japan running news

The National High School Ekiden Championships were the weekend's main event, but across Japan there were at least three other high-level road races. And one abroad. Benefitting from the Taiwanese government's early steps to get control of the COVID-19 situation and its population's responsibility in sticking to the protocols, the Taipei Marathon achieved what no other large-scale race could: a full-sized mass-participation field with 9,000 marathoners and 19,000 half-marathoners, and an international elite field, all within the 2020 calendar year. Not a reduced field, not a micro race, but a big city marathon the way we used to know them.  International athletes had to undergo a two-week quarantine in their hotel rooms, which organizers had fitted out with treadmills, but while most of them including Japan's Hiroko Baino  (Memolead) reported negative effects from the treadmill running on their performances there was still a new men's course record of 2:09:18 from...

The second half of the worldwide marathon season kicks off Sunday at Australia's Gold Coast Marathon , and with what looks like may be the deepest-ever men's half marathon on Australian soil lined up to start an hour before the marathon it's going to be an exciting day. Last year's winner Jack Rayner leads the way off a 1:01:01 PB in Cardiff last year, but just behind him are a slew of Japanese men, some on the Gold Coast thanks to good performances at February's National Corporate Half Marathon Championships and others as a tuneup for September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials. On paper Rayner's strongest competition is MGC qualifier Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) with a 1:01:31 best, but Fujimoto told JRN that he is still recovering from a stress fracture he sustained early in the year and is only using the race as a training run ahead of the MGC Race. Likewise for 2018 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Yuma Hattori (Toyota), who underwent inter...

Japan’s domestic elite marathon season wraps up Sunday with the Nagoya Women’s Marathon , the final race in the first season of qualification for the MGC Race , Japan’s new 2020 Olympic trials marathon to be held in late 2019. In its first season the MGC Race has succeeded in unifying Japan’s disparate national team selection races into what feels like an actual series, one that fans have gotten excited about and which has, at least on the men’s side, driven performances to a higher level. As of right now, thirteen Japanese men have met the MGC Race’s strict qualification criteria, six of them at the Tokyo Marathon alone. Heading into Nagoya only three women have qualified . Will we see another rush of qualifiers this weekend? On paper it could happen. Since its rebranding as the world’s largest women-only marathon, Nagoya has consistently produced among the best depth-at-quality in the world, its course, weather and fields conducive to seeing a lot of people running fast times. In...

The Nagoya Women's Marathon is the largest women-only marathon in the world, one with a long history as an elite race and adapting to the times with a mass-participation field of 20,000. The last few years it has seen a series of dynamic, high-level performances by top Japanese women, from Sairi Maeda 's 2:22:48 in 2015 to the 2:23:19 to 2:23:20 sprint finish battle between Tomomi Tanaka and Rei Ohara in 2016 to Yuka Ando 's stellar 2:21:36 debut and teammate Mao Kiyota 's 2:23:47 breakthrough last year. Maeda, Ohara and Kiyota all return this year to face the Kenyan trio of Lucy Kabuu , Valary Jemeli and Flomena Cheyech Daniel . Kabuu went to high school in Japan before moving on to the big leagues, but she hasn't finished a marathon since her 2:20:21 in Dubai 2015. Cheyech also used to be based in Japan as is a familiar face here, winning the last two Saitama International Marathons. Jemeli is making her Japanese debut, and with a 2:21:57 win in Prague and ...

Kenyans Betsy Saina and Edward Waweru (NTN) took the top spots at the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon 's 72nd edition, winning in 1:09:17 and 1:00:31. Saina was part of a lead group of six led by Japanese national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) that went through the downhill first 5 km in 16:15, a decent 1:08:34 pace aided by a tailwind. Saina accelerated to 16:00 for the next 5 km, and by the halfway turnaround it was down to just her and Ethiopian Ftaw Zeray with the others forming a chase group led by Sara Hall (U.S.A.). Saina dropped Zeray on the uphill return trip and sailed on alone into the headwind to take the win in 1:09:17. Overcoming a 22-second deficit at halfway, Kaori Morita (Panasonic) blazed the second half to move up to 2nd with just over 1 km to go, holding on to finish in the runner-up position in 1:10:10.  Zeray was 3rd, fading to 1:10:31. Fukushi dropped far off to 7th in 1:13:17, with two-time marathon world champion Edna Kiplagat...

As championship ekiden season wraps up Japan’s athletes have started the transition to the winter road season, with four decently competitive half marathons highlighting the first half of January. At the hilly Okukuma Half Marathon , locally-based Africans Jeremiah Thuku Karemi (Toyota Kyushu) and Melaku Abera (Kurosaki Harima) duked it out one-on-one, Karemi through in a series of surges in the last 5 km before breaking away decisively with 1 km to go. Crossing the finish line in 1:01:48, Karemi took nearly two minutes off the course record with Abera just under 62 for 2nd. 2nd on the Hakone Ekiden’s Seventh Stage less than two weeks ago, Masanori Sumida (Nittai Univ.) outran corporate league competition Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) and Shohei Kurata (GMO) to take the top Japanese spot at 4th in 1:03:11. Spending most of the race behind a pack led by 2015 National Univeristy Half Marathon champion Tadashi Isshiki (GMO) and 2:07:39 marathoner Masato Imai (Toyota Kyushu), Yuki Ka...

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...

https://www.kawowo.com/2016/11/20/joshua-cheptegei-wins-netherlands-race/ Zevenheuvelenloop 15 km Road Race Netherlands, 11/20/16 click here for complete results Women 1. Susan Krumins (Netherlands) - 49:30 2. Jip Vastenburg (Netherlands) - 50:42 3. Kanade Furuya (Japan) - 52:10 4. Yomogi Akasaka (Japan) - 52:23 5. Honoka Tanaike (Japan) - 52:41 ----- 20. Misaki Ogata (Japan) - 57:03 Men 1. Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda) - 42:08 2. Abrar Osman (Eritrea) - 43:04 3. Hiskel Tewelde (Eritrea) - 43:06 4. Geoffrey Ronoh (Kenya) - 43:28 5. Abdallah Kibet Mande (Uganda) - 43:35 ----- 8. Kengo Suzuki (Japan) - 44:18 11. Homare Morita (Japan) - 45:24 14. Yuki Nakamura (Japan) - 46:10 15. Akira Tomiyasu (Japan) - 46:14 20. Shiki Shinsako (Japan) - 47:38