japan running news

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/09/jefferey-eggleston-6555-japans-mao-ichiyama-7350-win-rock-n-roll-virginia-beach-half-marathon/ Ichiyama digging in to DQ post-race in Virginia Beach. Photo c/o Jeffrey Eggleston.

Six Japanese athletes will line up at Saturday's Birell Prague Grand Prix 10 km road race in the Czech Republic. Rio Olympian, 2013 World Championships marathon bronze medalist and 5000 m and half marathon national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) is the lone Japanese woman in the race. Now 35, Fukushi has mostly taken it easy since Rio, her season bests just 33:09.26 for 10000 m on the track and 33:48 for 10 km on the road. Standoffish with Japanese media about her future plans, it remains to be seen how hard Fukushi will run in Prague. Teammates at the 2017 national champion Asahi Kasei corporate team, Kenta Murayama and Tetsuya Yoroizaka lead the five Japanese men on the list. Murayama, the U18 national record holder for 10000 m on the track and twin brother of adult national record holder Kota Murayama , ran well in the spring with a 1:00:57 for 5th at March's United Airlines NYC Half but underperformed at May's Ottawa 10 km. Yoroizaka, who has the unluc...

an editorial by Tetsuhiko Kin Kin is a television commentator, coach, and former Waseda University ekiden runner. The battle to determine the Japanese national representatives in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics three years from now has begun. The Marathon Grand Challenge (MGC) selection race features an unprecedented two-tier arrangement and will automatically select the Olympic team members when it is held in or after September, 2019. Athletes must first qualify in order to the run MGC race. The first race in the MGC Series of races in which athletes can earn their spots in the MGC race took place Aug. 27 at the Hokkaido Marathon , with high school and university ekiden star Akinobu Murasawa (Nissin Shokuhin) taking the men's race and the young Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) the women's to pick up their places in the Olympic qualifier. Both races were hesitant and passive. The men's race in particular went out slowly from the start, and with the winner needing to b...

On Sept. 1 Jinsei Gakuen H.S. announced that it has named alumnus and two-time World Championships runner Yu Mitsuya , 32, as the new head coach of its track and field team. According to school officials, Mitsuya will transfer from his current position at the Toyota Kyushu corporation to assume his duties at the school by the end of the year. Longtime Jinsei Gakuen H.S. head coach Chikara Onishi passed away suddenly in mid-April at age 56. While searching for a replacement who could coach the team with expertise the school consulted with alum Mitsuya, famed in athletics circles for his record of success as an athlete. Mitsuya expressed his interest. Yu Shimoyama , 42, who has served as interim head coach and general manager since Onishi's passing, will continue as team manager. Mitsuya entered Jinsei Gakuen H.S. in April, 2000, leading the team to the National High School Ekiden all three years. After graduating he joined the Toyota Kyushu corporate team coached by Barcelona...

In a Summer Marathon, Even World-Class Athletes' Lives Are at Risk from Heat Stroke In order to prevent incidences of heat stroke among athletes and spectators alike at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, work is progressing at a fevered pitch to develop countermeasures against the heat in the stadium environs and along the marathon course. Local municipal governments are focusing their efforts on increasing the number of large trees along the course to improve shade, and on implementing road surface materials with heat shielding properties. In past Olympics and World Championships there have been cases of athletes suffering from dehydration and heat stroke, and the issue represents a major challenge for the Tokyo Games. Late July on Sotobori Avenue in Tokyo's Kanda neighborhood. Under the peak strength of the summer sun helmeted workers hoisted by cranes cut back the branches and leaves of trees lining the street by hand. It looks like ordinary pruning work, but...

In front of an almost sellout crowd packing the stadium to see the breakthrough Taiwanese men's sprinters in action, Japan wrapped the final day of athletics competition at the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade with a pair of 4x100 m relay medals that assured it the top spot on the overall medal table. The women's 4x100 m team, comprised of Ichiko Iki , Miyu Maeyama , Mizuki Nakamura and Sayaka Takeuchi , were well off lead pair Kazakhstan and Switzerland through the race, lagging a relatively short distance behind bronze medal position Poland. Japan crossed the finish line in 4th in 44.56, breaking a collegiate national record that had stood for almost 11 years but short of the medals. That changed on review, though, when winners and defending gold medalists Kazakhstan were disqualified for a lane violation. The DQ bumped Japan up to an unexpected bronze medal. The atmosphere in the stadium was raucous for the men's 4x100 m featuring Taiwan's very own 100 m gold m...

For the second Universiade in a row Japan pulled off a near-sweep of the half marathon medals, taking all three men's individual medals, women's gold and bronze and both team golds. Komazawa University's Kei Katanishi and Naoki Kudo went 1-2, leaving national university half marathon champion Kengo Suzuki over 30 seconds behind to hold off Uganda's John Kateregga for bronze. Wataru Tochigi took 6th to make it 4 Japanese men in the top 6, the only misstep coming from Takato Suzuki of national champion Aoyama Gakuin University who finished only 12th after scratching in the 10000 m. Not so for women's gold medalist Yuki Munehisa . Munehisa had led most of the women's 10000 m only to get dropped in the last kilometer and wind up outside the medals in 4th. In the half marathon she was bound and determined not to end up the same way again, doing all the heavy lifting to drop Turkey's Esma Aydemir with teammate Saki Fukui in a supporting role. Munehisa ...

Akinobu Murasawa (Nissin Shokuhin) and Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) became the first athletes to qualify for the new MGC Race 2020 Olympic trials event , clearing the JAAF's hoops with PB runs in heat to win the 2017 Hokkaido Marathon. One of the most popular runners to come out of the current boom in university men's ekiden running, Murasawa had an unsuccessful marathon debut at Lake Biwa in March, up front until late but fading to 28th in 2:17:51. This time he stayed in the front pack through the slow opening going, ignoring a move by Shingo Igarahi (Josai Univ. Coaching Staff) and Kenichi Jiromaru (Raffine Coaching Staff) around the halfway point that put them over 30 seconds ahead. Part of a group of five who set off in pursuit at 30 km, Murasawa moved into the top spot just before 40 km and held it all the way to the finish to win in 2:14:48. As the first race at which Japanese men could qualify for the JAAF's new single-trial 2020 Olympic selection event Hokkaido...