japan running news

With the traditionally season-opening Oda Memorial Meet coming a week late this year the outdoor track season got started with two main time trial meets Saturday. Runners from the Toenec corporate team dominated Aichi's Chukyo University Saturday Time Trials, with Daichi Takeuchi following up his runner-up finish at last month's Inuyama 10 km with a win in 13:42.57 over Kenyan Nicholas Kiplimo (Aichi Seiko). His teammate Daiji Kawai returned from a 2:10:50 at Lake Biwa to take 3rd in 13:51.52. The B-heat was also decently quick, winner Ryusei Takahashi (Aichi Seiko) just dipping under 14 minutes in 13:59.00. Usually maxing out at 3000 m at this point in the season, this time around Tokyo's Setagaya Time Trials featured both women's and men's 5000 m and even a men's 10000 m. Kenyan Grace Kimanzi (Starts) won the women's 5000 m in 15:43.53, with Hakone Ekiden Fifth Stage winner Yuhei Urano (Koku Gakuin Univ.) taking the fastest men's heat in 13:...

Yuka Suzuki (Daito Bunka Univ.) won a close pack race to take the 2019 National University Women's Half Marathon title, outkicking Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) by 2 seconds for the win in 1:11:27. With a relatively slow start the lead pack of nearly 20 gradually picked up its pace, splitting faster for every successive 5 km until only Suzuki, Kaseda, Yuka Tagawa (Matsuyama Univ.) and Yukina Ueda (Tsukuba Univ.)were left together at 20 km. With three spots at stake on the Japanese national team for this summer's World University Games one of them had to lose, and as Suzuki and Kaseda pulled away over the last km the third spot came down to another duel. Tagami proved to have the better finish, taking 3rd in 1:11:35 to Ueda's 1:11:38. Defending World University Games half marathon gold medalist Yuki Munehisa (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) was a DNF, dropping out after 10 km as the pace increased. Run as part of the Matsue Ladies Half Marathon, the race also included corporate l...