japan running news

The favorites took the top spots in most of the races at Sunday's National Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka. The front end of the U20 women's 6 km was like a replay of the 6.0 km First Stage at December's National High School Ekiden, and it couldn't have been closer. Both Kanoko Nawa , leadoff runner for ekiden winner Nagano Higashi H.S. , and Akari Matsumoto , the first runner from 7th-place Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S. , clocked 20:20 with Nawa getting the win in the photo finish. Narumi Okumoto , first runner from ekiden 8th-placer Kojokan H.S. , was 3rd in 20:23, and Aya Kotajima , first runner from 5th-place Hakuho Joshi H.S. , was 4th in 20:28. Soma Nagahara , the first runner from Saku Chosei H.S. ' runner-up team at the National High School Ekiden, won the U20 men's 8 km in another photo finish, both he and Sota Yamasaki , first runner from 12th-place Yamaguchi Kenritsu Saikyo H.S. , clocking 24:01. Sota Orita (Suma Gakuen H.S.) was a close 3rd ...

One of the only races to resist the pressure to cancel as Japan's COVID numbers break new ground, the Kitakyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden took place Sunday in northern Fukuoka with top high school, college, club and corporate teams racing a short 27.2 km course through cold rain.  Only 21 of the 40 teams on the entry list started, but among them was defending open division champ Denso . Denso took the lead on the 3.8 km Second Stage with another course record run from CR holder Husan Zeyituna and held on through midway on the 10.4 km Fifth Stage, when anchor Yuka Matsumoto was caught by Nozomi Tanaka of the non-scoring Meijo/Toyota Select Team . The Meijo/Toyota hybrid crossed the line first in 1:28:05, Denso 51 seconds back to score 1st in the open division and claim a 2nd-straight win. But they were actually 3rd across the line. The local Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S. team led the high school division from the start, falling back a bit on the Second Stage but clocking t...

Two weeks after her public coming out as Japan's next big hope, 18-year-old Seira Fuwa  anchored the Gunma  team to a come-from-behind win at the East Japan Women's Ekiden . A smaller version of January's National Women's Ekiden with teams representing the 18 prefectures in northeastern Japan, each team made up of the best junior high school, high school, collegiate, club team and corporate league runners from that prefecture, East Japan returned this year after the first cancelation in its 36-year history last year. Two weeks ago Fuwa, a first-year at Tokyo's Takushoku University , set an incredible 28:00 course record for her 9.2 km stage at the National University Women's Ekiden . With her name on the list for the 10.0 km anchor stage at East Japan the entire race was about other teams trying to get as far ahead of Gunma as possible before the last of the marathon-length race's nine stages. Gunma didn't make it easy for them. Its leading runner Harum...

Meijo University  led almost start-to-finish at Sunday's National University Women's Ekiden, taking five of the six individual stage bests to become only the second school to win five-straight national titles. Opening runner Yuma Yamamoto  waited until the last km of her 6.6 km stage to turn it on, opening a 7-second lead to win it in 21:48. Second runner Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu overcame a bad season to break the record for her stage, running 12:01 for 3.9 km and building Meijo's lead to 23 seconds. Third runner Yuna Wada  added another 56 seconds to the lead with a 21:51 win on her 6.9 km stage, and fourth runner Nanase Tanimoto  turned in a 15:37 stage record for 4.8 km to chalk up another 14 seconds.  10000 m collegiate record holder Narumi Kobayashi  was the weakest link, finishing only 3rd on the 9.2 km Fifth Stage on individual time but still stretching out Meijo's lead to 2:07. Anchor Yuka Masubuchi  had more than enough to work with with onl...

Earlier this week after the Princess Ekiden my friend Becky asked a couple of good questions. "I'm always curious on why they don't let women run Hakone, and why women-only ekidens are so much shorter," she said. Japan is hopelessly behind on a lot of social issues, especially women's equality. In March this year the World Economic Forum ranked Japan 120th out of 156 countries in gender equality, just over a month after Tokyo Olympics organizing committee head and former prime minister Yoshiro Mori  was forced to, publicly at least, step down from his position after making comments derogatory of women. Which is not to say that that stopped him from turning up at the Olympic Stadium to catch Olympic athletics action and hang with his boys Thomas Bach  and Seb Coe this past summer, of course. On the other hand, things can also be oddly progressive at times. Japan was the first country in the world to put on an annual women-only marathon, way back in 1979 before it...

Meijo University  ran up to expectations, breaking its own course record to win a third-straight Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national title. Head coach Katsuro Yoneda  had confidently predicted a perfect win, Meijo runners taking all seven stage titles and the overall win for the hilly 43.4 km course, but on the very first stage Karin Akahori  (Nittai Univ.) shot that down, beating Meijo's Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu  by 6 seconds to win the stage. But the setback didn't last long, as second runner Yuna Wada  tied her stage's record to put Meijo out front.  From there Meijo stretched its lead out to 1:26 by the start of the 10.5 km Fifth Stage, the longest of the day. There Yuka Suzuki  (Daito Bunka Univ.), the 2019 World University Games half marathon gold medalist, gave Meijo's Rika Kaseda , the silver medalist in the same race, a scare as she cut Meijo's lead down by 42 seconds. But record-breaking runs on the last two uphill stages from Yuka Masubuchi...

Wednesday is the first day of the best five-day stretch of racing in Japan, the top women's university teams in the country racing in the foothills of Mt. Fuji at the season-ending Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national championships. After that it's a day off for New Year's Eve, then 2021 kicks off with the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships and hits its peak with the year's biggest race, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden . It's pretty much a foregone conclusion that two-time defending Mount Fuji champ Meijo University  is going to make it three in a row. In October Meijo broke its own record for the 38.1 km course to win the national-level Morinomiyako Ekiden by almost three minutes over Daito Bunka University . Since then it's only gotten stronger, with 3rd-year  Yuna Wada  running the fastest collegiate 5000 m time of the year, 15:25.14, and 4th-year  Rika Kaseda clocking both the second-fastest 5000 m time, 15:32.77, and the fas...

Some of its major events have been canceled, but championship ekiden keeps moving forward. This weekend it's the Morinomiyako Ekiden , the national university women's championships , with 25 teams from around the country 38.1 km in six stages around Sendai. In some ways the national distribution of the top end of the field is more interesting than at next month's National University Ekiden, where schools from the Tokyo-centered Kanto Region dominate the eight-deep podium every year. Since Matsuyama University broke Ritsumeikan University 's near monopoly on the national title in 2016 Meijo University has come up to take Ritsumeikan's place as the top program in collegiate women's long distance, winning Morinomiyako in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Meijo comes to Sendai as the favorite again, with Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu  having won the 1500 m at September's National University Championships and Rika Kaseda taking the 10000 m. Many of its best runners turned in ...

One of the few events to survive the wave of race cancelations currently sweeping Japan as the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads, the National Cross-Country Championships took place Feb. 22 in Fukuoka. The senior men's 10 km was almost a replay of last year's race, with Hakone Ekiden uphill Fifth Stage star Yuhei Urano (Koku Gakuin Univ.) replacing Yuta Bando (Hosei Univ.) in the leading role of outrunning brothers Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) and Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima) for the national title. Despite windy conditions times were quicker than in recent years, with Urano winning in 29:18 by 6 seconds over Kazuki Tamura and Yusuke Tamura another 10 seconds back. In the senior women's 8 km, last year's 5th-place and 2018 national 3000 m steeplechase champion Yukari Ishizawa (Edion) came back from a mid-race dropoff to outrun a group of women more than a decade younger for the win in 26:57, beating 20-year-old Yuna Wada (Meijo Univ.) by 1 second and 19-yea...

Japan pulled off three medal sweeps in the last two days of track and field competition at the 2019 Napoli Universiade , taking all three individual medals and the team gold medals in the men's 20 km race walk and both the women's and men's half marathons. Koki Ikeda kicked off the medal rush Friday with a 1:22:49 win in the men's 20 km race walk, opening more than 30 seconds on teammates Masatora Kawano and Yuta Koga . The next morning the Japanese women followed the walkers' lead, waiting until the third time around the three-lap course to drop the competition. Just 19, 2019 National University Half Marathon champion Yuka Suzuki  (Daito Bunka Univ.) was really impressive over the last two kilometers, seeming to be going at an all-out sprint and opening more than 20 seconds on Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) and Yuki Tagawa  (Matsuyama Univ.) for the win in 1:14:10. #ユニバーシアード2019 男子ハーフマラソン スタジアムで表彰待ちをしていたら伊藤くんが繰り上げで3位になった情報が入ってビックリ😳 中国人選手が指定の場所以外で給水を取ったので失格にな...

Stanford Invitational - Japanese Results Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, U.S.A., 3/29/19 complete results Women's 10000 m Invite 1. Emily Sisson (New Balance) - 30:49.57 2. Molly Huddle (Saucony) - 30:58.46 3. Allie Ostrander (Boise State Univ.) - 32:06.71 ----- 6. Ayumi Hagiwara (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 32:09.87 8. Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) - 32:15.47 23. Misaki Hayashida (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 33:04.12 Men's 10000 m Invite 1. Conner Mantz (Brigham Young Univ.) - 28:18.18 2. Clayton Young (Brigham Young Univ.) - 28:18.50 3. Gilbert Kigen (Univ. of Alabama) - 28:20.28 ----- 10. Jun Nobuto (Mazda) - 28:35.55 11. Kiseki Shiozawa (Tokai Univ.) - 28:37.15 16. Junnosuke Matsuo (Tokai Univ.) - 29:07.79 Women's 5000 m Invite 1. Jessice Hull (Univ. of Oregon) - 15:34.93 2. Shuang Shuang Xiu (CAA) - 15:36.48 3. Carrie Dimoff (Bowerman TC) - 15:36.32 ----- 10. Yuna Wada (Meijo Univ.) - 15:47.04 Men's 5000 m Invite 1. Kyle Mau (Univ. of In...

After an unexpected breakthrough last year to win its first national title in 12 years, Meijo University took full advantage of its new recruits to win the Morinomiyako Ekiden , the Japanese University Women's Ekiden Championships, for the second year in a row Sunday in Sendai. First-year Yuna Wada , who set up Nozomi Tanaka for the gold medal in this year's U20 World Championships 3000 m, took it out hard for Meijo, winning the 6.4 km First Stage by two seconds over Naruha Sato of last year's 3rd-placer Ritsumeikan University . After a rocky start 2017 runner-up Daito Bunka University 's Yuka Suzuki made up a 42-second deficit on the 5.6 km Second Stage, turning it into a 15-second lead over Ritsumeikan with Meijo dropping to 3rd. Star Meijo first-year Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu got it back under control, just missing the CR on the 6.8 km Third Stage as she put Meijo back into the lad for good. DBU, Ritsumeikan and darkhorse Tokyo Nogyo University battled to...

https://www.kenyanathlete.com/2018/10/could-japan-be-shaping-herself-to-be.html?spref=tw

Working together to execute an aggressive frontrunning team strategy born from failure two years ago in Bydgoszcz , 2018 Asian U20 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka and 2018 Asian Junior Cross Country gold medalist Yuna Wada opened a massive lead over the African Junior Cross Country medalist Ethiopian duo of Meselu Berhe and Tsige Gebreselama in the early going of the Tampere World U20 Championships women's 3000 m. Tanaka took the lead from the gun before Wada went out front at 200 m to set a fast pace. Through splits of 3:00 and 3:03 for the first 2000 m, Tanaka kicked hard from 300 m out to close with a 2:51 for Japan's first-ever gold medal in the event, winning in a PB of 8:54.01. Berhe and Gebreselama caught Wada on the back corner but weren't even close to matching Tanaka, taking 2nd and 3rd in PBs just under the 9-minute mark. Wada just held off Kenyan Jenali Jemutai Yego for 4th in 9:00.50, seeming happy in post-race interviews to have helped a teammate ...

Japan capped the final day of its role as host nation for the Asian Junior Athletics Championships with a pair of championships records that erased marks set by China way back in that nation’s 90’s heyday. Nozomi Tanaka , newly-graduated from high school and opting for the club runner life like her mother, sub-2:30 amateur Chihiro Tanaka , got the party started with a 9:04.36 record in the girls’ 3000 m that took almost 6 seconds off Li Xin Lan ’s 1997 mark. Her high school and club teammate Yuna Wada wasn’t far off Lan’s old record with a 9:14.13 for silver more than 20 seconds ahead of China’s Fan Liu . The Japanese girls’ 4x400 m likewise took down a Chinese record set in 1997, running 3:38.20 for gold. India and Sri Lanka were a distant 2nd and 3rd, with China nowhere to be found in the final. One member of Japan’s 4x400 m squad, Kasumi Yoshida , doubled after winning an individual gold in the 400 m hurdles earlier in the day in 58.43. Her teammate Natsumi Murakami missed...

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 ...

Hyogo   Prefecture dominated the second half of Sunday’s National Women’s Ekiden , moving up through the field with three straight stage wins to take its first national title in 14 years. In a repeat of her performance at last month’s National High School Ekiden, Hyogo’s Nozomi Tanaka went out front early before getting run down late in the opening stage, leading Hyogo off in 5th. Over the first half of the race the perpetually strong Osaka and Nagano emerged as the frontrunners before a brilliant Fourth Stage course record by Ririka Hironaka brought Nagasaki into the picture. Nagasaki’s fifth runner Chikako Mori extended the lead Hironaka built to 37 seconds with a stage win, but behind her Hyogo’s Mai Ota brought a big run to pass Osaka and Nagano and move into 2nd. A stage win from sixth runner Yume Goto put Hyogo just 2 seconds behind Nagasaki, and with another pair of stage wins from its next two runners Chinatsu Tarumoto and Asuka Ishimatsu Nagasaki was over ...

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...