japan running news

by Brett Larner Japan's athletics federation Rikuren announced the official lineups for its 2009 World Championships marathon teams at a press conference on May 7. The federation, its athletes and the country are determined to make up for the national team's ruinous showing at last summer's Olympic games. Both the men's and women's include a fair number of young up-and-comers, with two of the men and all but one of the women having debuted within the last two years and three runners total having qualified for the World Championship team in their debut marathons. Click here for a preview of the men's World Championships team. Berlin World Championships Marathon Team Members - Women click photos for detailed profiles Yoshimi Ozaki (Team Daiichi Seimei) comes to the World Championships with the fastest qualifying time on the Japanese women's team despite having debuted only last year. Ozaki narrowly missed out on the Beijing Olympics team when she finished 2n...

by Brett Larner Alongside the duo of 100 m national record holder Chisato Fukushima (Hokkaido Hi-Tec AC) and Momoko Takahashi (Heisei Kokusai Univ.) breaking the women's 200 m national record , another pair made headlines at the May 3 Shizuoka International Track and Field Meet. Just a week after finishing 2nd in 27:40.32 behind Ethiopian Yacob Jarso (Team Honda) in tough conditions at the Hyogo Relay Carnival 10000 m, Kenyan Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) outran 2007 World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Kenyan Martin Mathathi (Team Suzuki) to break his own 10000 m Japanese all-comers record, clocking 26:57.36 to record the first-ever sub-27 minute 10000 m on Japanese soil. Mathathi just squeezed under 27 minutes to join Ndambiri in the honor with a 26:59.88. The pair were well over a minute over the rest of the field as Kenyan Nicholas Makau (Team JAL Ground Service) led the also-rans with 28:07.39 for 3rd. Mathathi's teammate Daisuke Shimizu was the top Japanes...

http://www.nikkei.co.jp/news/main/20090503STXKA014403052009.html http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/090504/spg0905040015002-n1.htm translated and edited by Brett Larner At the May 3rd Shizuoka International Track and Field Meet, a selection race for this summer's World Championships in Berlin, Chisato Fukushima (Hokkaido Hi-Tec AC) set a new Japanese national record of 23.14 in the women's 200 m with a legal tailwind of 1.5 m/sec. 2nd place finisher Momoko Takahashi (Heisei Kokusai Univ.) ran 23.15, also under the previous national record of 23.33 set at the 2004 National Track and Field Championships by Sakie Nobuoka (Team Mizuno). "If we'd been running 202 m....." commented Takahashi afterwards. The 20 year old Fukushima tied the women's 100 m national record of 11.36 in April, 2008 at the Oda Memorial Track and Field Meet and went on to represent Japan at the Beijing Olympics, becoming Japan's first female Olympic 100 m sprinter in 56 years. At this yea...

by Brett Larner Stanford University's Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational holds a special place in the Japanese record books, being the meet where both the current men's and women's 10000 m national records were set. Last year 5000 m national record holder Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica Minolta) fell just short of breaking the 10000 m national record, with Satoshi Irifune (Team Kanebo) a short distance back, likewise clearing the 28-minute mark. This year Irifune was slated to run again, but the outbreak of the swine flu pandemic caused Team Kanebo management to pull him at the last minute. The decision left seven mostly young, lesser-known Japanese runners to compete in three events. Hiroyoshi Umegae (Team NTN) was first up in the men's 3000 m SC. Running a stable pace in the middle of the pack Umegae appeared to be on course for a slim PB and even looked to be advancing in the final km, but he faded over the final lap and lost seven places to come home in 14th in 8:...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20090501-OYT1T00876.htm translated by Brett Larner On May 1 the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office announced that it had decided on Apr. 30 not to press charges against a 22 year old former student who was expelled from Nihon Taiku University (Nittai) in March on suspicion of growing marijuana at one of the university's training facilities. The Prosecutor's Office made the decision based on the facts that "It was his first offense and the amount involved was trivial." Beyond Nittai's expulsion of the student, a member of Nittai's pole vaulting squad, the Kanto Regional University Track and Field Association levied strict sanctions against the school including suspending the entire track and field team until the end of June and stripping Nittai's long distance squad of its prestigious seeded position in the 2010 Hakone Ekiden.

http://www.kyoto-np.co.jp/article.php?mid=P2009043000234&genre=L1&area=K00 translated by Brett Larner On the first day of western Japan's Kansai University Track and Field Championships in Osaka on Apr. 30, Division I runner Tomoya Nishino (Ritsumeikan Univ.) scored his first win in the half marathon. Nishino covered the loop course around Osaka's Nagai Park in 1:06:47 to take the win, with 2nd place finisher Yoshiki Sekitani (Kyoto Sangyo Univ.) 19 seconds back in 1:07:06. The 3rd and 4th place finishers were also from Ritsumeikan University, with six of the top eight runners hailing from Kyoto-based schools. Division II Tanzanian exchange student Jackson Kwarai (Nara Sangyo Univ.) was the first finisher overall in 1:06:26. Kwarai was the pivotal figure in the race, with a lead group of five or six taking shape around him. When he sped up at 15 km the other runners dropped off one by one, but Nishino tried to hang on with all his might. Many of the same athletes w...

http://mainichi.jp/area/oita/news/20090503ddlk44050297000c.html translated by Brett Larner Having become an official team on only Apr. 1, the Oita Canon women's track and field team made its competition debut on May 2 at the Oita Prefectural Track and Field Meet at Oita Municipal Track and Field Grounds . The fledgling team's Chieko Kido (19), who as a high school student had run a stage 2nd-best in the National Interprefectural Women's Ekiden, got the team off to a smooth start with a 2nd place finish in the women's 5000 m. Five of Canon's eight athletes competed in the meet, taking part in three events. After a first month in which the team's members were busier adjusting to their new lifestyle than to practice itself, "They're on their way to recovering from setback and loss and to rediscovering the way they used to be," said head coach Michio Ito. "This is a great first step. If our runners can recover their old strength it's going...

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/090501/oth0905010946004-n1.htm translated and edited by Brett Larner Mogusu in the Hyogo Relay Carnival 10000 m on Apr. 26. Click photo for full-sized version. A former Hakone Ekiden star during his days at Yamanashi Gakuin University, Mekubo Mogusu (Team Aidem) has begun his comeback after a car accident in his native Kenya in February. Mogusu was 5th in the Apr. 26 Hyogo Relay Carnival 10000 m and 2nd in the Apr. 29 Oda Memorial Track and Field Meet 5000 m in a time just off his best. "I have to just take things bit by bit," he said after the race in Hyogo. Mogusu was driving the car at the time of the accident which left his new coach Sho Kimura in a coma. Shock and guilt over Kimura's condition prevented Mogusu, who was uninjured, from training in the months following the accident. Now hospitalized in Wakayama, Kimura's condition has improved to the point where he is able to feed himself, but the news doesn't bring back Mo...