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...

Tokyo Olympics marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura will retire at the end of this fiscal year on Mar. 31, 2026. On Jan. 23 he released the following statement on his sponsor Fujitsu 's corporate team site. To everyone who has supported me I have decided to bring my career as a competitive athlete to its end and retire. I started running in 5th grade, and over the many years since then it has been my life. I'm really happy to be able to end it as part of the Fujitsu team. I've been with Fujitsu since I graduated from Komazawa University , and thanks to Fujitsu's flexibility and support I was able to keep Komazawa as my training base and make it all the way to the Tokyo Olympics. Getting there was a major milestone in my career and remains a prized memory. After reaching that height I started being with the Fujitsu team full-time, and under the leadership of head coach Tadashi Fukushima and the rest of the coaching staff I entered a new phase of my career aiming to co...

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/Photo Run, all rights reserved On Jan. 8 the Edion women's corporate team announced that Ai Hosoda , 30, will retire at the end of March this year. The Tokyo Marathon will be her last race. At Nagano Higashi H.S. Hosoda ran in the National High School Ekiden her 2nd and 3rd years. During her 3rd year at Nittai University she won both the 5000 m and 10000 m at the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, going on to win the bronze medal in the 10000 m at the World University Games in her 4th year at Nittai. After graduating she joined the Daihatsu corporate team, debuting at the 2019 Nagoya Women's Marathon in 2:29:27. 2 years later she transferred to Edion. She qualified for the Paris Olympics marathon trials at the 2022 Nagoya Women's Marathon and finished 3rd in the trials in the fall of 2023, but was later bumped down to Olympic alternate after another athlete ran a faster time. Instead of the Olympics, Hosoda ran the 2024 Ber...

The Hokkaido prefectural qualifying race for December's National High School Ekiden took place this weekend at Abashiri Sports Training Field. 20 teams from 14 schools ran the 5-stage, 21.0975 km girls' race. Going for its 14th-straight Hokkaido representation at Nationals, Asahikawa Ryukoku H.S. was an unexpected DNF when its anchor suffered a broken bone. With 400 m to go the Asahikawa Ryukoku girls were in 2nd, enough to qualify for the National High School Ekiden. Team members were gathered to welcome in 3rd-year anchor Kokoro Matsubara , calling out her name as she approached the finish line. But their cheers turned to screams as Matsubara twisted her ankle and fell. According to head coach Fumihito Abe , Matsubara was taken to the hospital, where she was found to have broken her ankle. As a result the team was a DNF, ending its Nationals streak at 13 years. As team members fought to hold back their tears post-race, coach Abe told them, "Matsubara is the one who is ...

On Oct. 1 the Daiichi Seimei corporate team announced that executive advisor and special head coach Sachiko Yamashita had retired from the company at the end of October. Yamashita, 61, was born in 1964. After working as a teacher she joined the corporate leagues as an athlete, going on to take silver in the marathon at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships. A year later she was 4th in the Barcelona Olympics marathon. Yamashita joined Daiichi Seimei as an athlete and coach n 1994, and after retiring from competition in 1996 became the team's head coach. As the team's coach she developed Olympians Yoshimi Ozaki , Tomomi Tanaka , Miyuki Uehara and Yuka Suzuki , and led the team to two Queens Ekiden national titles. In 2024 she stepped back from her leadership role to focus on coaching Suzuki. "For 31 years I've had the opportunity to take on a wide range of challenges in this sport that I love so much, and that was thanks to the support of many people," she said in p...

Primarily known for his work in women's long distance, coach Manabu Kawagoe passed away suddenly on Aug. 22 after suffering a stroke. He was 63. A native of Kagoshima, in his days as an athlete Kawagoe ran at Kagoshima Minami H.S. and Waseda University . He was a member of 2 Hakone Ekiden champion teams at Waseda and won both the 5000 m and 10000 m at the National University Championships. After graduating from Waseda Kawagoe joined Shiseido , going on to serve as assistant coach and then head coach. He coached top female athletes like 2008 Chicago Marathon 3rd-placer Kiyoko Shimahara , 10000 m national champion Yoshiko Fujinaga and marathoners Yuri Kano and Akemi Ozaki , and in 2006 led Shiseido to its first National Corporate Women's Ekiden victory. In 2007 he left. Shiseido to form the Second Wind pro team, a new model that brought together his top pro women together with amateurs and junior athletes. In 2011 he became head coach of the Edion corporate team, and in 201...

  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 Apr. 23 the city government of Matsumoto, Nagano announced that it was canceling this fall's Matsumoto Marathon after discovering accounting fraud in the event's operation. "We are going to conduct a review of how the race has been conducted up to now," a statement from the city read. Mayor Yoshinao Gaun apologized at a press conference, saying, "We sincerely apologize for letting down everyone involved in putting the event together." The Matsumoto Marathon is run by an executive committee made up of representatives from the city, the Matsumoto Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Shinano Mainichi Newspaper, and the relevant track and field associations. According to city officials, financial records for the November, 2023 edition of the race were fraudulently manipulated. Income from participants' entry fees was lower than expected, and although the city managed to get the Shinano Mainichi, to which it had outsourced overall event management, to r...

The JAAF-certified Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon , popular with runners locally and from across the country, is being discontinued indefinitely due to demolition work in preparation for construction of the new Takanezawa Town Hall. After much discussion the event organizing committee decided that the demolition of existing facilities used for things like baggage storage and changing rooms for the race make it impossible to stage the race properly. Options for alternative facilities in the town were explored, but none met all the criteria for conducting the race with adequate safety and security. As such, we ask for your understanding of the decision to cancel the race. We intend to bring the race back following the completion of the new Town Hall building in 2028, so we hope that you come join us again then. Takanezawa Genki Up Half Marathon Organizing Committee source article: https://www.takanezawa-genki-uprun.com/info/259 translated by Brett Larner

The Nagoya Women's Marathon has announced 3 withdrawals from Sunday's race. Half marathon NR holder Hitomi Niiya (Sekisui Kagaku) has withdrawn with an Achilles tendon injury, Gold Coast Marathon CR holder Yuki Nakamura (Panasonic) due to a knee injury, and 2:25:44 runner Kaede Kawamura (Iwatani Sangyo) to run the Mar. 30 Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China. With Niiya's withdrawal the top domestic seed in Nagoya is now Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu), 2:21:55 in Berlin 3 years ago. The complete remaining Nagoya field is here . © 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Sena Minawatari , a 3rd-year at Hakone Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University  who revealed in January that he had been diagnosed with malignant lymphoma in November, passed away on Feb. 19. He had just turned 21 two weeks earlier. Following the wishes of his family, Aoyama Gakuin announced the news on its team website on Feb. 21. Titled "In honor of the departure of our dear friend," the announcement read: "We are saddened to announce that Sena Minawatari, part of our team for last year's Hakone Ekiden and this season's National University Ekiden, has passed away. He was an indispensable part of our team, and we would like to express our deepest gratitude and respect for his passion and the achievements it produced. We feel grief and loss at this sudden departure, and we will carry the memories we have with him in our hearts as we continue to move forward. He fought this illness until the very end, and we ask that his memory be looked upon with warmth of heart...

A statement published by the organizers of the Tohoku Miyagi Fukko Marathon on their race website. JRN's Mika Tokairin  was involved with the organization of the first edition in 2017, and we traveled to the tsunami-hit areas that year to see the race. Read Tokairin's article on it here . In 2017 we launched the Tohoku Miyagi Fukko [reconstruction] Marathon along the coastal areas impacted by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami as part of an effort to support recovery and redevelopment of the area. Along the way there were cancelations due to typhoons and the COVID-19 pandemic, but even so the race returned in 2023 and 2024 with over 10,000 runners from all 47 of Japan's prefectures and from abroad. Participants praised the course, which let them see the progress of the ongoing recovery, the aid stations full of local flavor, and the warm hospitality of the volunteers. The support and cooperation of a wide range of people and organizations, including local ...

Real estate company Makes has announced on its team website that its men's corporate team will be disbanded at the end of March. The team was launched in April, 2021 with the twin missions of "becoming #1 in the world in the marathon" and "getting society excited." Based in Yoga in suburban Tokyo, Makes currently has 7 athletes on its roster. Its coaching staff includes head coach Tsukasa Endo , a 1988 Seoul Olympics 10000 m runner, and assistant coaches Julius Gitahi , a 2000 Sydney Olympian in the 5000 m, and former Meiji University and Konica Minolta standout Masato Kikuchi . Original team members included Tokai University grad Shota Onizuka , who later transferred to M&A Best Partners . Current member Ryosuke Harada took 6th at last May's East Japan Corporate Track and Field Championships, but despite success there and in other road races, Makes didn't run November's East Japan Corporate Ekiden, the regional qualifying race for the Jan....

The Hitachi women's corporate team has announced that Maya Fukushima has retired effective the end of November. Fukushima joined Hitachi last year after graduating from Josai University and Eda H.S. In high school she ran a best of 9:24.93 for 3000 m and won her stage at the prefectural ekiden championships. At Josai she grew into one of its best runner, running a PB of 15:44.90 for 5000 m and the longest stage at both the Morinomiyako Ekiden and Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden university championships. Her 4th year she was 2nd in the 10000 m at the Kanto Region Championships and 5th on the Morinomiyako's Fourth Stage. But Fukushima was diagnosed with task-specific dystonia, a disorder that causes abnormal postures during particular motions and prevented her from racing after joining Hitachi. "As the days passed and I couldn't run like before the mental stress got worse and worse," she wrote in the Hitachi announcement. "But I'm really grateful to everyon...

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...

On Oct. 27 in Kunisaki, Oita at a regional qualifying race for the prefectural high school ekiden, a male 2nd-year high school runner was struck by a car and injured. Although the athlete did not suffer career-ending injuries, the incident has raised questions about how it could have happened. A spokesperson from the prefectural high school athletics association said that there had been "a lack of adequate consideration" in the event's planning and that the association intends to consider its options for preventing the same thing from happening again. According to officials, the accident occurred along a narrow section of road which was closed in both directions for 320 m near the first exchange zone. A car driven by a local 86-year-old woman entered the course within the closed-off section from a parking lot reserved for race officials. When the runner tripped and fell after handing off the tasuki at the first exchange zone, his left leg was run over by the car which was...

On Sept. 6 Yamada Holdings announced that its women's ekiden team has scratched from the Oct. 20 Princess Ekiden, the qualifying race for the Nov. 24 Queens Ekiden national corporate women's championships in Sendai. Yamada Holdings had been targeting a podium finish at the Queens Ekiden this year. The announcement stated, "A restructured development system was put in place this year to develop a stronger team, but with multiple athletes injured we have made the decision to withdraw from running the Princess Ekiden." Other races on the schedule this season remain a question mark and will depend on athletes' conditions. The Yamada Holdings team was 22nd at the Queens Ekiden last year, well off the podium and earning the guaranteed place at the following year's race that comes with it. Longtime coaching staff member Kei Yokoyama , 49, was appointed head coach this year after 10 years as assistant coach, and hopes were high that the team would return to previous ...

On June 16 at a junior high school track and field championships meet in Aomori a student was hit in the head by a metal shot put ball and suffered a fractured skull. The incident happened at Kazuhiro Group Athletics Stadium in Aomori at the Tosei Region qualifying meet for this summer's prefectural junior high school sports festival. According to the Tosei Junior High School Athletics Association, the incident occurred just before 8:00 a.m. on June 16 at the warmup track next to the main stadium. While warming up a student threw the shot, which hit another student on the side of the head. The injured student remained conscious and was immediately taken to the hospital, where they were treated for a fractured skull. Their current condition has not been released. A statement issued by the TJHSAA said, "We will conduct a thorough investigation of this accident and strive to ensure that it does not happen again." source article: https://www.aba-net.com/news/news-115882.html ...

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...

  According to investigators, two-time Olympic marathon medalist Erick Wainaina has had his case referred to prosecutors after allegedly injuring a railway employee by striking him in the face at a station in Setagaya, Tokyo. Wainaina, 50, was the bronze medalist in the marathon at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and won silver in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Wainaina is suspected of assaulting a woman in her late teens and a male Tokyu Denentoshi Line employee by hitting them in the face during an altercation at Komazawa University Station in March this year, resulting in minor injuries to the man's face. According to investigators, the incident began on the train between Wainaina and the woman, and after getting off at Komazawa University Station he hit her in the face when she asked him to go to the station office with her to report it. When the male railway employee responded to the situation Wainaina reportedly hit him too. In response to questioning Wainaina is said to have answered,...