japan running news

http://bit.ly/1mP9Kti translated by Brett Larner On June 30 the Memolead Group wedding and funeral ceremony management and production company based in Seihi Nagayomachi held a press conference to announce its sponsorship of a new women's athletics team.  It is the first new women's corporate team to be based in Nagasaki since the launch of the Juhachi Ginko team two years ago. Appearing at the press conference in Nagasaki were corporate representatives and new head coach Yuki Mori .  Mori joined Memolead the year before last and, remaining active as a runner, captained the Nagasaki prefecture team at last year's final Grand Tour Kyushu ekiden.  Based on his performance and leadership there, corporate management took an interest and agreed to fund a new women's team.  The team will focus on women interested in the marathon and other long distances. With a planned team start date at the beginning of the new fiscal year next April, Mori intends to retire from h...

http://sp.mainichi.jp/m/news.html?cid=20120419k0000m050014000c translated by Brett Larner The Nagasaki-based Sumco Techxiv company, a subdivision of major semiconductor silicon wafer manufacturer Sumco, announced on April 18 that it plans to disband its ekiden team on July 31.  A statement from the company read, "Due to difficulties in the current business environment we do not expect to be in a position to be able to continue our support of the athletics team."  The team hopes to continue elsewhere as a complete unit and is currently looking for a new sponsor. The Sumco Techxiv team was founded in 1992, changing its name to Sumco in 1992.  Its current lineup includes eleven athletes headed by 2011 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon 7th-place finisher Satoshi Yoshii .  In 2001 team member Yuki Mori  won the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, going on to run on the Japanese National Team at that year's World Half Marathon Championships in England. ...

by Brett Larner In its 60th running the historic Kyushu Isshu Ekiden , a ten-day road relay around Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu featuring men's teams from each of the island's nine prefectures, has changed both name and, to a lesser degree, format.  Now called the Grand Tour Kyushu, the race has been scaled back to eight days and, styled more after a cycling race, has a new and heavier emphasis on the day-to-day stage wins and features corporate sponsorship of the individual day stages. Starting in Nagasaki on Oct. 30 and heading counterclockwise to Fukuoka, the Grand Tour Kyushu remains Japan's longest elite-level event.  Always dominant thanks to the presence of a large concentration of corporate teams, Fukuoka, Miyazaki and Nagasaki prefectures have been the main players through the Tour's first four days.  Defending champion Miyazaki got off on the right foot with a win from rookie Kazuya Deguchi  on the first leg of the race, but the team fell...

by Brett Larner 2008 Kumanichi 30 km winner Masaki Shimoju (Team Konica Minolta) continues to edge upward in distance, taking a win at the 48th Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon on Feb. 14. Traditionally a development race for younger runners, this year Nobeoka stayed in character as first-timers took 7 of the top 10 places with relatively inexperienced men clocking PBs for the top 3 spots. Shimoju ran the first 30 km tight in the first pack. When pacemaker Tomoyuki Sato (Team Asahi Kasei) dropped out at 30 km after maintaining a steady pace of 3:07/km there were still six men in the lead pack. Shimoju immediately went into the lead, but it wasn't that he picked up the pace so much as that everyone else fell away. First-timer Norihiro Nomiya (Team Toyota) initially went with him but by 40 km was a minute behind. Shimoju finished hard to win easily in a new PB of 2:12:18 with a 1:34 margin of victory. Nomiya fell to 4th, the top debutant in 2:14:36. Nomiya was overtaken by Fumiyuki Wat...

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nsp/local/20080208/20080208_001.shtml translated by Brett Larner On Feb. 7 the organizing committee of the 46th Nobeoka Nishi Nihon Marathon, sponsored by Kyushu Rikuren, Nobeoka City and the Nishi Nihon Newspaper Group, held a press conference at Nobeoka City Hall in Miyazaki Prefecture to announce the elite field for this year's race, to be held on Feb. 24. The invited field includes 24 athletes, 7 more than last year, with total entries standing at 356 runners, also up from last year. The elite field includes several members of local team Asahi Kasei. Muneyuki Ojima, the fastest man in the field with a PB of 2:08:43, will be running his final race before retiring. Also appearing from Asahi Kasei are Fumiyuki Watanabe, who was injured and had to withdraw from last year's race, and Masaya Shimizu. These athletes will all be spurred on by the extra motivation of having watched their teammate Tomoya Adachi win the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon on Feb....