qualifiers to make it back, and of those another seven come from Kanto. The Kanto Region Qualifier happens Saturday at 17:15 Japan time, four heats of 10000 m on the track with two runners from each of the twenty schools in each heat. Teams are scored on the combined times of all eight runners, with the seven fastest total teams going on to Nationals in November. On paper Chuo Gakuin University and Kanagawa University are the favorites with seven entrants each with bests under 29 minutes, in CGU's case led by sub-28 3rd-year Reishi Yoshida . Tokai University , Daito Bunka University and Josai University are next with ...

After finishing 11th at the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden's 99th edition to end its 3-year streak of making the 10-deep podium, Tokyo Kokusai University announced on Jan. 18 that head coach Yuji Oshida , 60, will resign. After also finishing 8th at October's Izumo Ekiden and 11th at November's National University Ekiden Oshida's resignation came as a way of taking personal responsibility for the program's drop in competitive level. He will be replaced by veteran coach Saburo Yokomizo , 83. A graduate of Chuo University , where he won Hakone's 8th leg during his senior year, Oshida was the gold medalist in the 1500 m at the 1986 Asian Games. After working as assistant coach at Honda and Chuo, including for Chuo's 1996 Hakone Ekiden win, he has been head coach at Tokyo Kokusai since the program's inception in 2011, building it up from zero in consultation with fellow Chuo alumnus Yokomizo. Tokyo Kokusai first qualified for the Hakone Ekiden in 2016. In 2020 i...

Results at the 99th Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2 and 3 this year showed that the high level seen over the last few years hasn't slowed down at all. Eleven university teams cleared 11:00:00 for the complete 10-leg, 217.1 km course, tying last year's record numbers . Before 2020, when ten teams did it, there had never been more than three in a single edition. Winner Komazawa University 's time was the 3rd-fastest ever, with runner-up Chuo University running the 5th-fastest ever and 3rd-placer Aoyama Gakuin University the 9th-fastest. Komazawa and Chuo were both in the all-time top ten for both the Day One and Day Two segments, with overall 7th-placer Hosei University the 10th-fastest ever for Day Two. Both Komazawa and Chuo went under the 3:00/km barrier for average pace over the entire course, which includes a stage that climbs to 874 m elevation and another that drops back down. At the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships, where teams run 100....

Tokyo Kokusai University 4th-year Vincent Yegon was named MVP of the 2023 Hakone Ekiden for his course record-breaking run on Hakone's 4th leg on Jan. 2 . Originally an alternate, Yegon was swapped in for fellow 4th-year Luka Musembi on race morning. Yegon ran 1:00:00 for the 20.9 km 4th leg, taking 30 seconds off the previous CR of 1:00:30 set by Yuya Yoshida of Aoyama Gakuin University in 2020. As a 1st-year Yegon broke the CR on Hakone's 3rd leg, following up with a CR on the competitive 2nd leg as a 2nd-year. That run earned him his first Hakone MVP award , making him the only non-Japanese athlete ever to receive the distinction. With his 4th leg CR this year Yegon now holds the records for the 2nd through 4th legs. "Thank you very much. I'm happy," he commented in Japanese. As a team Tokyo Kokusai University ultimately placed 11th , falling 1:32 behind 10th-placer Toyo University . It was Tokyo Kokusai's first time missing the 10-deep podium and a g...

Earlier this week the KGRR released the entry lists for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden 's 99th running. We'll do a more detailed preview closer to the race, but a few quick takeaways: Not including the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team, each of the 20 universities in the race entered 16 names, of which 10 will actually start the race. 13 teams have 10-man 5000 m PB averages under 14 minutes, 15 teams have 10-man 10000 m PB averages under 29 minutes, and 4 teams have 10-man half marathon averages under 1:03. With the average stage length at Hakone being just over a half marathon it's hard to see any team outside the 4 with 62-minute half averages being in it for the win, but the massive number of 28-minute 10000 m teams shows where the focus has been during the pandemic, and low-ranked teams like Daito Bunka University , Nittai University and Tokyo Kokusai University that have good track credentials without half marathon marks to match should do better than what it ...

Ekiden season kicks off for real on Monday with the first of the Big Three university men's ekidens, the Izumo Ekiden in Shimane. Fuji TV will be broadcasting Izumo live starting at 12:30 p.m. local time, with pre-race and exchange zone shots streamed on Youtube . Follow @JRNLive for English coverage. Last year was a great season, with three different schools winning the three big races, Tokyo Kokusai University taking Izumo in its debut there, Komazawa University winning November's National University Ekiden, and Aoyama Gakuin University getting back on top of the big one, January's Hakone Ekiden. All three are going to be heavy hitters on Monday, but at the same time it's one of the closest fields ever at Izumo. There's not much difference in level for the top eight teams, all of them having top six runner averages under 14 minutes for 5000 m and under 29 minutes for 10000 m. With the average level so close it could come down to the strongest star runner on t...

It's four days until the biggest race of the year, the 98th Hakone Ekiden  on Jan. 2 and 3. 21 university men's teams race 10 legs from central Tokyo to the mountains and back over the course of two days, each leg roughly a half marathon in distance and the total course adding up to 217.1 km.  65 million people watched at least part of the 2021  NTV Hakone broadcast  broadcast, so you know they must be on to something. The broadcast, the best in the world, starts at 7:00 a.m. both days, and as you'd expect they keep it a locked-down secret only for Japanese audiences. A VPN or  mov3.co  are probably the best bets for trying to watch from abroad, but JRN will once again cover it all on  @JRNLive .  The 2021 race had one of the most dramatic finishes in Hakone history , with Komazawa University  anchor Takuma Ishikawa  coming from over a kilometer behind to run down Yuki Onodera  with 2 km to go and stop him from bringing Soka Univer...