japan running news

With the best half marathon credentials in the field of 42 Kanto Region university teams, 11 runners with half marathon bests under 64 minutes, Chuo Gakuin University took the top spot at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai half marathon, the official qualifying race for January's 102nd Hakone Ekiden. With a 1:00:45 best Hiro Konda let the way for CGU as the top Japanese finisher in the race, running 1:02:04 for 7th overall. Taisei Ichikawa was next at 18th in 1:02:16 and Kotaro Osabe next in 1:02:57 for 38th, and CGU's other 7 scoring members all came through with a good run to give CGU the win in a combined time of 10:32:23, a 10-man average of 1:03:14.30. That was a bit on the slow side given the excellent conditions which were thanks in part to the race starting an hour earlier this year. An all-African lead group took it out hard, splitting 14:25 and 28:43 at 5 km and 10 km. The projected finish time was 1:00:35 at that point, in range of the best Japanese athletes in the filed...

January's Hakone Ekiden has a big impact on the shape of the fall season for Japanese collegiate men. The top 10 teams at Hakone run this past Monday's Izumo Ekiden , where 6 runners per team run an average of 7.5 km. 11th-place and lower run Saturday's Yosenkai, the half marathon used to fill the 10 remaining slots in the Hakone field and the lineup of the select team made up of top-placing individuals from universities that don't qualify as a team. The 42 teams at the Yosenkai can run up to 12 people, with the times of their first 10 finishers adding up to a team score and the 10 fastest teams going on to the big show. At Izumo a lot of the top teams were down on track times this season . At the Yosenkai it's really noticeable how much the level has come up. In 2023 only 2 teams, Daito Bunka University and Tokyo Kokusai University , had a 10-runner 10000 m average under 29 minutes. Last year there were 3, Chuo University , Tokai University and TKU again. This ...

With high humidity, mostly sunny skies and temps reported as high as 30˚ it was just too hot for fast times at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon qualifying race for January's 101st Hakone Ekiden. Individual winner and last year's 1:00:16 CR setter Shadrack Kipkemei from Nihon University and runner-up Brian Kipyegon of Yamanashi Gakuin University lasting the whole way on sub-1:01 pace and going 1:00:59 and 1:01:02 was really exceptional given the weather, but you could see how tough it was given that only five people went under 1:02 and seven under 1:03 compared to 11 and 38 last year. Top Japanese finisher and 1:00:31 half marathoner Reishi Yoshida of Chuo Gakuin University was only 10th in 1:03:29 and collegiate record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University 11th in 1:03:35. But ultimately the Yosenkai is about team scoring based on the total times of each school's first ten finishers, so while the unseasonal summertime conditions held times ba...

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...

The 100 km ultramarathon World Championships took place in Germany on Aug. 27. Japanese national team member Haruki Okayama (27, Comodi Iida) went in with the fastest time in the world this year, the favorite for the gold medal. And he ran like it, winning in 6:12:10, less than 3 minutes from the world record. Okayama is a non-elite, someone who dreamed of running the Hakone Ekiden but couldn't make his university's team, someone who ran with a corporate team as an ordinary employee. Where did this miracle breakthrough come from? Sportswriter Masato Sakai talked to him before Berlin about his "never give up no matter what" attitude and training. In the world of sports, where ability is everything, there's a man who came all the way from the bottom to stand atop Japan. His name is Haruki Okayama. In 10 years he's gone from being turned away by one of the old school Hakone Ekiden universities teams to representing Japan on its national team. Aug. 27 was the d...

Daito Bunka University , Ritsumeikan University and Tokyo Nogyo University try to take down defending national champ Meijo University at the 2018 Morinomiyako Ekiden.

Tokyo Nogyo University , Meijo University and Daito Bunka University battle four-time defending champ Ritsumeikan University for the national title at the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden.

For decades the New Year in Japan has been the best three days of racing n the year, with the New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships on Jan. 1 and the university men's season-capping Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2 and 3. In the last few years it's gotten even better thanks to the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden , the university women's season ender, moving to Dec. 30. Last year Ritsumeikan University overcame a loss to Meijo University at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden to claim a fifth-straight Mount Fuji national title. This year the top three at Morinomiyako were the same as last time around, Meijo in the top spot and Daito Bunka University just edging out Ritsumeikan for 3rd with Tokyo Nogyo University , 2nd at Mount Fuji last year, just a few seconds behind Ritsumeikan in 4th. With all four teams returning we're pretty likely to see them all out front again, the main question being whether Meijo can translate its early-season success into a nat...

Three main races make up the lion's share of this road racing action, two abroad and one on home ground. Bouncing back from a bad run three weeks ago at the Chicago Marathon, 2018 Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) will make his Italian debut at the Huawei Venice Marathon with support from JRN. Since Chicago Kawauchi has raced twice, a 1:05:18 the weekend after Chicago at the Namerikawa Half Marathon and a 1:00:48 for 2nd at last weekend's Takashimadaira 20 km.The Takashimadaira time equates to a 1:04:08 half marathon, and given that rate rate of improvement over Namerikawa and his 14:47 closing split he is optimistic about Venice. "If the pack gets into a good rhythm early on then I think I can run in 2:10 to 2:12 range," he said. Most years that would put him in contention for the win in Venice, and with his 2018 best standing at 2:11:46 and the fastest time ever by a Japanese man on Italian soil at 2:12:51 he's got good seco...

With skies hanging heavy in the hours before the impending arrival of Typhoon #24, Tokyo Nogyo University won the 24th Kanto Region University Women's Ekiden to lead the qualifiers for the Oct. 28 Morinomiyako Ekiden university women's national championships. Always in the top two, Tokyo Nogyo didn't take a definitive lead until the 3.9 Fourth Stage, when 1st-year Yuki Shibahara scored the team's only stage win of the day to overtake 2017 Morinomiyako runner-up Daito Bunka University . From there to the finish it opened a 1:16 lead over Daito Bunka, easily winning in 1:39:05. Daito Bunka's lead over 2017 winner  Toyo University was almost as big, finishing in 1:40:21 to Toyo's 1:41:17. Including teams which earned seeded spots at last year's national championships the top eight teams qualified for this year's nationals. 7th-placer Takushoku University , whose men's team progressively features Ethiopian Workneh Derese as captain, qualified...

At the 3rd National Junior High School Cross-Country Championships Sunday in Chiba, Fukuoka's Kosuke Ishida , a 3rd-year at Asakawa J.H.S. , scored the win in the boys' 3 km in an excellent 8:47. With three junior high school national records to his name Ishida is the undisputed king of junior high athletics. Set to graduate next month before going on to Gunma's Tokyo Nogyo Daini H.S. , his win in his final national-level competition as a junior high school student crowned what has been a superb season. Osumi J.H.S. 3rd-year Mio Hashimoto from Kyoto won the girls' 3 km in 9:47. Ishida won the race by 13 seconds over the 2nd-placer. "I've won every national competition up to now," Ishida smiled afterward. "Winning this one too is a big relief." This season he won both the National Junior High School Championships and Junior Olympics and broke the junior high national records for 1500 m, 3000 m and 5000 m, a record of success that marks him as...

Ten-time national champion Ritsumeikan University added an eleventh National University Women's Invitational Ekiden Championships title to its resume, winning the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden title for the fifth-straight year since the National Championships' 2013 move to the Mt. Fuji course. プライベートで観戦した富士山女子駅伝。 7区の3km地点では富士山をバックに走る選手の後ろ姿を撮ることができました。 頂上に向かって走っている感じがして良いなと思いました。 pic.twitter.com/oOMzD3cdxr — 馬場遼 (@bmbryo126) December 30, 2017 Running on a hilly course under perfect blue skies and the watchful eye of Mt. Fuji looming above, Ritsumeikan got off to a slow start as third-year Ena Kagayama was only 13th on the 4.1 km opening stage. Ritsumeikan's next two runners Naruha Sato and Ayano Tanaka picked up the slack with new course records on their stages to put Ritsumeikan up where it feels most comfortable in 1st. On the race's longest stage, the 10.5 km Fifth Stage, the team's lead fell as close as 13 seconds over Daito Bunka University , on...

http://mainichi.jp/articles/20161128/ddl/k09/050/090000c translated and edited by Brett Larner The 3rd edition of the Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden took place Nov. 27 in Nikko, Tochigi.  Fifteen teams from fourteen universities six stage, 23.4 km course with 875 m net elevation gain, with Daito Bunka University winning for the second year in a row in 1:32:41.  Hakuoh University was the top Tochigi team at 7th. Daito Bunka started slow, in 8th at the end of the First Stage but its second runner Kasumi Yamaguchi setting a new stage record. Daito Bunka moved up gradually through the field from there, finally going from 2nd to 1st on the anchor stage.   Osaka Geijutsu University was 2nd, with the Tokyo Nogyo University A-team taking 3rd. The Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden is organized by local businesses and the Nikko city government, who together aim to earn a name for Nikko as "The runner's holy land."  The ekiden was established in 2014 with the hope ...

http://www.shimotsuke.co.jp/news/tochigi/sports/general/news/20150813/2050831 translated by Brett Larner As part of its mission to make the tourist town of Nikko a "runner's paradise," on Aug. 12 the organizing committee of the Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden released the list of teams scheduled to run the event's second running on Nov. 29.  18 teams from 16 universities in the Kanto and Kansai regions will take part, an increase of 4 teams over last year's inaugural edition. After starting at Nikko Daiyagawa Park, the 6-stage uphill course covers 23.4 km from the historic area of Nikko up the steep slopes of Irohazaka to finish at Nikko Futarasan shrine.  Last year Tokyo Nogyo University became the event's first champions.  This year they return along with rivals Daito Bunka University , a Tokyo University alumni team, and first-timers Nihon University , Nihon Joshi University , Nihon Joshi Taiiku University and Nittai University .

by Brett Larner The men's Big Three University Ekidens, the Izumo Ekiden, National University Ekiden and Hakone Ekiden, are some of Japan's most popular sports events, their live nationwide broadcasts drawing tens of millions of viewers.  By comparison, the university women's ekiden season lags behind, down at one point to just October's Morinomiyako National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai but back up to two in the 2013-14 year with the relaunch of the discontinued National University Women's Invitational Ekiden on a new course as the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden .  This season a completely new event, the one-way massively uphill Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden , brings things up to parity. In a way.  In profile the Nikko Irohazaka course is almost identical to that of Hakone's most famous stage, the Fifth Stage, with 875 m of non-stop climb over 23.4 km, the steepest section coming just after halfway before flattening out and dropping in the f...

by Brett Larner Japan's biggest sporting event of the year is the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden, a ten-stage university men's road relay which each runner covering roughly a half marathon distance in front of a live nationwide TV audience of 40 million and millions more cheering courseside.  Each year the top ten of the twenty teams in the Hakone field are seeded to run again the next year, also running October's Izumo Ekiden.  The remaining schools are sent back to run the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai , a 20 km road race qualifier in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park, along with dozens of other schools from around the Kanto Region hopeful of earning the honor of a place on the starting line at Hakone come Jan. 2. Monday's Izumo Ekiden saw an overall course record for the third time in the last four years , with individual stage records on three of its six legs.  In a sign of the continued explosively rapid rate of growth in Japanese men's collegiate athletics, Saturday's Y...

by Brett Larner Following Monday's Izumo Ekiden, university ekiden season rolls on this Saturday with the  Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifier 20 km road race in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park.  Each year the top ten schools at the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden, the ten-stage, twenty-team university road relay that is Japan's largest sporting and TV event, win seeded places at the following year's race.  The remaining ten teams and other hopeful universities in the Kanto Region line up the third Saturday in October to try to earn the privilege of a starting place at the prestigious Hakone.  Any readers in the Tokyo area should join the thousands of fans who go out to Showa Kinen Park on the 19th to soak in the atmosphere of a race packed with university bands, cheerleader squads and booster clubs.  For those elsewhere, for the first time this year's Yosenkai will be broadcast live instead of on tape delay.  Try Keyhole TV to catch Nihon TV's broadcast starting at 9:30 a...