japan running news

  After placing 6th in the 1500 m final at the Cali 2022 World U20 Championships , a Japanese high school girl is set to go to university in the U.S.A. in pursuit of becoming globally competitive. Initially reluctant to go abroad for school due to the changes in living conditions and high level of competition, she took inspiration from others who are active internationally and decided to take the plunge. The athlete is Yuya Sawada , 17, a 3rd-year at Hamamatsu Shiritsu H.S. At last summer's National Championships she was the only female high schooler to make the 1500 m final, and now she hopes to follow NR holder Nozomi Tanaka in making it to the final in a major championships 1500 m. Sawada was inspired to begin running her third year of junior high school. She had been a member of her school's basketball team, but after quitting the team the summer of her third year she ran in a local ekiden in Shizuoka. With a strong performance she helped her team win. The next year she w...

by Daisuke Tsujioka A road running race in Shonai, Yamagata that used to celebrate the full bloom of the area's cherry blossoms will no longer be held. The race had become a local tradition, but its cancelation is said to be due to a serious problem facing rural areas across the country. The Atsumi Sakura Road Race began in 1986 in hopes of attracting more tourists to the area, home of the famous 1200-year-old Atsumi Onsen hot spring southwest of Tsuruoka. Held in mid to late April, every year over a thousand runners from all parts of Japan take part. Starting and finishing at Atsumi Onsen, the event includes 30 km, 10 km, 5 km and 2 km races, following the cherry blossom-lined banks of the Omni River and giving runners the chance to soak in the atmosphere of the historic hot spring town and the cheers of its local residents. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the race was not held for four years from 2020 to 2023. Pandemic restrictions were lifted last May, but from the early stages...

Four of last year's top five women will be back at the Osaka Marathon , with 2023 winner and CR breaker Helen Tola Bekele returning to face runner-up Beyenu Degefa , Lisa Weightman , and new additions Fancy Chemutai , 2:18:11 in Valencia 2022, and Viola Jelgata Kibiwot , 2:22:57 in Frankfurt last fall. Misaki Ichida was the 2nd Japanese woman last year in 2:25:51 for 5th, and she's the top-ranked domestic name this year at 8th in the field. You wouldn't know Osaka is the third of four big men's marathons in Japan in the course of four months, as 49 sub-2:10 men are entered. It's a completely different field from last year, with the top returning runner being Shohei Otsuka , 8th last year in 2:06:57. Japanese men have to run 2:05:50 to have a chance of taking the third Olympic team spot away from Suguru Osako , and top three-ranked Stephen Kissa , Adeladlew Mamo and Yihunilign Adane are all positioned from 2:04:48 to 2:05:53 to help enable that. Realistically, ev...

https://worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-indoor-tour/news/lyles-breaks-60m-new-balance-indoor-grand-prix-meeting-record-boston Japanese athletes competing in Boston this weekend included Abdul Hakim Sani Brown , 6.60 for 6th in the men's 60 m and  Nozomi Tanaka , 4:08.46 for 9th with an indoor NR in the 1500 m at New Balance , and four men led by Nanami Arai , 3:58.85, in the mile at the Bruce Lehane Scarlet and White Invitational .

A large number of universities that raced last month's Hakone Ekiden competed in the 46th Kanagawa Half Marathon Feb. 4 in Yokohama, with Chuo University 3rd-year Kazusa Takanuma taking the win in a PB 1:02:19. A graduate of Shizuoka's Fujieda Meijo H.S. , Takanuma has never made Chuo's starting roster for any of the major university ekidens, his main achievement to date having been a 22nd-place finish in last May's Kanto Regionals half marathon. Before Kanagawa his best was a 1:03:35 from the 2022 Ageo City Half Marathon, and with another 63-minute time last year he showed the potential he has over long distances. His PB in Kanagawa showed the realization of that potential. 2nd in 2023, Chuo had a disappointing 13th-place finish at Hakone this year. Next month star seniors Yamato Yoshii , Shota Nakano and Jin Yuasa will all graduate. On Jan. 30 Takumi Sano was named captain of Chuo's 2024-25 team, and 3rd-years without ekiden experience like Takanuma are expe...

Japan-based Dolphine Nyaboke Omare (U.S.E.) had the best race of her career, breaking 1:04:36 runner Sheila Chepkirui (Kenya) over the second half of the race to win the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon in 1:06:07, 1:15 under the old course record and a PB by a massive 1:49. Omare was actually on mid-1:05 pace at 15 km as she fought to open ground on the more accomplished Chepkirui, but even though she faded over the last 5 km she still had more than enough room to pick up the ¥3,000,000 CR bonus. Chepkirui was well under the old record too at 1:06:47 for 2nd, and in the other big performance of the women's race Caroline Kariba of 2023 National High School Ekiden champ Kamimura Gakuen H.S. skipped a 10000 m or 10 km debut to jump straight to the half marathon, 14 seconds off the old CR in 1:07:36 for 3rd. Charlotte Purdue (Great Britain) took 4th in a PB 1:08:02, with Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) beating her pre-race projection with a 1:08:51 for 5th in a tuneup for ...

It's a rare year that there's no wind at all at the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon , and the field took advantage of it with a pack run that lasted until the very last stage of the race. It really was a race of pure attrition, steady between 2:07:15 and 2:07:30 pace as it shook down from a lead group of over 30 to just 8 by the time the last two pacers stopped at 30 km: Japanese runners Yuta Shimoda (GMO), Hironori Kishimoto (GMO), Tomoki Yoshioka (Kyudenko), Takanori Ogata (Toyota Kyushu) and Yuichi Yasui (Toyota), former Takushoku University captain Workneh Derese (Ethiopia/Hiramatsu Byoin), and internationals Ben Preisner (Canada) and Hicham Laqouahi (Morocco). Their split of 1:30:31 put Preisner 39 seconds up on Cam Levins ' 30 km NR and on track for 2:07:19, 51 seconds under the Paris Olympics qualifying time. Shimoda took over once the pacers were out, a 2:59 for the 31st km enough to get rid of Ogata and Yasui. Yoshioka was next, and just past 32 km Laquoahi dr...

Four big races happen Sunday, and it's looking like only one of them might escape the cold rain that's forecast to hit most of the country that morning. That would be Kyoto's Biwako Cross Country meet, the lesser cousin of Fukuoka's National Cross Country Championships three weeks later but still filling an important hole in the calendar left by the demise of the Chiba Cross Country meet. Biwako attracts a few corporate teams and top high schools like Wacoal and Toyokawa H.S. , but its main claim to fame is as the National Junior High School Cross Country Championships. Complete entry lists here . In the heart of Yokohama's industrial zone Sunday is one of two big half marathons, the Kanagawa Half Marathon and 10 km . Top-tier collegiate runners will be headed for Marugame, on which more later, but a lot of the schools that ran last month's Hakone Ekiden will send big contingents from their rosters of alternates and B-tier runners, and that always makes it one...