japan running news

Marathon national record holder Suguru Osako (27, Nike Oregon Project), aggressively criticized the JAAF on his personal Twitter account on Apr. 23 after not being allowed to enter the National Championships without a qualifying time. Osako had sought entry to next month's National Championships 10000 m under a clause in the qualifying rules that lets the JAAF's high performance committee admit people who haven't hit the Nationals A-standard, but said his request was turned down because it might hurt other athletes' chances of qualifying for the World Championships and Olympics. He criticized the selection criteria. The same day the JAAF gave a public statement on its position, leading Osako to post a further string of tweets in response. 日本選手権、[本連盟強化委員が特に推薦する本連盟登録競技者] という枠で出場しようと試みましたが、叶いませんでした.....。 陸連強化委員からの[大迫くんが日本選手権でいい走りをするとそれに負けた選手のランキングが下がり、不平不満が出るから]という理由でした。すごい理由だな。笑笑 pic.twitter.com/VX074DzGO1 — suguru osako (@sugurusako) April 23, 2019 Osako ...

Following up on its silver medal at the Rio Olympics, the Japanese men's 4x100 m relay squad delivered the first Japanese medal of the London World Championships as it took bronze behind hosts Great Britain and U.S.A. Swapping in alternate Kenji Fujimitsu for ailing anchor Aska Cambridge in the final, the team featured only two starting members of the Rio lineup. Lead runner Shuhei Tada , a student at Kwansei Gakuin University who burst onto the scene in May, again proved himself the best new development in Japanese men's sprinting with a fast start. Rio members Shota Iizuka and Yoshihide Kiryu did their bits on second and third to keep Japan even with Jamaica in 3rd before Fujimitsu delivered the goods. With bronze at the Beijing Olympics and silver in Rio last year it was Japan's first-ever World Championships men's 4x100 m relay medal. At age Fujimitsu may not make it to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but with Cambridge, 200 m finalist Abdul Hakim Sani Brown and ...

The JAAF has made a series of announcements over the last week confirming additions to its small team for next month's London World Championships. Along with previously announced rosters for track and field events, combined events and road events, the following athletes have been added to the Japanese team. Relay members are pending IAAF confirmation. The final complete team roster is expected next week. Men's 400 m Hurdles Ryo Kajiki (Josai Univ.) - 49.33 Yusuke Ishida (Waseda Univ.) - 49.35 Men's 3000 m Steeplechase Hironori Tsuetaki (Fujitsu) - 8:29.05 Men's 4 x 400 m Relay Yuzo Kanemaru (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 45.76 Kosuke Horii (Sumitomo Denko) - 45.88 Women's Javelin Throw Yuki Ebihara (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 61.95 m © 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

by Brett Larner With the rest of the Japanese national team doing well, ranked 3rd behind the U.S.A. and China in the  medal count at the end of the first week of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, members of its athletics squad face modest expectations of one medal and five top eight finishes , the medal expected to come somewhere between the men's 4x100 m relay, the women's marathon and the men's 20 km and 50 km race walks.  No dice in the 20 km on the first day of athletics competition.  Toyo University student Daisuke Matsunaga was the best of the Japanese men at 7th in 1:20:22, 45 seconds out of the medals but, on the upside, scoring one of the JAAF's hoped-for top eight placings. No such luck in the world record-breaking women's 10000 m.  With national champion Ayuko Suzuki a scratch it fell to her junior Japan Post teammate Hanami Sekine and Yuka Takashima  (Shiseido) to try to make a dent.  Both ran the second-fastest times of their careers to date...

Bejing, China, 8/23/15 click here for complete results Women's 100 m Heat 7 -0.5 m/s 1. Rosangela Santos (Brazil) - 11.14 - Q 2. English Gardner (U.S.A.) - 11.16 - Q 3. Chisato Fukushima (Japan) - 11.23 - Q Men's 400 m Heat 3 1. LaShawn Merritt (U.S.A.) - 44.51 - Q 2. Javon Francis (Jamaica) - 44.83 - Q 3. Kevin Borlee (Belgium) - 45.01- Q ----- 6. Yuzo Kanemaru (Japan) - 45.65 Men's 400 mH Semifinal 3 1. Michael Tinsley (U.S.A.) - 48.47 - Q 2. Nicholas Bett (Kenya) - 48.54 - Q 3. Kariem Hussein (Switzerland) - 48.59 ----- 8. Yuki Matsushita (Japan) - 51.10 Men's 20 km RW 1. Miguel Angel Lopez (Spain) - 1:19:14 - PB 2. Zhen Wang (China) - 1:19:29 3. Benjamin Thorne (Canada) - 1:19:57 - NR ----- 14. Isamu Fujisawa (Japan) - 1:21:51 48. Eiki Takahashi (Japan) - 1:28:30 DNF - Yusuke Suzuki (Japan)

by Brett Larner videos by aoshin0507 Following up on Koji Murofushi 's epoch-marking 20th-straight men's hammer national title yesterday, Yuzo Kanemaru  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) led a phalanx of other long-lasting champions in adding to their legacies on the final rainy day of competition at the 2014 Japanese National Track and Field Championships  in Fukushima. Kanemaru had a 10th-straight men's 400 m national title on the line, and with no genuine competition he cruised in for the win in 45.69, only the second Japanese track athlete in history to get the ten-peat.  Women's 400 mH national record holder Satomi Kubokura  (Niigata Albirex RC) ran 56.39 for an eighth-straight national title, while 100 m national record holder Chisato Fukushima  (Hokkaido Hi-Tec AC) picked up the sixth national title of career in 11.69 (-0.3), a fifth-straight win and fourth-straight 100 m/200 m double title.  Following Fukushima and 10000 m champion Yuki Sato  (Team...

Fukushima, 6/6-8/14 click here for complete entry lists in Japanese marks given are best within qualification period / PB Men's 100 m Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) 10.01 / 10.01 Ryota Yamagata (Keio Univ.) - 10.11 / 10.07 Takumi Kuki (Waseda Univ.) - 10.19 / 10.19 Asuka Cambridge (Nihon Univ.) - 10.21 / 10.21 Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) - 10.22 / 10.22 Masashi Eriguchi (Team Osaka Gas) - 10.24 / 10.07 Naoki Tsukahara (Team Fujitsu) - 10.31 / 10.09 Men's 200 m Shota Iizuka (Mizuno) - 20.21 / 20.21 Kei Takase (Team Fujitsu) - 20.34 / 20.34 Akiyuki Hashimoto (Waseda Univ.) - 20.35 / 20.35 Shota Hara (Jobu Univ.) - 20.41 / 20.41 Ryota Yamagata (Keio Univ.) - 20.41 / 20.41 Kenji Fujimitsu (Team Zeirin) - 20.48 / 20.38 Shinji Takahira (Team Fujitsu) - 20.50 / 20.22 Men's 400 m Yuzo Kanemaru (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 45.46 / 45.16 Hiroyuki Nakano (Aichi T&F Assoc.) - 45.62 / 45.62 Nobuya Kato (Waseda Univ.) - 45.69 / 45.69 Kazuya Watanabe (Mizuno) - 45.71 / 45...

by Brett Larner On the third day of competition at the Moscow World Championships the biggest Japanese performances came in the men's 400 m hurdles and men's pole vault. Takayuki Kishimoto  (Team Fujitsu) finished 3rd in his 400 m hurdles heat to gain an automatic qualifying spot for the semi-final, the only one of Japan's four male and female hurdlers to advance at this distance and with a realistic chance of making the final.  In the pole vault, national champion Seito Yamamoto  (Chukyo Univ.) cleared 5.75 m to take 6th, a PB by 4 cm that made him the only athlete in the top ten to set a new PB at the World Championships.  Hammer great Koji Murofushi  (Mizuno) also took 6th, throwing a season best 78.03 m.  Along with hurdlers Satomi Kubokura (Niigata Albirex AC), Yasuhiro Fueki  (Team Aima) and Takatoshi Abe (Chukyo Univ.), men's 400 m national champion Yuzo Kanemaru  (Team Otsuka) also missed out on advancing, finishing last in his semi-f...

by Brett Larner National champion Hitomi Niiya  (Team Universal Entertainment) ran exactly the race prefigured by her win at June's National Championships and in last year's London Olympics, going out right behind early rabbit Shalane Flanagan  (U.S.A.) in the Moscow World Championships 10000 m, taking the lead after 3000 m and setting the pace all the way to the last lap before finishing 5th in a PB 30:56.70.  In a tearful post-race interview she said, "There's no reason to be at Worlds if you can't medal," but her fearlessness in setting her own pace and her improvement of her standing as all-time third-fastest Japanese for the second time at a major international championships did credit to both her and her coach Yoshio Koide .  Kyushu-based Sally Chepyego  (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) also turned in a PB performance, taking 7th in 31:22.11. In other events, 400 m national champion Yuzo Kanemaru  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) finished last in his qualifying heat bu...

by Brett Larner Day Two of the 2013 Japanese National Track and Field Championships was packed with great one-on-one matchups as the country's best went after positions on the Moscow World Championships team. In the men's 10000 m, the pace faded after starting out on track for a national record thanks to eventual last-place finisher Naoki Okamoto  (Team Chugoku Denryoku).  #4-ranked Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) took over from Okamoto after falling at 3000 m, but the pace continued to slip.  The only two A-standard men, defending champion Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and Suguru Osako  (Waseda Univ.) reeled it out to a sprint finish for the second year in a row, and once again Sato proved the stronger over the final 50 m as he secured his place with a slower-than-expected 28:24.94 win to Osako's 28:25.84 runner-up finish. 2011's fastest Japanese 10000 m runner, Tsuyoshi Ugachi  (Team Konica Minolta) took 3rd, but absent an A-standard mark he will...

London, England, 8/9/12 click here for complete results Men's Decathlon Final Standings 1. Ashton Eaton (U.S.A.) - 8869 2. Trey Hardee (U.S.A.) - 8671 3. Leonel Suarez (Cuba) - 8523 ----- 20. Keisuke Ushiro (Japan) - 7842 Men's 4x400 m Relay Heat Two 1. Bahamas - 2:58.87 - Q 2. U.S.A. - 2:58.87 - Q 3. Russia - 3:02.01 - Q ----- 6. Japan (Takase/Kanemaru/Azuma/Nakano) - 3:03.86 Women's 4x100 m Relay Heat One 1. U.S.A. - 41.64 - Q 2. Trinidad & Tobago - 42.31 - Q 3. Netherlands - 42.45 - Q ----- 8. Japan (Doi/Ichikawa/Fukushima/Sano) - 44.25 (c) 2012 Brett Larner all rights reserved

by Brett Larner The big race of the second day of Olympic track and field competition was of course the historic men's 10000 m, which saw training partners Mo Farah  (U.K.) and Galen Rupp  (U.S.A.) go 1-2 to give the U.K. its first-ever Olympic 10000 m gold and the U.S. its first men's 10000 m medal since the Tokyo Olympics.  Ethiopia's Tariku Bekele  claimed bronze over his brother Kenenisa Bekele , with Saitama-based  Bitan Karoki , a graduate of Hiroshima's Sera H.S. who now runs for Team S&B, taking 5th to land as the top Kenyan after losing out to the superior closing speed of the top four.  Two-time Japanese 10000 m national champion Yuki Sato  (Team Nissin Shokuhin), the only Japanese man in the race, ran up to expectations, sitting mid-pack through the slow early stages before falling away once the true action began and crossing the finish line in 28:44.06 for 22nd place. 100 m national champion Takayuki Kishimoto  (Keio Univ....

by Brett Larner Click here for JRN's complete video coverage of the 2012 Japanese Olympic Trials, 27 videos making up nearly three hours of footage. The Japanese Federation and Olympic Committee announced the complete lineup of Japan's team of 48 athletes for this summer's London Olympics track and field events at a press conference on June 11.  The team features 11 national record holders and 18 current national champions and is young overall, with a heavy preponderance of first-time Olympians including a World Junior gold medalist, 13 collegiates and one high schooler.  The Fujitsu corporate team is overwhelmingly the best-represented, boasting 8 Olympic team members, while Chukyo University tops the collegiate list with 3 athletes on the team.  Suzuki, whose Suzuki Hamamatsu AC club team exists outside the corporate league, also has 3 Olympians. No Olympic team selection process is free of controversial decisions, and the omission of women's 10000 m Jr. NR hold...

by Brett Larner Day Two of the 2012 Japanese Olympic Trials was bracketed by two classic performances, one an Olympic-qualifying national record and the other an unforgettable duel between a World Championships medalist and the best of the next generation.  Five athletes altogether met the Federation's requirement of a win and an Olympic A-standard mark to secure their places on the London team, while another half-dozen stand a good chance of joining them. The national record came without warning in the women's pole vault, where Tomomi Abiko  (Shiga Lake Stars AC) executed a large PB to unexpectedly clear 4.40 m, a new NR by 4 cm and the first-ever Japanese woman's mark hitting the Olympic B-standard.  Abiko was short of the A-standard mark, but with no other Japanese woman qualified for the Olympics in the pole vault it is hard to see her staying home.  Less certain is the fate of women's 100 mH champion Ayako Kimura  (Team Edion), who like Abiko only holds...