japan running news

Scheduled for next April, the Yaizu Minato Half Marathon , one of the major spring university half marathons, has been canceled. The event's organizing committee had studied approaches that would enable them to hold the race as planned on April 11, 2021, but with goal of preventing the spread of the coronavirus in mind, it was determined that it would be a challenge to ensure the safety and security of runners, race officials, and local residents cheering along the course. It is the second year in a row that the event has been canceled.   source article:  https://www.tv-sdt.co.jp/nnn/news16424505.html translated by Brett Larner

Regional qualifying for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships got started on the Nov. 3 holiday with the Kyushu Corporate Men's Ekiden in Kitakyushu and the East Japan Corporate Men's Ekiden in Kumagaya. Starting last year Kyushu had already switched to a loop course, but as a measure against the coronavirus crisis East Japan was also held on a loop courses at a park instead of its usual road course. In Kyushu, four-time national champion Asahi Kasei led almost start to finish after a good 36:55 run on the 12.9 km opening leg by Keijiro Mogi . The only flaw came on the 7.0 km Second Stage, where Asahi Kasei fell to 5th as Kenyan Robert Kipchirchir Mwei ran only 19:39, over a minute slower than stage winner Benard Kibet Koech 's smoking 18:28 stage record. Koech was 29 seconds up on both the old record and 2nd-place on the stage to put the  Kyudenko  team into 1st. But a stage record-breaking debut from Akira Aizawa on the Third Stage p...

On Nov. 2 the management of the Kyudenko corporate men's team announced that Kazuma Kubota , 27, quit the team on Oct. 31 to devote himself to working for the Kyudenko corporation. The announcement effectively represented an announcement of Kubota's retirement. Kubota graduated from the national-level Kyushu Gakuin H.S. in 2012 and entered Aoyama Gakuin University . The same year, he won the most competitive stage at the Izumo Ekiden as a 1st-year, securing Aoyama Gakuin its first-ever win at one of the Big Three University Ekidens. At the 2015 Hakone Ekiden his third year, Kubota had a memorably intense First Stage duel with Komazawa University 's future Tokyo Olympics marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura , losing to Nakamura by just 1 second. But Aoyama Gakuin rode the momentum that Kubota had generated, going on to win Hakone for the first time.  During his senior year in the 2015-16 season he won his stage at all three university ekidens. At Hakone Ekiden he won the...

  About three quarters of the way through the 52nd running of the National University Men's Ekiden broadcast commentator Yasuyuki Watanabe , head coach of the Sumitomo Denko corporate team, former Waseda University head coach, and one of the all-time greats of the university ekiden world, said, "I've been doing race commentary for five years now, and this is the best race I've ever seen." And he was right. It was. It was a strange fluke that defending champion Tokai University and the three favorites, Juntendo University , Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University , got off to very rocky starts. Two stages into the day's eight Komazawa was in 9th, Juntendo 10th after leading the first stage, AGU a dismal 14th, and Tokai an unthinkable 17th in a field of 25. The door was open for some of the ambitious teams ranked in the middle of the field to take advantage of the situation, and teams like #7-ranked Josai University , #8-ranked Meiji University , ...

Ekiden season got off to a rocky start with the cancelation of high-level races like the Izumo Ekiden and East Japan Women's Ekiden. But with the Hakone Ekiden Qualifier and National Corporate Women's Ekiden Qualifier two weeks ago and last weekend's National University Women's Ekiden all going off without any corona-related problems, fears that the whole season would go the way of marathon season have pretty well calmed down. Tomorrow is the next big race, and it's one of the biggest, the National University Men's Ekiden . 25 of the top teams from across the national will compete over eight stages adding up to 106.8 km between Nagoya and Mie, the shortest leg the race's first at 9.5 km and the longest the 19.7 km anchor stage. TV Asahi will be broadcasting the whole thing live starting at 7:45 a.m. Sunday Japan time and running until 13:40. It doesn't look like there's an official live stream, but there are options like  mov3.co ,  iTVer , and  ...

 https://www.usatf.org/news/2020/rupp-clocks-u-s-10-mile-record-in-route-to-half-ma 5000 m and marathon national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike) was just 3 seconds off his PB on a certified course and 15 seconds off his unofficial best at 1:01:16 for 2nd. Winner  Galen Rupp  (Nike) was 11 seconds off the Japanese 15 km national record of 42:36 and 14 seconds off the Japanese 10-mile NR of 45:40.

On Oct. 30 the Kagawa Prefecture High School Sports Association announced that the prefectural qualifying race for December's National High School ekiden, originally scheduled for Nov. 1 in Bannosu Park in Sakaide, has been moved to Yashima Rexxam Field in Takamatsu and rescheduled to the 3rd due to an invasion of wild boars at Bannosu Park. The prefectural qualifying ekiden is held every year on a course starting at Bannosu Park, but on Oct. 28 city officials closed the park when the boars were discovered there. The Prefecture High School Sports Association made the decision to move and reschedule the race in order to ensure the safety of the participating athletes. The rescheduled race will be run on the 400 m track at Yashima Rexxam Field. Each stage will have one start for all its runners, with the team's time being determined by the sum of the individual times. Girls will run five legs totaling roughly 21 km, while boys will run seven legs totaling approximately 42 km. Due...

With race after race canceling or postponing, this week the organizers of the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon announced plans for next year's 76th running to go ahead on Feb. 28, 2021. A week earlier that its traditional date due to the Tokyo Marathon's move to March, the planned date comes with the caveat that, "depending on the future situation with regard to COVID-19, there may be changes to the race's operation, including the possibility of cancelation."  But with that said, it looks like the organizers plan no additional restrictions on their event's field beyond the normal qualifying times and requirement for national federation approval. In that past that has typically meant a field of under 200 finishers from Japan and abroad. For the domestic field, with no Beppu-Oita or Tokyo Marathon there's sure to be record-setting depth. as between Beppu-Oita, Tokyo and Lake Biwa this year 29 men went sub-2:10 and 50 sub-2:12. For international men, if it actu...