japan running news

On Jan. 19 it was learned that men's marathon world record holder and two-time Olympic marathon gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge , 37, may run the Mar. 6 Tokyo Marathon. Multiple sources involved in the situation said that the Tokyo Marathon organizers have extended an offer to Kipchoge for his participation. If he does run, there is a strong possibility that he will break both the course and all-comers' records of 2:03:58 set in 2017 by Wilson Kipsang  by a wide margin. At the same time, the Omicron coronavirus variant is likely to have a significant impact on the event's chances. The government has banned all non-resident foreigners from entering the country since Nov. 30 last year. Tokyo and other areas of the country are set to enter a partial state of emergency on Jan. 21. And the Tokyo Marathon organizers have established the policy that they will cancel the race if after Feb. 6 the government asks large-scale events to refrain from going forward and it meets the criteria...

The 2018 Tokushima Marathon took place Mar. 25 in the city of Tokushima, starting in front of the Tokushima Prefectural Government offices and running along a course along the Yoshino River. 12,400 people took part. Overseas invited elite athlete Wilson Kipsang (Kenya), the 2012 London Olympics bronze medalist, won in 2:19:35. Local runner Takumi Matsumoto was 2nd. Kipsang's time was just over four minutes off the course record of 2:15:25 set by Yuki Kawauchi in 2014. Kipsang is in the process of establishing a fund to support improvement of the living environment and education of children in his home country and is taking part in activities to support that end. At 2:00 p.m. he held a session at Aibahama Park in Tokushima to sign autographs and ask for support for his project. source article: https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20180325-00010001-tokushimav-l36 translated by Brett Larner

At a press conference on Mar. 1 at the Grandvrio Hotel in Tokushima, the organizing committee of the Mar. 25 Tokushima Marathon 2018 announced that London Olympics marathon bronze medalist and all-time 4th-fastest man Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich (Kenya) and others will run Tokushima as invited athletes. 14,200 people, 8,461 from within Tokushima prefecture, 5,558 from elsewhere in Japan and 181 from abroad, are entered in this year's race. To elevate the level of competition at the race, Tokushima organizers will for the first time invite three Kenyan athletes. Kipsang has a best time of 2:03:13 and won last year's Tokyo Marathon. The Tokushima Marathon course record of 2:15:25 was set in 2014 by Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't). Domestic invited athletes include Yoshihiko Ishikawa (29, Nichiaka Kagaku), Toshiharu Takai (31, Miyoshi T&F Assoc.) and Kana Unno (25, Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo). Ishikawa won last year's 24-Hour Ultra World Championships in Northe...

This isn't going to be a race recap. Past Tokyo Marathon champs Dickson Chumba of Kenya and Birhane Dibaba of Ethiopia running smart races, working hard after 30 km to each score a second Tokyo title, Dibaba negative splitting her way to a 2:19:51 PB just 4 seconds off the course record and Chumba running away to win in 2:05:30. London World Championships bronze medalist Amy Cragg living up to her pre-race vow to make the top three in PB time, taking 3rd in 2:21:42. Cancer survivor Satoru Kasuya delivering his best performance since almost dying five years ago, an emotional 2:14:37 for 30th. What this is about is today, the day, the one that's been coming. Yuta Shitara getting it right, strong, unafraid, in control when he needed to be, finding what he needed when it counted, breaking the 16-year-old Japanese national record in 2:06:11 and winning a million dollar bonus for it. But not just him. Hiroto Inoue , just as strong, just as in control, never giving up e...

After stepping up to the big leagues last year with course records in the 2:03 and 2:19 range, the Tokyo Marathon hopes to go one better this year. Men's course record setter Wilson Kipsang (Kenya) is back, stepping up from a 2:03:50 prediction for Tokyo in January to a 2:02:50 world record prediction at Friday's pre-race press conference. In the unmentioned absence of women's course record breaker Sarah Chepchirchir the top-ranked woman is Ruti Aga (Ethiopia), coming in hot off a 1:06:39 win last month in Houston and turning heads at the press conference with a boldly mumbled 2:18:00 prediction. Management for both Kipsang and Aga were skeptical to JRN of their athletes' predictions, people from each camp saying times two minutes slower would be more likely, one minute slower in a best-case scenario. But whatever the prediction, Kipsang was clear to fellow past champs Feyisa Lilesa (Ethiopia) and Dickson Chumba (Kenya) about one thing: he wants a more conser...

A year after running the first-ever 2:03 on Japanese soil, Wilson Kipsang (Kenya) returns to lead the men's field for the 2018 edition of the Tokyo Marathon . Women's champion Sarah Chepchirchir (Kenya), who likewise pulled off the first 2:19 within Japan at last year's race, is nowhere to be found, but in her place are 2017 runner-up Birhane Dibaba (Ethiopia), sub-2:21 women Ruti Aga (Ethiopia) and Purity Cherotich Ronoripo (Kenya), 2016 Tokyo winner Helah Kiprop (Kenya), 2017 World Championships bronze medalist Amy Cragg (U.S.A.) and, in her debut, the great Meseret Defar (Ethiopia). The restructuring of the Japanese Olympic team selection process opened the door halfway for Japanese women to take part in Tokyo, where they have in the past been barred from national team selection. No top-level women seem to have taken the bait, however, leaving the home crowd, a collection of recently-reitred and developing corporate runners and upper-tier amateurs, one level...

In 2017 Japan Running News celebrated its 10th anniversary. From the Hakone Ekiden to the London World Championships to the Hofu Yomiuri Marathon, looking back over the year here are its top ten stories as determined by JRN readers. 1.   Last-Place Finisher Named Winner After Entire Rest of Field Disqualified  -  Feb. 15 At a children's road race in Okayama runners were misdirected on the course and ran a shorter distance. Followed by a sweeper, only the last-place runner ran the correct 3.0 km course, and when the other 262 participants were disqualified the last-placer was named the winner. 2.   Hawkins and Kirwa Win Marugame Half, Takeshita Over Muiru in Kanagawa - Feb. 5 Less than a week after his breakthrough 1:00:24 was annulled due to a short course, Scotland's Callum Hawkins won Marugame in a new national record of 1:00:00, while Rio Olympics silver medalist Eunice Kirwa (Bahrain) made it two Marugame titles in a row.  Men's preview  and...

Last weekend's Ottawa Marathon  was the final IAAF gold label marathon of the spring season, marking a lull until July's Gold Coast Airport Marathon and August's London World Championships . Gold label events are required to recruit elite athletes of a variety of nationalities under specific time standards, currently 2:10:00 for men and 2:28:00 for women in the marathon, in order to earn that label. Nike's Breaking2 experiment aside, the Tokyo Marathon men's race was the best of the season, led by Wilson Kipsang 's year-leading 2:03:58 Japanese all-comers record. Mary Keitany 's 2:17:01 women-only world record likewise marked the London Marathon as the top women's race so far this year. But looking beyond just the fastest winning time, what were the best marathons in the first five months of 2017 by depth of quality? The races with the most gold label performances, the standard that the IAAF has decreed as the top level of the sport? Below are the ...

by Brett Larner all statistics c/o the ARRS database corrections and additions welcome The upcoming sub-2 marathon attempt is generating a lot of talk about the very sharp end of men's marathoning, the delivery of the single greatest marathon performance of all time. But there are other ways of thinking about who ranks at the top of the list of all-time greats than just a single run by a single athlete. Who performed the most consistently at a high level, had the greatest depth at quality as a marathoner over their career? Sub-x marathon records, the greatest number of times a single runner has gone under 2:03, under 2:04, under 2:05, are one way to look at that. The table below shows the seven men from four countries who hold the records for every one minute increment from sub-2:03 to sub-2:20. Click to enlarge. Athletes with names in green are still active, while those in red no longer compete. Within the table green indicates a sub-x record, yellow a record which a given a...

by Brett Larner Very happy with my win in @tokyo42195_org Thank you everybody for supporting me. #adizero @adidasrunning pic.twitter.com/ObpuGzoFpW — Wilson Kipsang (@Kipsang_2_03_23) February 26, 2017 The Tokyo Marathon 's investment in a new course and top-class field to match paid off with the greatest race in Japanese marathoning history as Kenyans Wilson Kipsang and Sarah Chepchirchir delivered the fastest men's and women's marathons ever run on Japanese soil.  But not just them. Young Japanese runners rose to the challenge in both races, with 24-year-old  Hiroto Inoue (Team MHPS) and 19-year-old  Ayaka Fujimoto (Team Kyocera) making huge breakthroughs to take top Japanese honors. Conditions were cool enough that the race went out hot, the men's front group going through the first km around 2:46 and splitting 14:14 on the downhill first 5 km, 2:00:07 pace.  But it wasn't just them.  A small chase group including debuting Japanese men Yuta S...

by Brett Larner 2017 Tokyo Marathon top elites Wilson Kipsang, Dickson Chumba, Tsegaye Kebede, Amane Bersio, Amane Gobena, Birhane Dibaba, Masato Imai, Kazuhiro Maeda and Yuma Hattori. The Tokyo Marathon celebrates its eleventh edition as a mass-participation race this year on a new course with relocated hills to make it faster for the front end and a scenic finish for the masses.  To try to bring its event records more into line with the rest of the Abbott World Marathon Majors Tokyo has brought in some big guns, none bigger than former world record holder Wilson Kipsang (Kenya).  Fresh from a 2:03:13 PB at September's Berlin Marathon, Kipsang brought Friday's press conference to a boil when he predicted in writing a 2:02:50 world record on the new Tokyo course. Kipsang predicting a 2:02:50 world record. That may be a stretch, but looking at the depth and quality of the competition the 2:05:42 Tokyo record held by Dickson Chumba (Kenya) looks vulnerable, with...

text and photos by Tsukasa Kawarai translated and edited by Brett Larner 2012 London Olympian  Arata Fujiwara  (Miki House) has had some of his greatest races at the Tokyo Marathon, finishing 2nd three times: an explosive 2:08:40 breakthrough there in 2008, 2:12:34 in sleet and strong wind in 2010, and his 2:07:48 PB in 2012 to make the London team. He has also done some of his worst marathons there, running 2:29:21 in 2011, dropping out in 2013, 2:30:58 in 2014, 2:19:40 in 2015 and 2:20:23 last year. The blindfolded-shot-in-the-dark quality of Fujiwara’s history in Tokyo has always made him unpredictable but entertaining. In preparation for this year’s Tokyo Marathon Fujiwara trained in Kenya for nearly two months.  Tsukasa Kawarai  spent time at Fujiwara’s training camp in January, and ahead of Sunday’s race he wrote a report for JRN on what he saw of Fujiwara’s preparations. Starting in mid-December last year Arata Fujiwara trained in Iten, Kenya for abou...

by Brett Larner With his 2:09:54 at Sunday's Ehime Marathon Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) became the fifteenth runner in history to run sub-2:10 eleven times or more in his career.  The achievement puts him in distinguished company, including two marathon world record setters, seven Olympic marathon medalists, seven World Championships marathon medalists, three World Marathon Majors champions and eight winners of the six races now making up the World Marathon Majors. Kawauchi is one of only three non-African athletes to make the list, one of four on the list without either an Olympic or World Championships medal or a win at one of the Big Six, one of four to have not broken 2:07, and, with a PB of 2:08:14, the only one who has not run sub-2:08.  A sub-2:08 PB and a World Championships medal remain the major goals of his career. Tsegaye Kebede (Ethiopia) - 16 times sub-2:10 PB: 2:04:38 2013 World Marathon Majors champion 1st, 2013 London Marathon 1st, 2012 C...