japan running news

Friday is Day 2 of Japan's National Track and Field Championships at Osaka's Yanmar Stadium Nagai. Streaming starts at 11:25 a.m. local time and run through 6:30 p.m. before switching over to broadcaster NHK. The daily schedule is here , with start lists here . On the track the main event is the men's 100 m final. Abdul Hakim Sani Brown  (Tumbleweed TC) is the only man in the race to have cleared the 10.05 Oregon World Championships standard with a 10.04 (+0.8) in the semifinals. Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko), Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) and 18-year-old Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) all ran 10.13~10.16 in the semis, and former NR holder Yoshihide Kiryu (Nihon Seimei) made it through in 10.24. Sani Brown will need to make top 3 for the JAAF to pick him for sure, but with any luck we'll see a few others hit the standard in the final to fill up the slots. The women's 100 m final is close, Midori Mikase (Sumitomo Denko), Mei Kodama (Mizuno), Arisa Kimishima (DK Sh...

Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) opened the first day of the 2022 National Track and Field Championships in Osaka by becoming the first athlete at Nationals to score a place on the team for next month's World Championships. Saying post-race that he'd run the 5000 m envisioning the semis at Worlds, Endo hung back in the early stages, moved up to cover a mid-race move by Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu), then kicked away with ease in the last 1000 m to take the win in 13:22.15. Combined with his 13:10.69 in April it was enough to land him on the team. Olympian Hiroki Matsueda (Fujitsu) was 2nd in 13:30.15, enough to move up the world rankings but still short of what he'd need to break into what's left of the quota places. Kanta Shimizu (Subaru) came up from the chase pack for 3rd in 13:31.51, with the next 7 all under 13:40. Shiojiri ended up 9th in 13:40.99, with Takuma Sunaoka (Konica Minolta), sub-13:20 this season, last in 14:53.51. NR holder Naoto Tobe (JAL) was a DNS in...

Road events, combined events and the 10000 m have already been held, but the rest of this year's National Track and Field Championships happen Thursday through Sunday at Yanmar Stadium Nagai in Osaka. Thursday will be streamed above starting at noon local time, with the rest of the days also to be streamed on the same JAAF channel. Just be aware that the main events in the last 2 or 3 hours each day will be on TV instead, either NHK's BS1 or general channels. Nationals this year are mostly about qualifying the Oregon World Championships. The basic rules for selection are that a top 3 finish at Nationals by someone with the standard, either there or earlier in the window, will put them the team. Anyone who makes top 3 without the standard will have until the June 26 deadline to chase it, at which point the JAAF has the option to fill any open slots with people who have the standard or are in the quota in their event without having made top 3 at Nationals. Start lists for Thursd...

The qualification window for this summer's Oregon 2022 World Championships marathon wrapped up last week with the May 29 Ottawa Marathon and a couple of other races. Athletes had four ways to qualify : By meeting the qualifying standards, 2:29:30 for women and 2:11:30 for men. By finishing in the top 10 at platinum elite label marathons like Boston or New York without hitting the standards. By earning a wildcard spot by being the defending world champion. By being high up enough in the world rankings to fill the quota of 100 athletes each in the women's and men's races after everything above was taken into account. 14 countries had a total of at least 10 women and men qualify, with 3, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Japan, each having over 100 athletes on the list . No other country had more than 40. Ethiopia led the way among women with 93 qualifiers, Kenya next with 71 and Japan 3rd with 41. Apart from them only the U.S.A., Great Britain and China had more than 10 women qualify. He...

Japan's biggest time trial meet was back for its 296th edition this weekend, with everything except the men's 5000 m on Saturday and 20 heats of that distance on Sunday at Yokohama's Nittai University Time Trials . In Saturday's main event, the men's 10000 m Heat 7, Justus Soget (Honda) just missed hitting the 27:28.00 qualifying mark for July's Oregon World Championships, running a 27:30.31 PB for the win. 2nd through 6th were all under 27:40 and 7th-place Nicholas Kosimbei (YKK) coming through in 27:44.68, making it one of the deepest races on the books at Nittai. Minato Oishi (Toyota) was the fastest Japanese man, 11th in 28:27.52. Helen Ekarare (Toyota Jidoshokki) had an easy win in the women's 5000 m Heat 2, the only runner under 15:30 in 15:27.96. 2nd in 15:52.14, Haruka Kokai (Daiichi Seimei) was the only other runner under 16:00. Desta Burka (Denso) won the women's 3000 Heat 4 in 9:01.75 by almost 5 seconds over Momoka Kawaguchi (Toyota J...

Having officially taken over as head coach of the Waseda University track and ekiden program as of June 1, on June 2 Katsuhiko Hanada held a press conference at the school's campus in central Tokyo's Shinjuku ward. "I want to develop athletes who will represent Japan," he said. In his own days as an athlete at Waseda, Hanada played a role in the school's win at the 1993 Hakone Ekiden. After graduating he joined the SB Foods corporate team, going on to run for Japan at both the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and 2000 Sydney Olympics. His coaching experience includes leading Jobu University to its first Hakone in 2009, and helping to found the GMO corporate team. Central to Hanada's selection as new head coach was his former coach at both Waseda and SB, Toshihiko Seko , 65. After Hanada announced his resignation from GMO earlier this year, Seko called him about his alma mater, which had finished only 13th at this year's Hakone. Hanada went to observe the team...

On May 31 it was learned that a committee has been set up by the Hyogo prefectural government, Kobe city government and other involved parties to review the prefecture's earlier decision to withdraw from its organizational role in the Kobe Marathon after the 2022 edition of the race and to discuss how to go about staging the race in the future. The Kobe Marathon is expected to continue in its current form through its 2023 race, and that an arrangement will be found that will enable it to survive from 2024 on. The Kobe Marathon has been organized in collaboration between the city and prefectural governments since 2011, a popular race that attracts 80,000 applicants for the 20,000 places in its field. But in December last year the prefectural government announced that as a result of changes in its administrative and financial management policies it will step back from its organizational role beginning in 2023 and support the event only in a sponsorship capacity. After further disc...

After two straight years of cancelation, 5155 people ran the 42nd Yamanakako Road Race in Sunday in Yamanashi, covering one 13.6 km lap around Lake Yamanaka. Paul Onyiego , 22, won the men's race, setting a new course record of 40:52. A graduate of Yamanashi Gakuin University , Onyiego now runs for local corporate team Fujino Meisui . The Kenyan commented, "It was hot out there, so it was a tough race. I sped up over the last 5 km." The Fujino Meisui team is aiming to qualify for next year's New Year Ekiden for the first time. "As the team's top runner I want to help take things to the next level," he said. 2019 winner Eri Oda , 38, won the women's race again in 50:22. All on her own after 2 km, Oda said, "The view of Mt. Fuji over the lake was really beautiful, so I took some pictures of it while I was running. It was hot and sunny, but even though the conditions were tough Mt. Fuji helped me get through it feeling good." Hiroyasu Yamaz...