japan running news

Japan's National Cross Country Championships happened Sunday on their usual course in Fukuoka, the main event the JAAF uses to choose its teams for next month's Belgrade World Cross Country Championships. Performances at last summer's Budapest World Championships come into consideration, but most of the Belgrade team will be chose from top 8 finishers in the senior races in Fukuoka and top 6 in the U20 races. In the U20 women's 6 km, last year's National High School Ekiden First Stage winner and heavy favorite Narumi Okumoto (Oita Tomei H.S.) led the entire way and ended up with the biggest margin of victory in the four races, winning by 6 seconds over Misaki Shitamori (Kitakyushu Shiritsu H.S.) in 20:16. National High School Ekiden champ Kamimura Gakuen H.S. gave the meet a miss, but boys' champ Saku Chosei H.S. came in strong in the U20 men's 8 km, with Fourth Stage runner-up Yamato Hamaguchi getting the win in 23:35 and Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu...

This was a relatively quiet weekend as people make their final preparations for the five major championship ekidens over the next three weeks. The main action came Saturday in Kyoto at the Edion Distance Challenge . 19-year-old Judy Jepngetich (Shiseido) had the biggest result of the meet, winning the women's 5000 m A-heat in a PB 14:50.20. 2nd-placer Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera) and 3rd-place Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels) both ran PBs too, the 19-year-old Mwikali running 14:51.35 and Kamulu 14:54.19. After having run 14:44.83 in November pacer Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) jogged it in to a 4th-place finish, just missing out on another sub-15 clocking at 15:02.15. Across three heats a total of 35 women were under 16 minutes. Results in the women's 10000 m fast heat were good too. Rino Goshima made it a double for the national champion Shiseido team with a 31:22.38 win. Momoka Kawaguchi (Toyota Jidoshokki) and Wakana Itsuki (Kyudenko) were 2nd and 3rd in 31:57.81 and 31...

Three big pre-ekiden season meets happened this weekend and produced some big results. Saturday at the Nittai University Time Trials in Yokohama, Richard Kimunyan (Hitachi Butsuryu) and Benard Koech (Kyudenko) pushed each other under Josphat Ndambiri 's longstanding 10000 m Japan all-comers record of 26:57.36, Kimunyan setting the new record at 26:54.76 and Koech next in 26:55.04. Those times made them the only Kenyans under 27 minutes this year worldwide, with the Hachioji Long Distance meet still to come next month. Three others were under 27:30 led by Jonathan Ndiku (Hitachi Butsuryu) in 27:12.84, with Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) the top Japanese man at 6th in 27:53.00. Justus Soget (Honda) took the 5000 m A-heat in 13:24.01, the top five all under 13:30 and another Fujitsu runner, Olympian Hiroki Matsueda , filling the top Japanese spot at 8th in 13:34.62. Harumi Okamoto (Yamada Holdings) won the women's 5000 m A-heat in 15:49.72, and Kenyan Hellen Ekarare (Toyota Ji...

One of Japan's hopes for a top 8 placing in track and field, women's javelin NR holder Haruka Kitaguchi  got off to a good start at the Tokyo Olympics with a season best opening throw of 62.08 m in the qualifying round, just short of the 63.0 m auto-qualifying mark. She wasn't able to improve on that in subsequent throws but advanced to Friday's final with ease, placing 3rd in her group and 6th overall. Kitaguchi is the first Japanese woman to make an Olympic javelin final since the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Mirroring the lackluster performances in the men's 100 m, none of the three Japanese men in the 200 m moved on past the first round heats. Jun Yamashita came closest at 20.78 for 5th in the third heat, 0.25 off qualifying on time. In his third Olympics  Shota Iizuka  was 6th in the opening heat in 21.02, with Abdul Hakim Sani Brown  6th in the second heat in 21.41. In the evening session, national record holder Shunsuke Izumiya  and previous NR holder Taio Kan...

The 2021 Hokuren Distance Challenge series wrapped up Saturday in Chitose with a big day for Japanese middle distance. Hiroki Minamoto  (Kantai Heiyo Univ.) started things off with a 1:45.75 to win the men's 800 m, exactly tying the national and collegiate records. The holder of both records, Sho Kawamoto (Suzuki), was 2nd in 1:45.83, with Mikuto Kaneko  (Chuo Univ.) right there in 1:45.85 to come in at 3rd in the race and the all-time JPN lists. Kazuki Kawamura  (Toenec) kept it going in the men's 1500 m, taking over 1.5 sec off Nanami Arai 's 7-week-old NR in 3:35.42. U18 NR holder Keita Sato (Rakunan H.S.) was 2nd in 3:37.18, breaking the U20, U18 and H.S. national records and moving up to all-time JPN #3.  Tokyo Olympics 5000 m team member Yuta Bando  (Fujitsu) was 3rd in 3:37.99, good for all-time JPN #6, with his teammate in both Fujitsu and the Olympic 5000 m Hiroki Matsueda  last in 3:52.01. Although they're listed as DNS in the official results,...

Things have been in a bit of a lull the last week or two with the Tokyo Olympics test event, university and corporate regional championship meets and more out of the way and everyone getting ready for the National Track and Field Championships in Osaka near the end of the month. But there is a lot going on this weekend, even if the leading edge of rainy season means conditions will not exactly be ideal. Friday through Sunday the National University Individual Track and Field Championships happen in Kanagawa, the lesser cousin of September's National University Track and Field Championships without the team scoring. National record holder Ryuji Miura  (Juntendo Univ.) is entered in the 3000 mSC, but with a place at the Olympics already guaranteed there doesn't look to be much reason for him to run except as a training run. 13:40 is the new sub-14, with the entire men's 5000 m A-heat field of 31 having bests under 14 minutes, 15 of them plus another 3 in the B-heat from Aoya...

Like the title says, regional corporate league track and field championships lead this weekend's main action, with every region except Kyushu set to go ahead with its meet despite the proliferation of a new round of states of emergency across the country. Two of the most competitive regions, East Japan and Chubu, will be streaming their meets live, with Kansai likely to join the list. East Japan, whose Day One stream above, runs 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday Japan time and again 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday. The meet schedule and entry lists can be had here . Featuring a lot of the best Japan-based Kenyan and Ethiopian athletes, the men's 5000 and 10000 m look like the best races of the meet, with the 5000 m A-heat also having like Olympic 5000 m team member Yuta Bando  (Fujitsu), newly-minted Olympic 10000 m team member Tatsuhiko Ito  (Honda), and Olympic marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) back in action, hopefully, after scratching from the Lake Biwa Maratho...

What an amazing night that was. When the spring's National Track and Field Championships were postponed the JAAF split them up into chunks over the fall, with the long distance events, women's and men's 3000 m steeplechase, 5000 m and 10000 m, to go off Dec. 4 in Osaka, right after the reopening of Olympic qualification and right at the peak of ekiden season tune-up. And it was awesome. Like one of the millions of big time trial meets this fall, as super deep as you'd expect, but faster, way faster, with stellar conditions and an Olympic spot on the line for anyone who won and got the standard. Six of the night's seven races were won by people who set PBs, two of them in national records, and one with a junior national record down in 3rd. The women's 3000 m steeplechase was expected to be a duel between defending champ and all-time JPN #4  Reimi Yoshimura  (Daito Bunka) and all-time JPN #6  Yuno Yamanaka  (Ehime Ginko), but  all-time JPN #7 Yukari Ishizawa ...

With the first two days of the 2020 National Corporate Track and Field Championships bringing national records, world-leading marks and meet records, the last day saw one of the best races of the weekend. Fresh off her meet record win in the junior women's 3000 m, 19-year-old Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) took the women's 5000 m A-heat out hard in search of Japan's second sub-15 clocking ever. Right with her were Kenyans Rebecca Njeri (Daiso) and Joanne Kipkemoi (Kyudenko), and half marathon national record holder Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku). Together they went through splits of 3:02, 2:58, 3:01 and 2:59 to hit 4000 m in exactly 12:00, Niiya and Njeri taking their turns up front and Kipkemoi sliding off the back. Njeri pushed hard over the last 1000 m to open a gap, but while Hironaka couldn't stay with her Niiya kicked over the last 200 m to almost close it up, just about a first in her career and showing the effects of the work she put into the 1500 m over t...

The 2019 National Track and Field Championships start Thursday. With the 10000 m having been held last month in hopes of maximizing people's chances of hitting the standards for the Doha World Championships instead of doubling in the 5000 m, from 800 m to 5000 m, including the 3000 m steeplechase, the only event that has people already with the Doha standard set to toe the starting line is the women's 5000 m. It's also the only event that has African pacers lined up. Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki TC), Tomoka Kimura (Shiseido) and Harumi Okamoto (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) have all cleared the 15:22 Doha standard inside the window, and if any of them wins she'll be named to the team. Others will have to wait until September for the JAAF's final decision. 10000 m national champion Rina Nabeshima (Japan Post) is the one who could ruin it for them, not holding the standard but having run 15:10.91 last year. Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera) and Ririka Hironaka (Japan ...

April 1 is the start of the new academic and fiscal year, the time when runners move up from high school to university teams and on from university to the corporate leagues. The Kanaguri Memorial Meet is always one of the first chances to see people debut in new uniforms, and even though it was a week later than usual this year there were still lots of interesting items to be had. #1 among them was the debut of Australian Melissa Duncan in the Shiseido team's pink uniform. Duncan had no trouble putting away the field of Japanese and Kenyan corporate leaguers, soloing a 15:20.88 to win the women's 5000 m A-heat by over 20 seconds. 2018 National Sports Festival women's 1500 m champion Ran Urabe (Nike Tokyo TC) had a much narrower margin of victory in the 1500 m A-heat but still pulled out a win over 2018 World U20 Championships 3000 m gold medalist Nozomi Tanaka 4:21.96 to 4:22.25, Tanaka debuting in the new Toyota Jidoshokki TC uniform after moving to that club spo...

The almost always reliable junior women scored Japan's only medal of the 2019 World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, beating Uganda by one point to make the podium. Uganda's Sarah Chelangat was part of the mad sprint finish for the individual medals, coming up just short at 4th but giving Uganda an edge for bronze behind Ethiopia and Kenya. It took solid pair runs from Japan's Ayuka Kazama and Ririka Hironaka , 14th and 15th ahead of Uganda's second runner Esther Chekwemoi , and Chika Kosakai and Hazuki Doi , 21st and 22nd just seconds ahead of Uganda's last two scorers, to make it happen. The bronze medal placing was the junior women's 16th in World Cross Country Championships history. Kazama's 14th-place finish as the first runner not from Ethiopia, Kenya or Uganda was also the best individual placing of the day by a Japanese athlete, as it turned out. But Issei Sato 's 20th-place finish in the U20 men's 8 km was al...

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...

Japan held its 2019 National Cross Country Championships Saturday in Fukuoka, its primary selection race for next month's Aarhus World Cross-Country Championships . In the senior men's race, heavy favorite Kazuya Shiojiri (Juntendo Univ.) broke away from the field early, only to be run down midway by the 190-cm Yuta Bando (Hosei Univ.), who quickly broke Shiojiri and went ahead in the lead. With just a lap to go he was caught by brothers Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) and Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima). With Kazuki Tamura constantly turning to call encouragement to his younger brother over his shoulder Bando had just enough downtime to attack in the last kilometer and get away for the win in 29:36. Kazuki Tamura was 2nd in 29:40 with Yusuke 3rd in 29:41. Waseda University first-year Yuhi Nakaya was 4th, with Yohei Komatsu and Shota Onizuka , two of the star members of 2019 Hakone Ekiden winner Tokai University , rounding out the top six and probable Aarhus senior me...