japan running news

Just a few days left now before the Aug. 24 deadline for qualification for the Tokyo World Championships and the Japanese athletes on the cusp of making the home team are scrambling to find points to make the cut. The Athlete Night Games meet this past weekend had a big impact, especially in the two toughest squads to make outside the road events, the men's high jump and men's 100 m. 2.27m man Yuto Seko improbably jumped the 2.33m Tokyo standard, knocking last week's big mover Naoto Hasegawa (Niigata Albirex RC) off the team. Asian champion Hiroki Yanagita hit the 100 m standard with a 10.00 (+0.3) PB but will almost definitely still be left off the team in favor of Abdul Hakim Sani Brown , 9.96 last summer but not under 10.31 so far this year. Hurdlers Rachid Muratake , Tatsuki Abe (Juntendo Univ.) and Mako Fukube (NKK) all hit their standards, and Towa Uzawa (JAL) and Hibiki Tsuha (Otsuka Seiyaku) both did well enough in the men's 200 m and men's long ju...

No new additions to Japan's potential team for the Tokyo World Championships as things head into the last couple of weeks before the Aug. 24 qualifying deadline. The biggest mover this week was Naoto Hasegawa , 3rd in the men's high jump at July's National Championships, who scored back-to-back wins at the silver label Tirop P-T-S Meeting in Slovakia and gold label Gyulai Istvan Memorial in Hungary to move up from 23rd to 18th in the quota of 36. Ken Toyoda also picked up a couple of places in the men's 400 mH off a 49.37 for 6th at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium. Rin Suzuki 's chances of making the Tokyo team in the men’s javelin throw got a boost too despite a weak performance at the P-T-S Meeting. The 4th-placer there, Belgium's Timothy Herman , scored just enough points to come in between Suzuki and Nationals 3rd-placer Gen Naganuma , who had been separated by only 1 point in the Road to Tokyo rankings. That bumped Naganuma out of the top 36 while l...

The National Track and Field Championships are this weekend at Tokyo's National Stadium on the same track where the Tokyo World Championships will happen in September. Streaming of the first day on Friday is above, with a separate channel for field events here . Streaming will cut off at 18:30, when it switches over to a live broadcast on NHK BS, and then on NHK's main channel at 19:30. Other streaming links: Saturday Track ・ Saturday Field ・ Sunday Track ・ Sunday Field Meet schedule here . Entry list highlights, with athletes' best marks in the Nationals qualifying window: Men's 100 m Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Toray) - 9.96 Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) - 10.02 Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) - 10.09 Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) - 10.10 Naoki Nishioka (Tsukuba Univ.) - 10.11 Ryota Suzuki (Suzuki) - 10.12 Naoki Inoue (Waseda Univ.) - 10.12 Ryo Wada (Miki House) - 10.13 Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) - 10.15 Ryota Yamagata (Seiko) - 10.26 Men's 200 m Towa Uzawa (JAL) - 2...

The Gumi Asian Athletics Championships rolled on Thursday and Friday. In top Japanese results: Gold medal favorite Rachid Muratake came through in the men's 110 mH final , the only athlete under 13.3 at 13.22 (+0.7) for the win over China's Liu Junxi and Qin Weibo . Yumi Tanaka added a silver to the count in the women's 100 mH final , 2nd in 13.061 (-0.1) in a photo finish with bronze medalist Wu Yanni of China, 13.068. Indian Jyoti Yarraji won gold in 12.96. Kenyan-born Kazakhstani Daisy Jepkemei outran Ririka Hironaka and Mikuni Yada in the women's 10000 m for gold in 30:48.44, but both Japanese women brought A-game. Hironaka's 30:56.32 for silver was her best time since 2023 and a great step back in the right direction after another round of injury and recovery, with Yada's 31:12.21 for bronze a PB by almost 8 seconds. The up-and-coming Yutaro Niinae ran a season best 8:24.41 for silver in the men's 3000 mSC , 3 seconds behind Indian gold medali...

Tuesday's Oda Memorial Meet in Hiroshima was the biggest action of the holiday, with what was probably the biggest result of the day coming in the men's 3000 mSC . With an aggressive middle 1000 m and a last kick for the win, Yutaro Niinae (Aisan Kogyo) solidified his position as Japan's 2nd-best steepler with a career 2nd-best 8:25.43 to beat teammate Philemon Kiplagat by just 0.44. Niinae will represent Japan at next month's Asian Championships in Gumi, South Korea. Other meet highlights: Hitomi Nakajima (Hasegawa) and Chisato Kiyoyama (Ichigo) had breakthrough runs in the women's 100 mH final , going 1-2 in all-time Japanese #5 and #6 times of 12.93 and 12.94 (+1.8). 9 of Japan's 10 all-time best have now run their times since 2021. Tatsuki Abe (Juntendo Univ.) took the men's 110 mH final in 13.36 (+1.9). Australian Tess Kisropp-Cole set a meet record 2:02.74 to win the women's 800 m , with Ellie Sanford 2nd in 2:03.05 over 3 seconds ahead of...

Former Komazawa University captain Mebuki Suzuki (Toyota) and 3-time 10000 m national champion Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) ran through rain that started just before the day's last two events to win the 10000 m national titles Saturday in Kumamoto at the Kanakuri Memorial meet. With Kenyan pacers and Wavelight in action both races were steady time trials that ground the fields down to a few legit contenders. In the men's race that was Suzuki, 2024 national champ Jun Kasai (Asahi Kasei) and Suzuki's teammate Yamato Yoshii . Yoshii made an early move to break away, but Suzuki and Kasai reeled him back in by 7200. At 9000 m the pace had slowed to 24:56, on track for 27:42, but Suzuki attacked with a 61-second lap from 9000 to 9400, a pace he held to drop a 2:32 last 1000 m for the win in 27:28.82. Kasai was next in 27:33.52 and Yoshii 3rd in a 27:36.33 PB with the top 8 all breaking 28 minutes. The women's race was down to just 2021, 2022 and 2023 national champion Hir...

The first big meet of Japan's outdoor season happens in Kumamoto Apr. 12 with the Kanakuri Memorial Meet , where the men's and women's 10000 m double as the National Championships and other events count as key selection races for May's Asian Championships in South Korea. Top entries per event below with best times within the qualifying window. Complete 10000 m entries here, other distances here . Men's 10000 m National Championships Emmanuel Maru (Kenya/Toyota Boshoku) - 27:09.96 Jun Kasai (Asahi Kasei) - 27:17.46 Charles Kamau (Kenya/SGH) - 27:18.89  Mebuki Suzuki (Toyota) - 27:20.33 Tomoki Ota (Toyota) - 27:20.94 Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) - 27:36.37 Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 27:38.28 Yuto Imae (GMO) - 27:42.65 Yamato Yoshii (Toyota) - 27:42.88 Ryo Saito (Asahi Kasei) - 27:45.08 Shoya Saito (Josai Univ.) - 27:45.12 Yuya Yoshida (GMO) - 27:45.85 Hayate Honma (Chuo Univ.) - 27:46.60 Tsuyoshi Bando (Osaka Gas) - 27:48.53 Kazuki Tamura (Sumitomo Denko) - 27:...

Coming up through the ranks as Japan's next top-level steeper, Yutaro Niinae broke through with a 5-second PB of 8:20.36 to win at the Yogibo Athletics Challenge Cup Sunday in Niigata and bump himself up to all-time Japanese #6. With pacing early on from Aisan Kogyo teammate Philemon Kiplagat , Niinae had the confidence to break away from the field of 6 just after halfway, opening over 10 seconds on Kiplagat by the end of the race. Hibiki Obara was 3rd in 8:36.68. Teenaged national record holders Ko Ochiai , 17, and Rin Kubo , 16, went for aggressive times in the 800 m finals, Ochiai going through 400 m in 51 but fading to 1:46.88. "I wanted to go for the Tokyo World Championships qualifying standard," he said, "but that first lap felt really fast. I learned a lot at the World U20 Championships and that even though I'm at the top Japan I still have a long way to go internationally." Kubo almost perfectly matched the 200 m splits from her sub-2 NR this sum...

  The biggest domestic meet of the weekend was the four-day Kanto Region Track and Field Championships , but there were other good meets happening across the country. At the Kinami Memorial Meet in Osaka, Kazuto Iizawa (Sumitomo Denko) had a near-miss on the Japanese NR, running a meet record 3:35.77 for the win to come in at all-time JPN #2. 2nd through 4th-placers Abraham Guem (South Sudan), Felix Muthiani (Kenya) and Dezhu Liu (China) were all under the old MR and under 3:38, and the top 10 all went under 3:40. All told it was one of the best non-international championship men's 1500 m ever on Japanese soil. The women's 3000 mSC also saw a new MR from Shuangshuang Xu (China) in 9:47.45, with 2nd through 4th-placers Miu Saito (Nittai Univ.), Georgia Winkcup (Australia) and Manami Nishiyama (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) all breaking 10 minutes. At part one of the Chugoku Corporate Championships in Hiroshima, Rebecca Mwangi (Daiso) had an easy win in the women's 5000 m ...

The two-day Hyogo Relay Carnival was the biggest meet of the weekend on the Japanese calendar. Sarah Wanjiru (Daito Bunka Univ.) kicked off her 2nd academic year with a 31:48.11 win in the GP women's 10000 m, beating Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels) by 4 seconds. Emmanuel Kiplagat (Mitsubishi Juko) had a tighter win in the GP men's 10000 m, 27:58.01 to 27:58.35 over Jonson Mugeni (Asia Univ.). Kenyans also dominated the men's B and C-heats, Nelson Mandela (Obirin Univ.) taking the B-heat by 0.06 over Stephen Muthini (Soka Univ.) in 28:05.37 and Patrick Wambui (NTT Nishi Nihon) the C-heat in 28:14.83. Top Japanese marks across the four races were 32:24.50 by Sora Shinozakura (Panasonic), 28:11.30 by Yuta Nakayama (JR Higashi Nihon), 28:41.68 by Masashi Nonaka (Toyota), and 28:42.38 by former Rikkyo University head coach Yuichiro Ueno (Hiramatsu Byoin). The GP women's 3000 mSC might have been the best race of the meet, both Miu Saito (Nittai Univ.) and Mana...