japan running news

Streaming of Wednesday's Golden Games in Nobeoka , the main spring 5000 m on the Japanese calendar pre-National Championships, kicks off at 4:00 p.m. local time, with senior women's and men's races starting at 6:00 p.m., the women's A-heat at 8:40 p.m., the men's B-heat at 9:05 p.m. and the men's A-heat at 9:30 p.m. A lot of top-tier people will be at Saturday's 10000 m National Championships instead, but there are still enough good names on the entry list to keep GGN's torch blazing. Sub-15 Kenyans Naomi Muthoni (Univ. Ent.), Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera) and Judy Jepngetich (Shiseido) lead the women's A-heat, with an exciting addition being 8:47.85 high schooler Karoline Karaba (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.). Mikuni Yada (Denso) is the top Japanese woman on the list at 15:19.67. The men's A-heat is packed with Japanese guys at the 13:30 level, most notably Yuhi Nakaya (SG Holdings) in his corporate debut and Shunsuke Yoshii (Chuo Univ.) in his collegi...

The list of entries has been updated with withdrawals announced Feb. 25. So it looks like the Osaka Marathon is going to happen. The Osaka International Women's Marathon and mass-participation Osaka Half Marathon just happened the weekend before last, and even as most of the spring's Japanese road races continue to cancel, with less than three weeks to go they've announced the elite fields for the mass-participation Osaka Marathon on Feb. 27.  On the men's side, Osaka is taking the place of the historic Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon on the calendar. There are a few Japan-based internationals, but with the borders still mostly closed it's another super-deep domestic field. Beppu-Oita just happened yesterday and Tokyo looks like it's also likely to happen, but even so the entry list has ten current 2:07 guys, eight at the 2:08 level, four at 2:09, eight at 2:10, and seven at 2:11. And one guy debuting with a 1:30:38 best for 30km, two debuting sub-61 half marat...

It's four days until the biggest race of the year, the 98th Hakone Ekiden  on Jan. 2 and 3. 21 university men's teams race 10 legs from central Tokyo to the mountains and back over the course of two days, each leg roughly a half marathon in distance and the total course adding up to 217.1 km.  65 million people watched at least part of the 2021  NTV Hakone broadcast  broadcast, so you know they must be on to something. The broadcast, the best in the world, starts at 7:00 a.m. both days, and as you'd expect they keep it a locked-down secret only for Japanese audiences. A VPN or  mov3.co  are probably the best bets for trying to watch from abroad, but JRN will once again cover it all on  @JRNLive .  The 2021 race had one of the most dramatic finishes in Hakone history , with Komazawa University  anchor Takuma Ishikawa  coming from over a kilometer behind to run down Yuki Onodera  with 2 km to go and stop him from bringing Soka Univer...

It feels good to type that headline. Canceled in 2020 amid the pandemic, the Izumo Ekiden is back to kick off university men's ekiden season this Sunday. Fuji TV will broadcast the race live starting at 12:00 noon local time, with English live tweeting @JRNLive .  Short and fast by Japanese standards, Izumo has 18 university teams from across Japan and 2 regional select teams facing off over 6 stages averaging 7.5 km apiece. That skews the necessary skill set closer to 5000 m than the half marathon distance critical at November's National University Ekiden and January's Hakone Ekiden, and with few half marathon racing opportunities over the last year and a half it's immediately noticeable when you look at the entry lists how much coaches have been focusing on the track instead of the road. Taken together than could mean a very fast race this year. 10 teams in the field are from the Tokyo-area Kanto Region, home of Hakone. 9 of those have top 6 averages under 14 minut...

  About three quarters of the way through the 52nd running of the National University Men's Ekiden broadcast commentator Yasuyuki Watanabe , head coach of the Sumitomo Denko corporate team, former Waseda University head coach, and one of the all-time greats of the university ekiden world, said, "I've been doing race commentary for five years now, and this is the best race I've ever seen." And he was right. It was. It was a strange fluke that defending champion Tokai University and the three favorites, Juntendo University , Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University , got off to very rocky starts. Two stages into the day's eight Komazawa was in 9th, Juntendo 10th after leading the first stage, AGU a dismal 14th, and Tokai an unthinkable 17th in a field of 25. The door was open for some of the ambitious teams ranked in the middle of the field to take advantage of the situation, and teams like #7-ranked Josai University , #8-ranked Meiji University , ...

Japan has sent a roster of 22 athletes to this weekend's  World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, full squads for both junior races and the senior men's race, a team of only four for the senior women's race, and giving the mixed relay a miss. The Senior Men's team is young but one of the better in recent years, led by towering national champion Yuta Bando (Hosei Univ.). Yohei Komatsu played a key role in Tokai University 's first-ever Hakone Ekiden win in January, breaking the decades-old Eighth Stage course record to put Tokai into the lead. Yuhi Nakaya (Waseda University) was the star 1st-year on the Hakone circuit this year, Waseda head coach Yutaka Sagara saying that he think Nakaya has the potential to be better than multi-national record holder and Waseda alumnus Suguru Osako . Following Hakone Nakaya spent time training for World XC in Kenya. The Senior Women's lineup is thin. Six of the top eight placers at Nationals were alread...

Following last Saturday's National Cross Country Championships , the JAAF has announced the rosters for next month's World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark. The always-strong U20 Women's squad and sometimes-strong U20 Men's squad are solid, each featuring the top six from its race at Nationals led by junior national champions Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) and Jun Kasai (Kansai Soka H.S.). The Senior Men's team is one of the better in recent years, with only Nationals 2nd-placer Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) and 6th-placer Shota Onizuka (Tokai Univ.) giving the team a miss. In their places will run 7th-place Kosei Yamaguchi (Asian Kogyo), a steeplechase specialist, and Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota), the fastest man on the team with a track 10000 m PB of 28:29.23. But the Senior Women's lineup is thin. Six of the top eight placers at Nationals were already on the Japanese national team for April's Doha Asian Championships , a...

photo by @tsutsugo55225 For the second time in the last three weeks, a Japan-based Kenyan ran the fastest time in the world this year for 10000 m at Yokohama's Nittai University Time Trials series. On October 20th it was 2015 World U18 Championships 3000 m gold medalist Richard Kimunyan (Hitachi Butsuryu), 20, with a 27:14.70  that surpassed Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei 's world-leading mark by almost five seconds. This time it was 2018 World U20 Championships 5000 m silver medalist Stanley Waithaka (Yakult), 18, taking almost two minutes off his PB to break Kimunyan's mark with a 27:13.01 win. Both winners received support from 2014 Commonwealth Games steeplechase gold medalist Jonathan Ndiku (Hitachi Butsuryu), who ran season bests for 2nd place each time, 27:50.38 three weeks ago and 27:28.27 on Saturday. 2013 World U18 Championships 3000 m bronze medalist Alexander Mutiso (ND Software) was also under 28 minutes, running just off his PB at 27:42.16 for 3rd. ...

Ekiden season rolls on. Sunday in Fukushima is the 34th running of the East Japan Women's Ekiden , a miniature version of January's National Women's Ekiden featuring teams made up of the best J.H.S., H.S., university, corporate and club runners from each of the 18 prefectures in eastern Japan. Most notable on the entry list is Tokyo's Hitomi Niiya , all-time Japanese #3 for 10000 m and working her way back from a five-year retirement in hopes of making the Tokyo 2020 team. Fuji TV will broadcast the race live from noon to 2:30 p.m. Japan time. Following last weekend's East Japan and Kyushu corporate men's regional New Year Ekiden national championships qualifiers, the Kansai and Chugoku regions hold their qualifiers Sunday in Wakayama and Hiroshima. Top-placing teams from each region will go on to the New Year Ekiden on January 1st, with Sumitomo Denko and Chugoku Denryoku , featuring 2018 Hokkaido Marathon winner Naoki Okamoto , the favorites. The Kan...

6th in the men's pole vault two years ago, Masaki Ejima kept Japan's medal streak at the Tampere World U20 Championships alive with a bronze medal on the fifth day of competition. Both Ejima and silver medalist Zachery Bradford of the U.S.A. cleared 5.55 m on their third attempts and failed to clear 5.60, but as Ejima had struggled at 5.40 m the silver went to Bradford, who had cleared it with ease. Gold went to Armand Duplantis , who set a new championships record of 5.82 m. A highly-anticipated medal failed to materialize in the men's 4x100 m, where the Japanese squad finished out of the medals by an agonizing 0.01 behind Germany, running in the top three throughout the race but outleaned at the line. Both the U.S.A. and Jamaica went under 39 seconds for gold and silver.  Another near-miss came in the women's 10000 m racewalk, where Nanako Fujii set a PB of 45:08.68 but came only 4th. In both the men's 10000 m racewalk and men's high jump Japan scored t...

A new meet record in the boys’ 400 m courtesy of Sri Lanka’s Aruna Dharshana topped the results on Day Two of the Asian Junior Athletics Championships in Gifu. Dharshana’s mark of 45.79 led a Sri Lankan 1-2, with Japan’s Shuji Mori picking up the bronze in 47.09. Japan earned a 1-2 of its own in the girls’ 1500 m, where Ririka Hironak a ran a PB 4:17.62 to win gold by 4 seconds over teammate Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu . Durga Pramod Deore of India was a distant 3rd for bronze. Japan’s only other gold of the day came in the boys’ long jump, where Yugo Sakai jumped 7.61 m (-0.1 m/s) to beat China’s Keqi Zhou by just 7 cm. A missed opportunity came in the boys’ 10000 m, where Waseda University’s Yuhi Nakaya  ran only 30:04.24 for silver, beaten by winner Cairen Suolang of China in a 30:01.51 PB run. Japan also took silver in the boys’ 1500 m, Saife Saifeldin of Qatar getting the win in 3:49.30 to Reito Hanzawa ’s 3:49.66 and Iraqi bronze medalist Hussein Haitham Lafta ’s ...

Japan dominated the 14th Asian Cross Country Championships Thursday in Guiyang, China, winning all four team gold medals to hold the hosts China back to silver in every race. Japan's only individual gold came in the Junior Women's race, one of its usual areas of strength. Yuna Wada led a Japanese sweep of the top four positions to win the 6 km race in 20:43 with scoring teammates Ririka Hironaka and Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu just behind. Wada Yuna of Japan wins Junior Women’s 6km cross country race of 14th Asian Cross Country Championship . Japan also won Team championship pic.twitter.com/Q6l0b48pKV — Asian Athletics (@asianathletics) March 15, 2018 With the meet also serving as China's National Championships Chinese athletes won the individual gold in the other three races, Dan Li , Cairen Suolong and Jianhua Peng all showing better closing speed to beat their Japanese rivals by 3~4 seconds. Li won the Senior Women's 8 km by 3 seconds over Japan's ...

Top-ranked high schoolers Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.) and Yuhi Nakaya (Saku Chosei H.S.) won the junior titles at Saturday's National Cross-Country Championships in Fukuoka's Umi no Nakamichi Kaihin Park. With some of her main competition including Nozomi Tanaka (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.) on a training camp in Australia, Hironaka's primary challenge in the U20 Women's 6 km came from Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu (Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S.) who pushed her throughout the race but couldn't keep up in the later stages. Hironaka won in 19:50 by a margin of 8 seconds over Takamatsu, the pair the only ones to break 20 minutes. Nakaya, star runner of 2017 National High School Ekiden champ Saku Chosei H.S. with accomplishments including a 13:47.22 best for 5000 m last October, outclassed the field to win the U20 Men's 8 km in 24:05 by 12 seconds over Takuro Miura (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.). His Saku Chosei teammates Sakito Matsuzaki and Keita Honma took ...

Half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara lived up to his pre-race words, running down everyone who stood between him and the finish line to bring Saitama Prefecture its second-ever national title at the 2018 National Men's Ekiden . Defending champ Nagano , whose win last year gave it a record seven wins in the National Men's Ekiden 's 21-year history, was the favorite for the win, its roster packed with members of 2017 National High School Ekiden winner Saku Chosei H.S. and 2017 Izumo Ekiden winner Tokai University. Shitara was unfazed, saying pre-race that he'd run down anyone within 50 seconds of him on the 13.0 km anchor stage. Nagano started strong, taking 2nd on the opening leg behind a nearly record-setting run from Ryuto Igawa (Kumamoto). Hoping for its first-ever top-three finish Ibaraki was unexpectedly strong, 5th on the leadoff leg, overtaking Nagano on the Second Stage and then advancing to 1st on the Third Stage thanks to a strong run f...

Returning to the top for the first time since 1994 and 2008, the Sendai Ikuei H.S. girls and Saku Chosei H.S. boys pulled off comeback wins to take the national titles at the 2017 National High School Ekiden Championships . 14 seconds back from the lead after the opening leg of the five-stage, 21.0975 km girls' race, Sendai Ikuei's Helen Ekarare blasted a 12:25 course record for the 4.0975 km Second Stage to put her team 34 seconds ahead of early leader Nagano Higashi H.S.  Stuck in 3rd, 2016 national champion Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. Osaka Kunei's third and fourth runners Ayaka Murao and Saya Nakajima  tried to turn it around with back-to-back stage wins but could only come within 3 seconds of Nagano Higashi by the start of the anchor leg. There first-year Sendai Ikuei anchor Rina Kimura dropped the best performance of the after Ekarare's stage record, covering the 5.0 km anchor stage in 15:34. Bringing Sendai Ikuei home in 1st for the first time sin...