japan running news

by Brett Larner The Golden Games in Nobeoka are the main spring Japanese meet for distance runners, held in Japan's Eugune, the Asahi Kasei team's home of Nobeoka .  Fans line the track, banging on the metal sponsor boards with sticks to produce a wall of sound that pushes runners to some of the best Japanese times of the year, every year. This year a lot of the big names will be chasing Olympic qualifying times in the United States, but the 5000 m and 10000 m still have deep lists of upper-tier Japanese and Japan-based African talent.  Last year two-time World Championships medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) paced Kenta Murayama (Team Asahi Kasei) and Yuta Shitara (Team Honda) to two of the fastest Japanese 10000 m times ever.  This year both Tanui and Shitara are back in the 10000 m along with Shitara's twin brother Keita Shitara (Team Konica Minolta), 61-minute half marathoner university teammates Keisuke Nakatani and Naoki Kudo (Komazawa Univ.) and former ...

'Budd and Herron Win the 28th IAU 100 km World Championships' click here for complete results Japanese results Men 11. Tatsuya Itagaki - 6:52:37 35. Yoshikazu Hara - 7:13:33 42. Yoshiki Takada - 7:21:52 63. Tsutomu Nagata - 7:45:57 Women 13. Mikiko Ota - 7:52:39 15. Mai Fujisawa - 7:56:59 DNF - Shiho Katayama DNF - Chiyuki Mochizuki 'Jepchirchir Shatters Course Record at Usti Nad Labem Half Marathon' click here for complete results Japanese Results Men 12. Yuki Matsuoka - 1:04:34 13. Rikinobu Watanabe - 1:04:57 15. Ryuji Okada - 1:06:49 Women 7. Mizuki Matsuda - 1:12:54 8. Ai Inoue - 1:13:32 'Karoki Runs World-Leading 59:14 in Copenhagen' click here for complete results Japanese Results Men 25. Ryotaro Otani - 1:05:20 'Farah and Keitany Successfully Defend Great North Run Titles' click here for complete results Japanese Results Men 9. Masato Kikuchi - 1:03:13 DNS - Suguru Osako Women 6. Reia Iwade - 1:12:41

by Brett Larner The first big 10000 m on the Japanese track calendar, this weekend's Hyogo Relay Carnival is geared up to be a shot at World Championships entry standards and World University Games national team places.  The Grand Prix men's 10000 m features sub-27 world-level medalists Kenyans Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) and Bedan Karoki (DeNA RC) and four others with sub-27:30 bests to pull the top Japanese men along to clear the 27:45.00 Beijing standard.  The only man to do it so far, Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Team Asahi Kasei) with a 27:38.99 last November in Hachioji, is not in the race, but two others who have cleared that time before, Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) and Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) are, along with young stars who have come close like Kenta Murayama (Team Asahi Kasei) and Keita Shitara (Team Konica Minolta).  Especially worth watching is Masato Kikuchi (Team Konica Minolta), who tied the 20 km national record earlier this year on the way...

by Brett Larner The 28th Fukuoka International Cross Country Meet played host to this year's Asian Cross Country Championships, the international championship races held within Fukuoka's regular senior men's 10 km, senior women's 6 km, junior men's 8 km and junior women's 6 km races.  In the senior men's 10 km, Japan-based Kenyan Jeremiah Karemi  (Team Toyota Kyushu), two-time winner of Fukuoka's junior race, ran tough against an all-African Bahraini squad, outkicking its Aweke Yimer  by 9 seconds for the win in 28:43.  Karemi's continuing development over the last year is especially noteworthy given that the last time Toyota Kyushu head coach Koichi Morishita , the Barcelona Olympics marathon silver medalist, took on a Kenyan it was future Beijing Olympics gold medalist Samuel Wanjiru . 2nd overall, Yimer took the Asian Championships gold medal with teammates Isaac Korir  and Alemu Bekele  taking silver and gold.  2010 5000 m national champion Y...

by Brett Larner Along with Kanagawa and Nagano's great course record battle at the East Japan Women's Ekiden in Fukushima , this weekend saw four other significant ekidens around the country.  Like the East Japan race, the six-stage, 30 km Fukui Super Ladies Ekiden saw its 27th running.  An interesting format with 48 universities, corporate teams and running clubs all competing together, Fukui this year was largely a rematch between this year's national university champion Ritsumeikan University  and 2010 champion Bukkyo University .  Bukkyo fielded all its key runners, including ace Hikari Yoshimoto , while Ritsumeikan was down its leading pair Risa Takenaka  and Hanae Tanaka .  After an early lead Bukkyo dropped to 3rd behind Ritsumeikan and Meijo University , but in the second half it worked its way back up to 2nd just 12 seconds behind Ritsumeikan.  Anchor Yoshimoto, the 10000 m collegiate record holder, then ran 41 seconds faster than anyone els...

by Brett Larner Fall track season continued over the National Sports Day long weekend with three large meets.  The National Sports Festival in Yamaguchi produced a women's 5000 m Olympic B-standard PB from this year's national corporate 10000 m champion Kasumi Nishihara  (Team Yamada Denki), who ran 15:23.80 to win by six seconds.  The junior women's 3000 m saw the top four high schoolers break 9:10, with Tomoka Kimura  (Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S.) winning in 9:05.81 over rival Miki Sakakibara  (Hamakita Nishi H.S.) after losing to Sakakibara in the heats. The Niigata Time Trials meet also produced two Olympic B-standard performances.  2010 national 5000 m champion Yuki Matsuoka  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) ran a PB 28:03.46 to win the 10000 m and clear the London B-standard.  Five-time national 1500 m champion Mika Yoshikawa  (Team Panasonic) continued her successful transition to longer distances this year by breaking 32 in a virtually solo 1...

by Brett Larner With the emergence of India's superb double track medalists Preeja Sreeharan and Kavita Raut and nearly all of the remaining medals in the men's and women's distance medals going to Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes running in the colors of Qatar and Bahrain, Japanese athletes were virtually shut out of the distance medals at the 2010 Asian Games in Guanzhou, China. In just his second marathon, Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN) delivered one of Japan's only distance medals of the Games, outkicking the defending gold medalist, Kenyan Richard Yatich running as Mubarak Hussan Shami of Qatar, in the final meters of the race to take silver behind an outstanding if unsportsmanlike gold medal run from South Korea's Youngjun Ji . In taking silver Kitaoka likely earned himself one of the five spots up for grabs on the Japanese marathon squad for next summer's World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. By contrast the Japanese women marathoners came up empty-han...

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/114692/asian-games-athletics-sudha-wins.html 2010 Asian Games - Athletics Distance Results click here for complete results Women's 10000 m 1. Preeja Sreedharan (India) - 31:50.47 - PB, NR 2. Kavita Raut (India) - 31:51.44 - PB 3. Shitaye Habtegebrel (Ethiopia/Bahrain) - 31:54.27 - PB 4. Kayoko Fukushi (Japan) - 31:55.54 5. Hikari Yoshimoto (Japan) - 32:06.73 Men's 5000 m 1. Mahboob Ali Hasan Mahboob (Kenya/Bahrain) - 13:47.86 2. James Kurui (Kenya/Qatar) - 13:48.55 3. Felix Kibore (Kenya/Qatar) - 13:49.31 4. Dejenee Mootumaa (Ethiopia/Bahrain) - 13:50.60 5. Abdullah Aljoud (Saudia Arabia) - 13:52.34 6. Kensuke Takezawa (Japan) - 13:54.11 ----- 9. Yuki Matsuoka (Japan) - 14:03.62 Women's 3000 mSC 1. Sudha Singh (India) - 9:55.67 - PB 2. Yuan Jin (China) - 9:55.71 3. Minori Hayakari (Japan) - 10:01.25

by Brett Larner Strong winds meant slower times than anticipated across the board on the final day of the 2010 Japanese National Track and Field Championships , but many races nevertheless saw unexpected and dramatic results. Both sprint finals featured upset wins. In the women's 200 m, Momoko Takahashi (Heisei Kokusai Univ.) finally got the better of the marginally more talented national record holder Chisato Fukushima (Hokkaido HiTec AC), her strong finish finally overcoming Fukushima's faster start as she muscled out a win by 0.01 seconds in the final steps of the straight. Defending men's 100 m national champion Masashi Eriguchi (Waseda Univ.) finally got the title for real, beating Beijing Olympics bronze medalist Naoki Tsukahara (Team Fujitsu) after gaining last year's title be default when Tsukahara withdrew before the final. In the women's 5000 m, Kenyan Ann Karindi (Team Toyota Jidoshoki) took the top spot, while national record holder Kayoko Fukushi ...

translated and edited by Brett Larner Update: The IAAF has a series of articles summarizing each day of the East Asian Games including the medalists in each event. Click for Day One (800 m, 20 km RW), Day Two (M 5000 m, W 10000 m, W 3000 mSC), Day Three (1500 m, M 10000 m) and Day Four (Half marathon, M 3000 mSC, W 5000 m). Tomoya Onishi on the way to the win in Hong Kong. Click picture for sanspo.com's East Asian Games photo gallery. The East Asian Games Half Marathon took place Dec. 13 in Hong Kong. 22 year-old Tomoya Onishi (Team Asahi Kasei) won the gold medal in the sprint-finish men's race in a time of 1:06:05. World Championships women's marathon 7th place finisher Yuri Kano (Second Wind AC) was 2nd in the women's half marathon in 1:12:03 with teammate Yoko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera) close behind in 3rd. Kano lacked her usual frontrunning race pattern, losing out to a North Korean athlete on the last lap of the track. "That wasn't how I wanted to race,...

by Brett Larner Yusei Nakao (Team Toyota Boshoku) continued his strong season, heading the Japanese contingent at this year's KBC-Nacht meet in Heusden, Belgium. Nakao, running the men's 5000 m at the same meet where Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica-Minolta) set the Japanese national record two years ago, ran a PB of 13:28.16 to finish 7th in the B-heat. With 2009 national champion Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) already named to the national team with a B-standard mark, Nakao, Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and Yuki Matsuoka (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) needed to break the World Championships A-standard of 13:20.00 to join him. Sato took up the challenge, running among the leaders in the early stages of the race and going through the kilometer right on pace in 2:39 with Matsuoka also in the pack. Nakao sat back and waited, moving up as the race evolved. Sato, who holds a PB of 13:23.57 and earlier in the season ran the all-time 3rd-best Japanese mark of 27:38.25 for 10000 m before suf...

by Brett Larner A number of top pro Japanese men competed in the 2009 Lappeenranta Games in Finland on July 12. The biggest results came in the 5000 m, where 2008 World Half Marathon 5th place finisher Yusei Nakao (Team Toyota Boshoku) was 3rd and Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin), who earlier this season ran a PB of 27:38 in the 10000 m, was a DNF. Below are the top results of races featuring Japanese runners. For complete results click here . 2009 Lappeenranta Games - Top Results Men's 5000 m 1. Lewis Korir (Kenya) - 13:36.23 2. Jukka Keskisalo (Finland) - 13:39.81 3. Yusei Nakao (Japan) - 13:44.92 ----- 5. Satoru Kitamura (Japan) - 13:50.33 6. Naoki Okamoto (Japan) - 13:50.88 7. Suehiro Ishikawa (Japan) - 13:52.15 9. Seigo Ikegami (Japan) - 14:14.19 DNF - Yuki Sato (Japan) Men's 1500 m 1. Mohammed Shahween (Saudia Arabia) - 3:42.81 2. Niclas Sandells (Finland) - 3:43.72 3. Jonas Hamm (Finland) - 3:44.39 ----- 7. Yuki Matsuoka (Japan) - 3:46.72 12. Yasunori Murakami (Japan) -...

by Brett Larner An international field including famed Chinese 110 m hurdler Xian Liu, Helsinki World Championships 400 m hurdler silver medalist James Carter of U.S.A., Paris and Edmonton World Championships 100 m bronze medalist Chandra Stirrup of Bahamas, and Helsinki World Championships 400 m bronze medalist Christine Amertil, also of Bahamas, will take part in the IAAF Japan Grand Prix in Osaka this Saturday, May 10. Hosts Japan will field a team including star sprinter Nobuharu Asahara, top hurdler Dai Tamesue, women`s 1500 m national record holder Yuriko Kobayashi, and women`s long jump national record holder Kumiko Ikeda. Athens Olympics discus gold medalist Koji Murofuji will be appearing as an honorary participant. Of particular interest to distance running enthusiasts will be the appearance in the men`s 1500 m of former Hakone Ekiden stars Yuichiro Ueno, formerly of Chuo University and now running for Team SB Shokuhin, and Yuki Matsuoka, formerly with 2007 Hakone winners Jun...