japan running news

https://www.athleticsintegrity.org/downloads/pdfs/disciplinary-process/en/260129-World-Athletics-v-Kibet-Koech-Decision-Redacted6.pdf A longtime member of the Kyudenko corporate team, rebranded as Kraftia after his departure, 10 mile world best holder Benard Kibet Koech has been banned 4 years for biological passport irregularities. All his results dating back to 26 June, 2024 have been disqualified, a period including his runs at the 3 Nov., 2024 Kyushu Corporate Ekiden and the 1 Jan., 2025 New Year Ekiden . As a result, Kyudenko's results in those races will almost certainly be disqualified in the same way that the Aisan Kogyo team lost 4 years of New Year Ekiden results after Rodgers Kwemoi was suspended. Soka University also lost its best-ever 2nd-place finish at the 2023 Izumo Ekiden after team member Leakey Kamina tested positive for nandrolone in-competition at the 2023 National University Track and Field Championships , and the Universal Entertainment women's...

https://agerpres.ro/english/2025/06/22/romanian-long-distance-runner-delvine-relin-meringor-gets-three-year-doping-suspension--1461627 With Meringor's disqualification Hikari Onishi  moves into 6th in the Nagoya results, Natsuki Omori  to 7th, and New Zealand's Camille French  to 8th. Read the full ADAK decision here .

  On June 12 the Kyudenko corporate team announced that it is terminating its contract with longtime team member Benard Koech of Kenya as of June 30. On June 11 the Athletics Integrity Unit had issued a provisional suspension against Koech on charges of violation of doping regulations. The charges were based on abnormal values in his biological passport data, which suggested use of a banned substance or method rather than actual detection of one. After receiving notification from the AIU, Kyudenko questioned Koech, who responded that he had "not done anything that would break doping rules." Kyudenko said that while it believed Koech's statement, the provisional suspension would interfere with a period in which he was expected to compete, and as a result, "with deep regret we have decided to terminate his contract with us on June 30, 2025." Japanese Olympic silver race walker Koki Ikeda was in the same way provisionally suspended by the AIU last November due ...

On Nov. 2 the Asahi Kasei corporate team issued a statement denying the allegations of doping regulation violations issued a day earlier by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) in its announcement of the provisional suspension of team member Koki Ikeda , 26, the silver medalist in the men's 20 km race walk at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Oregon World Championships. Team management filed a petition with the AIU asking for the provisional suspension to be reversed and stated that it would "assert and prove to the AIU that no rules whatsoever had been violated." The AIU claims that Ikeda's biological passport, which collects detailed blood data over time and allows for monitoring of changes, contained suspicious readings that suggested use of a prohibited method. Asahi Kasei management said that after holding a hearing with Ikeda and consulting with experts in the field, they "believe no rules have been violated" and said they would "work diligently to...

Regarding the suspension of a former corporate league athlete for doping violations The action against former Aisan Kogyo corporate team athlete Rodgers Kwemoi of Kenya for violation of rules against anti-doping was recently finalized. The penalties imposed against Kwemoi that were announced on May 17 by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), an independent unit of World Athletics (WA), were as follows: Suspension from competition for a six-year period beginning 8 August, 2023 annulment of all competition results from 18 July, 2016 to 8 August, 2023 Details on the decision can be found at this link . In compliance with this ruling, all of Kwemoi's results in National Corporate Federation competitions during the specified period will be annulled. In addition, the Aisan Kogyo team results from ekidens in which Kwemoi competed for them will also be annulled. All official results will be updated to move individuals and teams that finished behind Kwemoi and Aisan Kogyo in these competit...

  Following 400 m hurdler Masaki Toyoda 's suspension for a violation of anti-doping regulations , the Fujitsu corporate team published a statement on its website, including comments from Toyoda's legal team , explaining the ruling and the circumstances surrounding the case. Toyoda was a member of the 2019 Doha World Championships team and holds a best of 48.87. Early in the morning of May 19, 2022, the Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) conducted a doping test of Toyoda. The prohibited substance trenbolone was detected in urine taken during the test, resulting in a two-year suspension that began May 21, 2022. He did not compete at the National Track and Field Championships the next month. The amount of trenbolone detected in Toyoda's urine sample was 1.4 ng/ml, well below the minimum analytical precision of 2.5 ng/ml required by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for analytical equipment. As a general rule, if a non-specified prohibited substance such as trenbolone is dete...

  On April 8 the Japan Sports Arbitration Agency upheld a two-year doping suspension against 2019 Doha World Championships team member Masaki Toyoda , 26, of the Fujitsu corporate team, rejecting an appeal from the Japan Anti-Doping Agency for a stricter sentence. Metabolites of the prohibited substance trenbolone were detected in a urine sample taken from Toyoda during a drug test in May, 2022. After a hearing, on Jan. 5 this year the Japan Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel determined that Toyoda would be given a two-year suspension back-dated to start on May 21, 2022.  JADA filed a complaint with the JSAA arguing that Toyoda's use of prohibited substance had been intentional and that a four-year suspension beginning on June 21, 2022 would be appropriate. In response, the JSAA ruled that since trenbolone would be of no benefit to a 400 m hurdler Toyoda's intake of the substance had been unintentional, and upheld the original two-year suspension. source article: https://www.jiji...

On Feb. 15 JADA announced that Soka University 3rd-year Leakaey Kamina of Kenya has been given a 3-year suspension for a doping violation. His period of suspension will date from Oct. 12, 2023, the day he was notified of the test result, and competition results including his performance at the Oct. 9 Izumo Ekiden have been annulled. As a result, Soka will lose its best-ever 2nd-place team result at Izumo, with 3rd-place Josai University and below being elevated one position. According to JADA, Kamina was tested after winning the National University Track and Field Championships 5000 m on Sept. 16 , and his urine sample was found to contain the steroid nandrolone. That performance has also been annulled. A Soka University spokesperson said that Kamina had been back in Kenya from late July until early September immediately before the National University Championships. Kamina told them that he got sick while there and asked a friend to buy medicine for him. He said that he took the me...

The JAAF has announced that Moroccan  El Mahjoub Dazza  has been stripped of his victory at the 73rd Fukuoka International Marathon on Dec. 1, 2019. A short time later Dazza was found to have violated anti-doping regulations , and the Athletics Integrity Unit suspended him for four years. Following a rejection of his appeal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week, all of Dazza's results after May 4, 2019, including his Fukuoka win, were disqualified. For that reason, all athletes who finished 2nd and lower in the race will be elevated one position, making runner-up Taku Fujimoto  (Toyota) the winner and giving the Toyota corporate team and head coach Toshinobu Sato two-straight Fukuoka victories, following teammate  Yuma Hattori 's 2018 win. The Fukuoka International Marathon is known worldwide as one of the most prestigious traditional races and last year was selected as the recipient of World Athletics' Heritage Plaque. Nevertheless, in March this ...

https://bnr.bg/en/post/101375545/winners-of-this-years-sofia-marathon-suspended-from-all-racing-for-doping In the women's race , Japan's Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) finished 4th behind provisionally suspended winner Viktoriia Khapilina of Ukraine. Pending Khapilina's conviction Yamaguchi stands to be moved up to 3rd. photos © 2020 Mika Tokairin, all rights reserved

The degree to which elite-level Japanese track and field athletes utilize supplements has become clearer. Nearly 2/3 of athletes regularly use a supplement, with higher usage among women than men, higher usage among seniors than juniors, and higher usage in long distance than in other disciplines. Those are the findings of a paper by Shogo Tabata of the Keio University Sports Medicine Center published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Supplement usage is higher among athletes than in the general population, with some studies suggesting a typical usage level of about 60%. There are a wide variety of supplements such as vitamins and minerals, but few have clear evidence of efficacy. At the same time, some products have been known to include banned substances, creating the risk of "unintentional doping" by those who use them carelessly. Although the number of reported cases of Japanese athletes caught for doping is small, the proportion of t...

Video: Benjamin Ngandu passing 12 people to win the 2013 Hakone Ekiden Second Stage for Nihon University. Placing a high importance on promoting a healthy lifestyle among its citizens through sports, the town government of Mibu, Tochigi has hired a Kenyan amateur runner who was once a star on the university ekiden and corporate marathon circuits to serve as running coach for local residents. The new civic employee is Benjamin Ngandu , 29. On Aug. 3 at Mibu Town Hall Ngandu received an official letter of appointment from mayor Kazuya Kosuge . Competing against other top Kanto Region universities, Ngandu was a stage winner at the prestigious Hakone Ekiden, and as a corporate league runner he had success as a marathoner including a win at the 2016 Osaka Marathon. Three years ago he retired, taking a job at a company in Aichi and continuing to run as an amateur. Ngandu will coach local residents in preparation for January's municipal ekiden, focusing on work with junior high sc...

On July 31 the Athletics Integrity Unit announced a four-year suspension for 2019 Fukuoka International Marathon winner El Mahjoub Dazza of Morocco. Dazza was busted on biological passport findings that indicated unrealistic hemoglobin values, the AIU rejecting his explanation of changes in intensity of altitude training as "highly improbable." Dazza will lose all results from May 4, 2019 to Jan. 10, 2020, with a four-year suspension to follow. Pending any appeals,  this means he will lose his 2019 Prague Marathon and 2019 Fukuoka International Marathon titles, in the latter case elevating runner-up Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) to winner. The correction of results will mean two straight Fukuoka titles for Toyota head coach Toshinobu Sato , whose star runner Yuma Hattori won Fukuoka in 2018, but Fujimoto will never get the same public recognition Hattori earned for his win. © 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

The 70th National High School Boys Ekiden Championships and 31st National High School Girls Ekiden Championships take place Dec. 22 in Kyoto on a course starting and finishing at Takebire Stadium. Beginning this year, the JAAF is introducing mandatory blood testing for all athletes competing at the National High School Ekiden as a measure against the abuse of iron injections to enhance performance instead of their intended purpose of alleviating anemia. Iron injections are said to increase the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity and so to improve endurance, but since iron can accumulate in the liver and heart, excessive intake can cause serious health issues. The JAAF introduced guidelines for preventing the injections' misuse in May. As part of the JAAF's new guidelines, all athletes who compete at the National High School Ekiden must undergo blood testing at a medical institution within five days after the Championships and report the results to the JAAF. The Mainich...

At a Dec. 10 press conference in Osaka, organizers of the Dec. 22 National High School Ekiden Championships announced that mandatory testing for iron injections will be introduced at this year's race. Iron injections can help to increase hemoglobin levels in the body, mimicking the effect of altitude training. The introduction of testing comes at the insistence of the JAAF. An official commented, "Iron injections are suitable as a treatment for anaemia, but as a means of enhancing performance they are inappropriate. The injections can have side effects upon the body, so testing will be introduced to protect the athletes." All athletes competing at the National High School Ekiden Championships will be tested over a five-day period from Dec. 23 to Dec. 27. Background on this story detailing the prevalence of iron injection usage to enhance performance and on the JAAF's pre-Olympic push to clean things up . source article: https://www.nikkansports.com/sports/a...

On Nov. 10, men's marathon national record holder Suguru Osako took to Twitter to lash out at people who suspect him of doping. Sponsored by Nike, Osako was a longtime member of the Nike Oregon Project team. The team's head coach Alberto Salazar was recently suspended by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) for four years as the result of an investigation into his misuse of restricted substances and methods. Osako posted his opinions on his Twitter account @sugurusako at 8:46 a.m. on Nov. 10, denying that he has doped. "It seems like people seem to think that what happened with the Oregon Project means that I'm already guilty of doping, but anyone who thinks that way is really, really simple-minded," he wrote. "My coach never even once told me to take drugs or get injections that I didn't understand, and I've checked every single supplement and throat lozenge that's gone in my mouth." At the Nike Oregon Project Osako was not...

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2019-09/wada-and-kyowa-kirin-co-sign-agreement-formalizing-collaboration-to-protect-clean

https://www.athleticsintegrity.org/disciplinary-process/first-instance-decisions More on three-time Nagoya Women's Marathon winner Kirwa's bust including a list of all the athletes Japanese and otherwise who lost out to her in past years.

With regard to the ongoing problem of the improper use of iron injections to improve performance in long distance athletes, on May 22 JAAF director Mitsugi Ogata said that the federation is considering a plan in which following the introduction of blood testing at this year's National High School Ekiden Championships, the coaches of any athletes whose testing results indicated possible iron injection abuse would be called before a hearing to give an explanation. No penalty would be imposed. The JAAF intends to build up a database of the collected blood test results and monitor the trends in the situation. "It is important that we first get a handle on what the current situation actually is," commented Ogata. "We can then track changes and assess the effectiveness of our efforts to combat the problem." The JAAF's new guidelines prohibiting misuse of iron injections are scheduled to be released by the end of the month. When utilized as intended, the inje...

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/sports/2019/03/663_265675.html Background on this story: South Korea Plans to Give Citizenship to Kenyan Athlete to Ensure Marathon Gold at Rio Olympic s - Mar. 19, 2015 Kenyan Marathon Runner Erupe to Enter South Korea Next Week to Begin Naturalization Procedures - Apr. 11, 2015 Special Session to Decide Tomorrow Whether Erupe Will Become South Korea's First Black Marathoner - Apr. 5, 2016 Kenyan Marathoner Erupe Gains South Korean Citizenship, But Not in Time for Tokyo Olympics - Aug. 5, 2018