japan running news

Over 50 Japanese and Japan-based athletes competed with support from JRN in this weekend's Brooklyn Mile Virtual Race , the first virtual race to offer prize money to top elite-level finishers. Athletes submitted GPS data for a one-mile run done anywhere in the world within the race's three-day window, with anyone who cleared times corresponding to specific VDOT levels for their age earning a share of prize money pooled from a percentage of entry fees. The remainder of the entry fees went toward COVID-19 relief in New York. Running in a four-man race in Setagaya, Tokyo, 2017 and 2018's 1500 m national champion and former indoor mile national record holder Ryoji Tatezawa (Yokohama DeNA RC) turned in the fastest time in the event, negative splitting a 4:01 in heavy rain. After missing most of 2019 with injury and somehow pulling it together for a course record win on the Hakone Ekiden's brutal downhill Sixth Stage in January, Tatezawa's run was a successful retur...

This weekend's Brooklyn Mile is being held as a virtual race from Friday through Sunday instead of its usual road mile format. There's no shortage of other races doing the same right now, but Brooklyn has done something unique by setting itself up with a prize money pool pulled from entry fees , with the remaining 80% going to COVID-19 relief charities. It's an innovative idea in which anyone can take part and that gives the faster end of each age group something to shoot for with funding from the mass participants. The current instability in the area leaves a question mark as to how many of those there will be. But on paper at least the potential is there for a very competitive three days, and with everyone around the world looking for ways to adapt racing to the current situation this looks like an approach worth supporting. Over forty elite-level Japanese middle and long-distance athletes, university, corporate league and pro, female and male, will be taking part wi...

Excellent conditions and decent fields said course records might be in the works, but while the results fell short of that level the women's race was the deepest in the Volksbank Muenster Marathon 's 18-year history. Ethiopians Chaltu Negasa and Chaltu Chawo and Kenyans Cythina Kosgei , Rebby Koech and Sheila Rono took it out at CR pace with Japan's Yoshiko Sakamoto , running with support from JRN, hanging on for the first 5 km before dropping off. By 15 km the debuting Kosgei and last year's winner Rono had fallen off, leaving Koech to tackle the Ethiopian pair. The pair took turns trying to break away from the Kenyan, and by halfway they had a 30-second lead, 1:14:15 to 1:14:45. At 30 km they were still on CR, but despite staying together until near the end they didn't quite have the record in them, Negasa breaking away after 40 km for the win in 2:30:59. Chawo staggered in in 2:31:09, almost unable to stand an hour later at the award ceremony. Koech...

With Thursday's Diamond League meet making for a busy weekend for race organizers, Stockholm Marathon saw Ethiopia's Sahlesilassie Nigussie break the three year old course record and had a near miss on scoring its first-ever Japanese winner in the year of Idaten . Running on 2:08 pace in a pack of five until the long climb and descent of the Vasterbron bridge, Nigussie broke away on the flatter section into downtown after the bridge and strode on unchallenged to win in 2:10:10, 48 seconds under the old record. Tafese Delegen was next in 2:11:40 to make it an Ethiopian 1-2, with Kenya's Gilbert Yego 3rd in 2:11:58. In the women's race a lead group of six including last year's local winner Mikaela Larsson , Ethiopian Aberash Fayesa , Japan's Yoshiko Sakamoto and three other Swedish runners stayed together until almost 20 km. Running with support from JRN in her first serious marathon outside Japan, Haruka Yamaguchi was 30 seconds back in 7th when Fayes...

The year's international road racing circuit kicked off Sunday with two races in Asia featuring top-level Japanese athletes. At the C&D Xiamen Marathon in China, ten Japanese athletes ranked in the women's and men's Asian top 100 ran with support from JRN as part of Xiamen's bid to become the first race worldwide to qualify for the IAAF's new platinum road race label. 2016 Osaka Marathon winner and mother of three Yoshiko Sakamoto (Y.W.C.) placed highest among them, taking 7th in 2:39:00 with 2018 Osaka runner-up Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita)  9th in 2:42:39, 2017 Osaka winner Yumiko Kinoshita (Tokyo T&F Assoc.) 10th in 2:43:56, and 2018 Geneva Marathon runner-up Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) 12th in 2:45:32. Running just two days after Josai University had a disappointing 20th-place finish at the Hakone Ekiden , its assistant coach Shingo Igarashi was the top-placing Japanese man at 15th in 2:20:45. Dejene Debele (Ethiopia) won the men'...

Moroccan Soud Kanbouchia took the top spot in Japan's second-biggest marathon Sunday, breaking the Osaka Marathon women's course record to win in 2:31:19. In the early going Kanbouchia had company from minor team corporate leaguers Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead) and Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) on mid-2:27 pace, but with a surge at halfway she was on her own and stayed that way until the finish. Yoshitomi, this year's Boston Marathon 10th-place finisher who set a PB and CR of 2:30:09 two weeks ago at the Fukuoka Marathon and, incredibly, won the Ohtwara Marathon on Friday in 2:37:22, dropped off after 10 km to settle into mid-2:30s pace. Yoshida lasted longer but slowed dramatically after 25 km and was quickly retaken by Yoshitomi. But from the main pack of amateur women behind them club runner Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) emerged to run both down, running almost even splits to take 2nd in 2:34:12, a PB by over 4 minutes. Yoshitomi hung on 3rd in 2:34:39, almost 3 minut...

One of the world's ten biggest marathons with nearly 30,000 finishers, his year's Osaka Marathon takes place Nov. 25. At the elite level Osaka has carved an interesting place for itself as a sort of unofficial amateur Japanese women's national championships, with just about all of Japan's sub-2:40 amateur women entered. 2017 winner Yumiko Kinoshita (Tokyo T&F Assoc.) leads 6 of last year's top 7 including Mitsuko Ino (Linkstyle), who finished just 1 second behind Kinoshita in the last edition, and 2016 Osaka winner Yoshiko Sakamoto (F.O.R.). But they have serious competition ahead of them this time in the form of quasi-corporate leaguer Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead), fresh from a 2:30:09 PB and CR win at the Nov. 11 Fukuoka Marathon , and 2:31:09 Moroccan Soud Kanbouchia . First-timer Felista Wambui (Kenya) is a wildcard. The high-volume racer Yoshitomi is the heavy favorite, the only question really being whether she can finally break 2:30 for the first t...

It's a busy weekend ahead with three important ekidens and road race action at home and abroad. Saturday features regional corporate men's ekiden championships in two of Japan's most competitive regions, East Japan and Kyushu . The Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden, the corporate men's ekiden championships, is one of the only national-level ekidens that doesn't feature a seeded bracket in which top-placing teams are guaranteed a place at the following year's edition. This means every team has to run its regional championships in November to requalify every year, a fact that has generally kept top Japanese men out of competitive marathons during the two months between Chicago and Fukuoka. In the East Japan region half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara leads last year's winner Honda ahead of planned appearances at the Ageo City Half Marathon and Fukuoka International Marathon. 10000 m national record holder Kota Murayama fronts two-time New Year Ekiden...

Record-breaking temperatures around 30 degrees prevented the kinds of times organizers hoped a new course would deliver for the Stockholm Marathon 's 40th running, with Mikaela Larsson (Sweden) and Lawi Kiptui (Kenya) proving the toughest in the heat with wins in 2:40:28 and 2:13:30. Defending women's champ Konjit Tilahun Biruk was part of an Ethiopian trio that went out on 2:35 pace, Larsson holding back with seven-time winner Isabellah Andersson (Sweden) at a slightly more conservative 2:37 pace. The front group soon stalled, and just past 15 km the Sweden pair made contact. For the next 10 km the new lead group stuck together, but as the race wore on the heat proved too much and they dropped away one by one. By 30 km Larsson had a clear lead and ran on alone to take the top spot in front of a delighted home crowd inside Stockholm's 1912 Olympic Stadium. Beji Bekelu (Ethiopia) held on to 2nd in 2:43:55, but Andersson was run down by another Swedish runner, C...

Amateur winners of two of the world's biggest marathons, 2016 Osaka Marathon champ Yoshiko Sakamoto (YWC) and 2018 Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) return to Sweden to run the Stockholm Marathon for the second year in a row this Saturday with support from JRN. For its 40th running Stockholm features a new course designed to cut most of the hills out of the first half of the race, but with temperatures expected to peak at 27C the quality elite field may not be able to take full advantage of the new configuration. 5th last year, Sakamoto is fresh off a 2:35:40 PB at February's Tokyo Marathon. She faces defending champion Konjit Tilahun Biruk (Ethiopia), seven-time winner Isabellah Andersson (Sweden) and #1-ranked Kumeshi Sichala (Ethiopia), the only woman in the field with a current sub-2:30 time. The 2:28:24 event record set way back in 1988 by the great Grete Waitz (Norway) will be a stretch, but however fast it goes Sakamoto hopes to ...

Happy New Year to all JRN readers. Thanks for 10 years.

#1-ranked Kaleab Ghilagabr became the first Eritrean winner in the Osaka Marathon 's short seven-year history, leading 29,359 finishers across the line Sunday in a PB 2:12:03, while club runner Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) had to run a minute-plus PB 2:34:38 to win an exciting battle between Japan's six best amateur women by 1 second. Ghilagabr set off accompanied by unsponsored amateur Hideyuki Ikegami , an unusual independent who got attention by beating Yuki Kawauchi in a half marathon in 2014 and went on to be mentored by 2:07:48 Olympian Arata Fujiwara . In April this year Ikegami made his marathon debut at the Hannover Marathon but finished in a disappointing 2:30:15 that didn't reflect the quality suggested by his 1:03:09 half best and 1:31:53 PB for 30 km.  The pair ran 2:10:30 pace through 15 km, PB pace for both, before Ikegami began to slip. Ghilagabr pushed on alone, holding on to 2:10 pace until well into the second half before beginning to slow. Ikeg...

It's always a busy weekend of racing in Japan, this weekend as much as any. Saturday's main event is the Hachioji Long Distance meet at Tokyo's Hosei University. In the last few years Hachioji has become one of the world's premier track 10,000 m, the site of the current Japanese national record two years ago. The big question mark this year is half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) in the A-heat. After running the 1:00:17 national record and a 2:09:03 PB on back-to-back weekends at the end of September is he ready to tackle the 27:29.69 national record? It'll take a big improvement on his 27:42.71 best, but not as much as what he did in breaking the half marathon record. Also up Saturday night is the Kanto Region University 10,000 m Time Trials meet at Kanagawa's Keio University. While the very top university men will turn up at Hachioji, most looking to sharpen their times ahead of their coaches' final team selections for the Hakone...

One of the world's ten biggest marathons, in its six runnings to date the Osaka Marathon has continued to avoid the addition of a world-class elite field of the same caliber as at equivalently-sized races like Tokyo, Berlin and Boston. In place of doling out cash to pros, Osaka's women's field has developed into a sort of national championship race for amateur women. In the field this year are six, probably all six, of the amateur Japan women to have broken 2:40 in the last three years. Last year's top three, Yoshiko Sakamoto (F.O.R.), Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) and Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) lead the way at the 2:36 +/- level, with a second trio of Marie Imada (Iwatani Sangyo), Mitsuko Ino (R2 Nishin Nihon) and Chika Tawara (RxL) all around the 2:39 level. Last year's winner Sakamoto and 3rd placer Yoshimatsu squared off in September at Germany's Volksbank Muenster Marathon , Yoshimatsu tying Sakamoto's Osaka winning time of 2:36:02 to tak...