japan running news

It was a pale shadow of the results at the Keqiao Diamond League meet a day earlier, where Rachid Muratake was the only Japanese athlete in action at 3rd in 13.18 (+0.1) in the men's 110 mH, but the men's 3000 m at Sunday's Seiko Golden Grand Prix in Tokyo turned out to be the race of the meet. Collegiate 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon record holder Richard Etir (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.) did pacing duty through 2000 m in 2:33 and 5:07, almost dead-even with Suguru Osako 's 2014-era NR of 7:40.09. When Etir stepped off Yu Shibata (Josai Univ.) stepped up as the surprise leader, pushing hard to keep the NR in range and dropping everyone except corporate leaguers Ryuto Igawa (Asahi Kasei) and Nagiya Mori (Honda). Both had the wheels to run Shibata down over the last 200 m, and Mori had the honor of becoming the first Japanese man under 7:40, winning in a new NR of 7:38.98. Igawa and Shibata both got there too, Igawa 2nd in 7:39.36 and Shibata 3rd in 7:39.51, the fast...

After missing the final in Oregon last year 3000 m steeplechase national record holder Ryuji Miura built on his 7th-place 2021 Olympic debut with a 6th-place finish at the Budapest World Championships. Miura started slow and moved up throughout the race, getting as high as 5th when ahead of him a fall on the first obstacle after the bell brought bronze into tantalizingly close range. But he couldn't quite close it, and just steps before the finish he was run down by New Zealand's George Beamish , dropping to 6th in 8:13.70 with Beamish 5th in 8:13.46. Ryoma Aoki , who beat Miura to the punch as the first Japanese man to qualify for a World Championships 3000 mSC final in 20 years, was 14th in 8:24.77. Olympic and defending World champion Soufiane El Bakkali was unstoppable again, winning in 8:03.53. Flawless in the men's high jump qualifying round, Ryoichi Akamatsu struggled to get into his rhythm in the final. After making 2.20 m and 2.25 on his first attempt, Akamatsu r...

Japan dominated day 2 of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships Thursday, winning 3 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze medals across 10 events. The biggest news was in the men's 400 m final, where Kentaro Sato ran an all-time JPN #2 45.00 for the win and Fuga Sato an all-time JPN #5 45.13 for silver. Both were well back from Asian record holder Yousef Ahmed Masrahi of Saudi Arabia coming into the home straight, but with stunning kicks they pulled up into the medals, in Fuga's case going all the way from 5th to 2nd. Masrahi was in the bronze position in a season best 45.19. Another 1-2 finish for Japan came in the women's 10000 m. Haruka Kokai was part of a breakaway trio with Kenya-born Kazakhstani Caroline Chepkoech Kipkirui and Mongolian NR holder Munkhzaya Bayartsogt , while Momoka Kawaguchi held back in the second group warier of the heat and humidity. On track to break her own NR, Munkhzaya did all the work up front, burning off Kipkirui who ultimately dropped out. ...

The JAAF has announced a team of 78 for the Bangkok Asian Championships July 12-16 in Thailand, perfect parity with 39 women and 39 men. Out of the Japanese athletes to have already cleared the Budapest World Championships qualifying standard and be named to Japan's team for Worlds, only Shunya Takayama is scheduled to compete in Bangkok in the 110 m hurdles. 34 of the Asian Championships are currently in the quota for their event for Budapest. Another half dozen including Arisa Kimishima , Maki Saito , and Hikaru Ikehata are on the cusp of making the quota. For that half of the team, the chance to score area championships placing points for world rankings make the Asian Championships critical to their chances of representing Japan in Budapest. A bit surprisingly, no men's relay teams, one of Japan's areas of strength in recent history, are entered. Athletes in bold are currently in the Budapest World Championships quota for their listed event. Athletes in bold and un...

The final day of the Oregon 22 World Championships opened with a medal-winning walk from Masatora Kawano in the men's 35 km race walk. Teammate Daisuke Matsunaga went out hard, opening a lead of over a minute at one point before being reeled in early in the second half and fading to 26th. Kawano stayed in the lead group the entire way, the only person there never to take the lead at any point, covering any move without making any contribution to the race. When Italy's Massimo Stano made his final move for the win Kawano was right there, but he couldn't quite close it down and was consigned by the Italian to silver, 2:23:14 to 2:23:15. Sweden's Perseus Karlstrom took bronze in 2:23:44. Japan's Tomohiro Noda patiently worked his way up into the top 8 together with Canadian Evan Dunfee , but while Dunfee was able to carry his momentum all the way to final finishing position of 6th, Noda faded and was re-taken, ultimately just outside the top 8 at 9th in 2:25:29 ...

A Japanese men's 4x400 m relay had only made a World Championships final once before in 2003, but this year's squad of Fuga Sato , Kaito Kawabata , Julian Walsh and Joseph Nakajima exceeded expectations, running the 2nd-fastest time in the heats to make the Oregon 22 World Championships final. Sato put the team into contention with Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago for 2nd, Kawabata and Walsh kept them there, and Nakajima surprised by holding off Jamaican Anthony Cox by just 0.06 in a season best 3:01.53. That was better than any team in Heat 2, and, granted, over two and a half seconds behind the United States, but not even Japanese TV announcers seemed to have expected the squad to make the final let alone have a medal within the realm of possibility. Another big run in the final will do a lot to make up for the disappointment of a second-straight 4x100 m exchange failure. Both Japanese women in the 100 m hurdles went on to the semifinals on time, Mako Fukube taking 4th...

The men's race walks were expected to be Japan's only real chance at medals at the Oregon 22 World Athletics Championships , but in the women's javelin throw Haruka Kitaguchi came through with the country's first-ever women's field event medal at the World Championships as she took bronze. Kitaguchi came to Eugene in good form with a first-ever Japanese win in a Diamond League event under her belt and got off strong when she led the qualifying round with a 64.32 m throw on her first attempt. Kitaguchi opened with a 62.07 m that put her in bronze medal position behind Australians Kelsey-Lee Barber and Mackenzie Little , where she stayed until the fourth round. There China's Shiying Liu threw 63.25 m to move into 2nd by 3 cm over Little, pushing Kitaguchi down to 4th. It took until the final round for Kitaguchi to respond. Summoning up a big throw, she bettered Liu by just 2 cm to overtake her at 63.27 cm. American Kara Winger also came up a big closer, throw...

The National Track and Field Championships head into their back half Saturday in Osaka. Streaming starts at 10:15 a.m. local time and NHK's TV broadcast at 3:30 p.m., with the daily schedule here , start lists here , and live results here . On the track, the last race of the day is its biggest, the men's 3000 mSC featuring NR holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.). A top 8 placer at the Olympics last year while still in his teens, Miura also fell in a race last year, got up, and still won in NR time. Without something spectacular happening there's almost no chance he won't win or at the very least make the Oregon team. His fellow Olympic team members Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) and Ryoma Aoki (Honda) are both in the 45-deep quota at this point, Yamaguchi at 38th and Aoki at 40th, but with things too close to be safe they'll be going for the standard here. Yasunari Kusu (Ami AC) is 42nd in the quota, and beating any of the three ahead of him would give him an ou...

There was a lot of distance action this weekend, but the biggest performance in Japan came at the Fuse Sprint meet in Tottori. Lucking out with a maxed out legal tailwind of 2.0 m/s, Ryota Yamagata  (Seiko) took 0.02 off the national record in his first sub-10 clocking to win in 9.95. 2nd-place Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko) also scored a PB of 10.01, with sub-10 man Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) 3rd in 10.13. Despite a scratch from former NR holder Yoshihide Kiryu  and a weak run from relay regular Aska Cambridge , the Japanese men's 4x100 m looks to be in a stronger position than ever. Fuse also produced a national record in the women's 100 m hurdles thanks in part to an ideal +1.8 m/s tailwind. Masumi Aoki  (77 Ginko) equalled the 12.87 NR held by Asuka Terada  (Japan Create) for the win, with Terada running 12.89 for 2nd. Both women are still short of the Olympic qualifying standard, but the solid runs will push them up further from their current positions of 32...

The last day of the 104th National Track and Field Championships saw a short stack of new records across disciplines, mostly on the women's side. The biggest news came in the women's discus throw, where Maki Saito (Tokyo Joshi Taiiku Univ.) threw a new national junior record of 55.41 m on her fourth attempt and putting defending champ Minori Tsujikaw a (Uchida Yoko AC) into 2nd before coming back on her last to almost equal it. In the women's 100 m hurdles, it took a PB from Masumi Aoki (77 Ginko) to hold off national record holder Asuka Terada (Pasona Group) for the win, tying the meet record in 13.02 (-0.1). Taio Kanai (Mizuno) likewise held off national record holder Shunya Takayama (Zenrin), tying the meet record in 13.36 (-0.1) to win. Kanai and Takayama have alternated national titles for the last four years, with 13.36 their winning time for the last three. The women's 200 m saw the top three all drop PBs, Remi Tsuruta (Minami Kyushu Family Mart) u...

On a day that saw three more world-leading marks, three more championships records and nine more national records, Japan saved its best for the last day of the Doha Asian Athletics Championships , bringing home three gold medals, two silvers and four bronze. Yuki Hashioka brought the Japanese performance of the day, winning gold in the men's long jump with a world lead-tying PB jump of 8.22 m +0.6. Gold also came in the women's 100 m hurdles along with one of the bronzes, with Ayako Kimura and Masumi Aoki going 1 and 3. The other gold came in the show-stopping men's 4x400 m relay, where Japan led start-to-finish to win  by 0.34 over India. India was later disqualified, elevating China to silver and hosts Qatar to bronze. The Japanese women's 4x400 m team led their race for almost 3/4 of the way, overtaken by India just before the last exchange and caught by Bahrain on the back corner but holding on for a surprise bronze. Takashi Eto and favorite Naoto Tobe...

Japan tripled its medal count on the second day of athletics competition at the Jakarta Asian Games , adding another gold, its first silver and two more bronze medals to its tally. The silver came in the morning session with Keiko Nogami 's 2nd place finish in the women's marathon, previously covered here . The gold and one bronze came in an exciting decathlon that saw defending champ  Keisuke Ushiro  and teammate Akihiko Nakamura in 2nd and tied for 3rd going into the 1500 m. Ushiro needed a 2-second margin over leader Suttisak Singkhon of Thailand to move into the gold medal position, which he did with ease. Tied with China's Kewei Gong , Nakamura needed as much of a margin as he could get over Gong to finish in the medals and 42 seconds over Singkhon to take silver. Nakamura went out hard, but although he had no trouble putting Gong away the margin he needed to make up to Singkhon was just too big. The other bronze came via one of Japan's biggest hopes. With...

Following Hiroto Inoue 's morning gold medal in the men's marathon, the first evening session of athletics at the Jakarta Asian Games was capped by a surprise bronze in the women's hammer throw by Hitomi Katsuyama . Katsuyama's throw of 62.95 m was 8 meters or more off the Chinese top two Na Luo and Zheng Wang and was nearly overtaken by teammate Akane Watanabe 's 62.45 m but was enough for her to go home with hardware in an an event that's usually something of a weakness. The day's only other final to feature a Japanese athlete, the women's 10000 m was out of the league of lone Japanese entrant Yuka Hori . After a series of delays involving missing numbers, an extra athlete and removal of a rear bib, Hori did much of the leading, dropped by surges twice and taking her time overtaking those ahead both times to end up 7th in  32:42.73. In an exciting race up front Darla Maslova of Kyrgyzstan outkicked Kenyan-born Bahraini Eunice Chumba and Desh...

by Brett Larner video by  ekiden news This weekend's National University Individual Championships , held annually at Shonan BMW Stadium in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa south of Tokyo are an anomaly on the Japanese collegiate calendar, no relays or team competition, just individual competition from universities across the country, occupying the place where you would expect the equivalent of NCAAs but relatively minor compared to both May's Kanto Regionals and Kansai Regionals meets and September's National University Championships.  Especially in the distance events, top talent rarely competes there.  Not so this year. Men's 100 m junior national record holder Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) whipped up a storm of excitement when he tied his legal best in the semi-final, running a collegiate national record 10.01 with a +1.8 m/s tailwind.  Kiryu's time broke the existing meet record by 0.18 seconds and met the JAAF's selection standard for the Rio Olympics, giving him...

2011 World Youth Championships - Day Two Japanese Results Lille, France, 7/8/11 click here for complete results Boys' 400 m Final 1. Arman Hall (U.S.A.) - 46.01 - PB 2. Alphas Leken Kishoyian (Kenya) - 46.58 3. Patryk Dobek (Poland) - 46.67 - PB 4. Machel Cedenio (Trinidad & Tobago) - 46.89 - PB 5. Takuya Fukunaga (Japan) - 47.16 - PB 6. Andre Wells (Bahamas) - 47.22 7. Brendon Restall (Canada) - 47.34 DNF - Sadam Suliman Koumi (Sudan) Boys' 110 mH Final 1. Andries van der Merwe (South Africa) - 13.41 2. Joshua Hawkins (New Zealand) - 13.44 - PB 3. Wilhem Belocian (France) - 13.51 - PB 4. Omar McLeod (Jamaica) - 13.61 - PB 5. Takumi Takahata (Japan) - 13.71 6. Tyler Mason (Jamaica) - 13.74 - PB 7. Mousa Mohammed Al Subyani (Saudi Arabia) - 13.81 - PB 8. Vyacheslav Shvydkyy (Ukraine) - 13.94 Girls' 5000 m Race Walk Final 1. Kate Veale (Ireland) - 21:45.59 - PB 2. Yanxue Mao (China) - 22:00.15 - PB 3. Nadezhda Leontyeva (Russia) - 22:00.84 - PB ...