japan running news

This was a relatively quiet weekend as people make their final preparations for the five major championship ekidens over the next three weeks. The main action came Saturday in Kyoto at the Edion Distance Challenge . 19-year-old Judy Jepngetich (Shiseido) had the biggest result of the meet, winning the women's 5000 m A-heat in a PB 14:50.20. 2nd-placer Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera) and 3rd-place Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels) both ran PBs too, the 19-year-old Mwikali running 14:51.35 and Kamulu 14:54.19. After having run 14:44.83 in November pacer Margaret Akidor (Comodi Iida) jogged it in to a 4th-place finish, just missing out on another sub-15 clocking at 15:02.15. Across three heats a total of 35 women were under 16 minutes. Results in the women's 10000 m fast heat were good too. Rino Goshima made it a double for the national champion Shiseido team with a 31:22.38 win. Momoka Kawaguchi (Toyota Jidoshokki) and Wakana Itsuki (Kyudenko) were 2nd and 3rd in 31:57.81 and 31...

Streaming of today's Edion Distance Challenge meet in Kyoto, starting at 12:05 p.m. local time.

On Dec. 8 the JAAF announced that the MGC Race , Japan's marathon trials for the 2024 Paris Olympics, will be held in Tokyo on Oct. 15, 2023. The race will happen on the same day as the 2nd edition of the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon , which was held for the first time this year on the same course used for the last MGC Race and the Tokyo Paralympics marathon. A total of 42 men and 22 women have qualified so far for next year's MGC Race since the qualification period opened on Nov. 1, 2021. For the Tokyo Olympics MGC Race only 34 men and 15 women qualified, representing an improvement this time. Start times, the course and other details will be announced by the JAAF after they have been finalized. source article: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/1310cd5cb78182b0166a801a707354e9660ae086 translated by Brett Larner

The 41st Sanyo Ladies Road Race takes place Dec. 18 in Okayama. 119 athletes including qualifiers for the MGC Race 2024 Olympic marathon trials are entered in the half marathon, with another 155 in the 10 km bringing the total to 274 entrants. MGC qualifiers Kanako Takemoto (Daihatsu), Reia Iwade (Denso) and Mirai Waku (Universal Ent.) lead the half marathon field. Other top names include last year's first Japanese finisher Yumi Yoshikawa (Uniqlo), 5000 m U18 NR holder Shuri Ogasawara (Denso), and local Tenmaya team members Rei Ohara and Shiori Yoshizono . Last year foreign athletes swept the podium. This year all three are set to return, with Zeyituna Husan (Denso) going for the first threepeat in event history. In the 10 km Agnes Mwikali (Kyocera) will likewise being going for the first-ever threepeat, with pressure from 2021 runner-up Naomi Muthoni (Universal Ent.) and others. MGC qualifier Mao Uesugi (Starts) and Tenmaya rookie Shiho Tachizako are also in the field...

Japan had not one but two top-level men's marathons happening at the same time today. Conditions were a little too windy at the rescendent Fukuoka International Marathon to produce the kind of times organizers were hoping for, but there was still a great race up front. Almost dead-even on 3:00/km pace the entire way despite a building headwind from around 11 km to 18 km and again from 25 km to 32 km, and a strong tailwind from 32 km to the track finish, by 35 km a lead pack of 30 dwindled down to just 2021 winner Michael Githae (Suzuki), debuting teammate Vincent Raimoi (Suzuki), 40-year-old double world champ Abel Kirui (Kenya) and Ethiopian Israeli Maru Teferi . Teferi didn't really break it apart as much as he held steadier than everyone else. From 30 to 35 km he clocked 15:01 and from 35 to 40 km 14:59, while the other three slowed to the 15:17~15:23 range on the way to 40 km. Teferi kept that pace all the way to the end, winning in a PB 2:06:43 that broke his own Israe...

Continuing a stellar season that saw him run a 26:55.04 10000 m best in October, Benard Kibet Koech (Kyudenko) took 20 seconds off Haile Gebrselassie 's world best for 10 miles with a 44:04 win at the Kumamoto Kosa 10-Mile Road Race on Sunday. Alone early, Koech checked his watch repeatedly as he hammered the course, his only competition the great Gebrselassie's 17-year-old record. In the end nobody came within a minute and a half of him, Jonathan Ndiku (Hitachi Butsuryu) winning a three-way race for 2nd in 45:47 and Cleophas Kandie (Mitsubishi Juko) 3rd in 45:49. Takashi Namba (Toenec) was 4th in 45:50, just 10 seconds off Masanari Shintaku 's 45:40 national record from 1984. Kento Nishi (Osaka Gas) and Masashi Nonaka (Osaka Gas) were both under 46 minutes, and altogether 100 people were under 49:30, making it one of the deepest 10-milers in history. The high school boys' 10 km was also solid, with the top 9 all under 30 minutes. Maynard Nganga (Senshu Tamana H...

The track at Yokohama's Nittai University is on fire right now, with big results coming almost every week in the Nittai University Time Trials series. Saturday's 302nd edition was a special one-day version with only a few men's 5000 m heats. 16-year-old Lucy Nduta (Aomori Yamada H.S.) kicked it off with a 8:59.03 win in the fast heat of the women's 3000 m, beating national champion Meijo University 's Yuma Yamamoto , 9:01.18, and 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka , 9:05.15. Sub-9 at 16, and that wasn't even a PB for Nduta. Corporate leaguer Hellen Ekarare (Toyota Jidoshokki) took the 5000 m A-heat in 15:16.80, the most notable results there being a 15:36.02 PB from national champ Shiseido 's Wakana Kabasawa for 2nd and a very decent 15:48.35 by Aoi Yamaguchi of Fukui's Sabae H.S. The biggest results were in the men's 10000 m, again. Between the four heats a total of 42 men were sub-29, that on top of the 199 who did it at Nittai and elsewhere la...

With the Fukuoka International Marathon returning Sunday under new management we wanted to revisit the documentary JRN produced last year, Inside the Outside - When the World Came to Fukuoka , looking back at its 75-year history as it came to end. We talked to 75 international athletes who ran Fukuoka over the decades, including dozens of legends of the sport -- all but one of the world record holders to have run Fukuoka, all but one of the Olympic medalists to have run it, all but two of the living non-Japanese winners, and many more -- about their memories of the race and thoughts about it ending. Two of the participants, Luiz Antonio dos Santos of Brazil and Kenny Moore of the U.S.A., have passed away since recording their parts. We even produced a Japanese-language version too. It was a massive project, but it needed to be done. © 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved