japan running news

It looked like it was going to be a big weekend, and it delivered. For the 3rd time in his career Suguru Osako broke the men's marathon NR, running 1 second under the standing record to take 4th in the Valencia Marathon in 2:04:55. All the way to 40 km he was steady on 2:58/km, 2:05:10 pace, and like a surprising number of other people in both the men's and women's races, there was a massive jump over the last 2.195 km from his projected finish time to his actual one. His run put Osako back on top of the Japanese charts, put the average of Japan's 10 fastest marathon times of the year under 2:06 for the first time, and got him into the L.A. Olympics marathon trials. Valencia has been trying to get top-tier Japanese athletes to come for years, and now that they finally managed to do it it paid off in a big way. Expect more next year. Back home, former Takushoku University captain Derese Workneh won a 3-way race against Toyota teammates Kazuya Nishiyama and Bedan Ka...

Two good races happened Sunday at the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon . The women's race was a head-to-head race between 2022 marathon world champion Gotytom Gebreslase and debuting Japan-based Janet Nyiva . Side-by-side through 15 km, Nyiva shattered Gebreslase with a massive surge over the last 5 km that ultimately put 52 second between them, Nyiva wining in 1:07:37 and Gebreslase next in 1:08:29. 2023 Asian marathon champion Eunice Chebichii Chumba held off the up-and-coming Kana Kobayashi , a member of Japan's marathon team for September's Tokyo World Championships, with a 1:09:07 for 3rd. Kobayashi's 1:09:09 for 4th was a PB by almost 5 minutes and the fastest time ever on the rolling Gifu course by a Japanese woman. Yumi Yoshikawa was 5th in 1:10:51. Five men went out front on mid-59 pace. Dawit Wolde , debuting Kiprono Sitonik , Vincent Yegon and veteran Bedan Karoki all took turns leading, with only Richard Kimunyan tucking in and declining to share the load. ...

No big surprises at the New Year Ekiden , where 2025 kicked off with a battle between favorites Toyota , Honda and Asahi Kasei that came down to a sprint finish in the last 800 m of the 7-leg, 100 km race. 2017-2020 New Year Ekiden winner Asahi Kasei took the lead from the start with an opening leg win by Sonata Nagashima . On the longest leg, the 21.9 km Second Stage, Yuto Imae from the team most expected to challenge the big three, GMO , made it to the front, but with a great run from Tomoki Ota the defending champs Toyota took the lead on the Third Stage. Samuel Kibathi held on over the short Fourth Leg, but on the Fifth Leg Yusuke Nishiyama showed fatigue from his 2:06:54 at Fukuoka a month ago and was run down by Olympic steepler Ryoma Aoki from 2022-2023 New Year winner Honda and Asahi Kasei's Shuho Dairokuno . Looking very strong over a longer distance than he'd usually run, Aoki opened a 10-second lead on Dairokuno that Honda's 6th runner Toru Kubota turned...

  Japan-based Kenyans dominated at the revamped and improved Kumamoto Kosa Road Race across all three of its main distances. Agnes Ngetich  from the Canon  team got things started in the women's 5 km, blasting a 14:48 that left Japanese NR holder Nozomi Tanaka  almost 40 seconds behind. Tanaka, whose 15:25 was technically a NR, was only 10 seconds up on Nanami Watanabe , who continued a good season with a 15:35 for 3rd only 1 second off Tanaka's previous NR iteration. Kosa's 10 km race has historically been for high school boys, but this year's race had an excellent field of corporate league runners. Triple Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Vincent Yegon , now with the Honda  corporate team, won in 28:05 by 1 second over  Festus Kiprono . Mangata Kibet  was 3rd in 28:13, with Kenyans taking the top 6 spots. Top high schooler Mahiro Kubo  from local Omuta H.S.  ran a solid 29:58, good enough for the win a lot of years but only 14th against his older c...

In the early days of the Hakone Ekiden Koreans were the first group from outside Japan to run and make an impact on the event's history . 60 years after the first two Koreans ran Hakone, Kenyan Douglas Wakiihuri became the first Kenyan to come to Japan to run when he joined the S&B corporate team. After he won the 1987 Rome World Championships marathon and took silver a year later in the Seoul Olympics the door was open for Kenyan and other African athletes to follow Wakiihuri's lead to the corporate leagues, to universities, and even to high schools. Tsutomu Akiyama was responsible for bringing the first two Kenyans to Hakone, recruiting Joseph Otwori and Kennedy Manyisa Isena to go to Yamanashi Gakuin University . "I went to Kenya to see what the people and environment were like," he told JRN. "I watched a cross-country race and thought, 'We have to get someone like that to run for Yamanashi Gakuin.'" Yamanashi Gakuin had debuted at Hakon...

There are so many 10000 m time trial meets going on this month that you have to wonder if there's a limit. Two weeks ago the Nittai University Time Trials and Kyushu Corporate Time Trials had winning times of 27:40.58 and 28:12.70 in their fastest heats. Last weekend was the Autumn Distance Challenge meet at Tokyo's National Stadium, with Hiroki Nakayama (Teikyo Univ.) clocking the fastest men's time out of ten heats in 28:35.65 and 1st-year Haruka Ogawa (Rikkyo Univ.) leading the three women's heats in 32:29.14. Wednesday was the MARCH Taikosen meet, with Issei Sato (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) fastest out of the four heats in 28:11.00. There's another edition of Nittai on Saturday with eleven heats of 10000 m on the program and the 10000 m National Championships , Japan's selection event for the Paris Olympics, are coming right up on Dec. 10. But the big one is Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance meet. Happening in Minami Osawa in western Tokyo this year, H...

The third meet in this year's Hokuren Distance Challenge series happened Saturday in Abashiri, Hokkaido. 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) had her best run of the year with a 15:29.12 to win the 5000 m A-heat, a step back in the right direction after a series of flat performances since last ekiden season. And it couldn't have come at a better time, with Hironaka being the only Japanese woman qualified for the 10000 m at next month's Budapest World Championships. The rest of the field was over 20 seconds back, led by Yuna Wada (Japan Post) in 15:52.33. Eva Cherono (Toto) took the women's 10000 m in a season best 31:25.57. Sarah Wanjiru (Daito Bunka Univ.) continued to grow through her first collegiate season was a 30 sec+ PB of 31:46.17, just beating marathoner Yuka Ando (Wacoal) who clocked 31:46.85 for 3rd. Janet Nyiva (Panasonic) led the women's 3000 m in 8:49.32, Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) 2nd in 8:55.52 and Esther Wangui (Starts...

Kumamoto's Kanakuri Memorial Meet kicked off Japan's outdoor track season Saturday. In cold and windy conditions Hakone Ekiden great Vincent Yegon made his debut for two-time New Year Ekiden champ Honda with a win in a four-way battle over the last lap, dropping Samson Ndirangu (Sunbelx) in the last 50 m for 1st 27:37.85 to 27:39.67. Tomoki Ota (Toyota) was 3rd in 27:42.49, with collegiate half marathon champ Kotaro Shinohara of Hakone Ekiden winner Komazawa University 4th in 27:43.13, the 4th-best ever by a Japanese-born collegiate man. The women's 10000 m had only five athletes on the starting line, and it was 2022 National Corporate Half Marathon champion Dolphine Omare (U.S.E.) all the way. Omare clocked 31:44.67, over 30 seconds up on top Japanese woman Misaki Hayashida (Kyudenko). Hayashida was 2nd in 32:15.97, with all four Japanese women clearing 32:45. The men's 5000 m was split into six heats, with Heat 6 winner Emmanuel Korir (Mitsubishi Juko) turni...

Outdoor track season gets moving this weekend with at least three competitive meets across the country. The Hokuriku Region Corporate Championships in Niigata and Chugoku Corporate Time Trials in Hiroshima are solidly in the second tier, but the main event happens Saturday in Kumamoto at the Kanaguri Memorial Meet . Streaming of Kanaguri starts at 15:30 local time above, with the main races happening later in the evening. Meet schedule and start lists here . Both the men's and women's 1500 m feature three of Japan's all-time top five. The men's race is slightly stronger, with NR holder Kazuki Kawamura (Toenec), all-time #3 Nanami Arai (Honda) and #4 Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.). The women's race has NR holder Nozomi Tanaka (New Balance), #3 Ran Urabe (Sekisui Kagaku) and #5 Yume Goto (Uniqlo). Two others in the Japanese men's 1500 m all-time top ten, #6 Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.) and #10 Yuta Bando (Fujitsu), are opting for the 5000 m. Just back from...

The Japanese fiscal and academic years run April through March, so most changes to teams' lineups happen then. With changes to regulations over team transfers after a national government investigation of potential anti-trust violations by the National Corporate Federation there's no shortage of transfers between teams. A quick look at some of the changes to the top corporate teams this year: Women Shiseido retiring  - Naruha Sato, 25 - 10000 m 31:52.43  transfer out - Wakana Kabasawa, 24 - 5000 m 15:24.79 Sekisui Kagaku new recruit  - Yuma Yamamoto, 22 - 3000 m 8:52.19, 5000 m 15:16.71 new recruit  - Akari Matsumoto, 18 - 3000 m 9:11.96 new recruit  - Yuna Arai, 22 - 10000 m 32:11.08 Japan Post new recruit  - Kokone Sugimori, 18 - 3000 m 9:10.01, 5000 m 15:34.54 new recruit  - Kae Gyu, 22 - 3000 m 9:14.29 Edion new recruit  - Kana Mizumoto, 18 - 3000 m 9:05.03 Daihatsu new recruit  - Aiko Hosoya, 18 - 3000 m 9:13.09 new recruit  - ...

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...

Already the course record-breaker at the Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden this season, 2021 Hakone Ekiden champion Komazawa University came one step away from its first-ever triple crown of single-season ekiden wins as it won a highly competitive 2023 Hakone Ekiden Day One over defending champ Aoyama Gakuin University and last year's 6th placer Chuo University . Things got off to an unexpected start when Select Team runner Hayate Nitta of non-qualifier Ikuei University decided to take his one and only Hakone shot and run it up to his ability on the 21.3 km 1st leg even though the rest of the field opted to jog. At one point Nitta had a lead of almost a minute and a half, but as beautiful as it would have been for him to pull it off, Meiji University 's Shunpei Tomita and Komazawa's Kensuke Tsubura still managed to run him down in the final kilometer. Tomita took the stage win in 1:02:44, 1:02:08 half marathon pace vs. his 1:02:10 PB despite the slow s...

Sunday is part two in the Big Three University Men's Ekiden series, the 8-stage, 106.8 km National University Men's Ekiden from Nagoya to Mie. TV Asahi has a 6-hour live broadcast, with English coverage on @JRNLive starting at 7:45 a.m. local time Sunday. Two-time national champ Komazawa University is riding high in its prep for a third-straight title, winning last month's season-opening Izumo Ekiden with a new course record to set itself up for a shot at a rare Big Three triple crown. Each of the three races has a different focus, Izumo's 7.51 km average stage length prioritizing 5000 m and 10000 m credentials, Nationals' 13.35 km average length shifting the balance toward the 10000 m to half marathon range, and Hakone's 21.7 km average pushing half marathon ability up front. Komazawa has it covered. The 8 fastest people on its Nationals roster have average PBs of 13:35.90 for 5000 m and 28:19.32 for 10000 m. None of the 26 other teams in the race are any...