japan running news

  A 2016 Rio Olympian in the women's 3000 m steeplechase while still in university, Anju Takamizawa , 24, has announced her retirement through a statement issued by her corporate team Shiseido  on Dec. 24. While at Matsuyama University  Takamizawa won the steeplechase at the 2015 and 2016 National Championships. In Rio she was eliminated in the qualifying round. Since then Takamizawa has struggled with injury. On the Shiseido team site Takamizawa commented, "Thank you to everyone who kept supporting me even though I couldn't produce the results I wanted to. I hope that my experiences as an athlete will help inform my future life."  A day later on the 25th, the Japan Post  corporate team announced that Takamizawa's Rio Olympics teammate Hanami Sekine , 24, was also retiring. A native of Tokyo, Sekine ran for Toyokawa H.S.  before joining the brand-new Japan Post team in 2014 as one of its star athletes. She ran the 10000 m in Rio, and in 2018 she made ...

3rd last year, Meijo University returned to the top with its first national title since 2005 at today's National University Women's Ekiden Championships in Sendai. Missing its star pair Anju Takamizawa and Riho Takamizawa (no relation), defending champion Matsuyama University was never in the race, 25th of 26 teams on the 6.4 km First Stage and eventually working its way up to 13th. 6 seconds out of 1st, Meijo took over the lead on the 5.6 km Second Stage and held it almost the entire rest of the way. With a record of ten wins and four 2nd-place finishes in the last 14 years, last year's runner-up Ritsumeikan University went into 1st on the 4.8 km Fourth Stage thanks to a stage best run by Ayano Tanaka , setting up a duel between course record holder Kotona Ota (Ritsumeikan Univ.) and #1-ranked first-year Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) on the day's longest stage, the 9.2 km Fifth Stage. Kaseda caught Ota within the first 3 km, but while it looked like the young...

The university men's ekiden season is already well underway, but for women the first of the season's national-level university ekidens takes place this Sunday with Sendai's Morinomiyako Ekiden , the National University Women's Ekiden Championships . Starting in 2003 Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University became an almost unstoppable force, winning ten national titles and three 2nd-place finishes in thirteen years including five-straight from 2011 to 2015. Last year they were knocked back to 2nd by first-time national champion Matsuyama University but came back with a season-ending win over Matsuyama and 3rd-placer Meijo University at the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden. All three schools are back and feature as the three favorites, Matsuyama led by fourth-year Anju Takamizawa , a 2016 Rio Olympian in the 3000 m steeplechase, and 2005 national champion Meijo led by first-year Rika Kaseda , runner-up in the 5000 m at September's National University Track and Field Ch...

On Oct. 11 the Inter-University Athletics Union of Japan ( IUAU ) released the entry lists for the Morinomiyako Ekiden , the National University Women's Ekiden Championships to be held Oct. 29 in Sendai. A Rio de Janeiro Olympian in the 3000 m steeplechase, Anju Takamizawa will return to lead Matsuyama University in its shot at a second-straight national title. Other noteworthy names on the entry lists include National University Track and Field Championships 5000 m winner Maho Shimizu (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), National University Individual Track and Field Championships 5000 m winner Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) and World University Games half marathon gold medalist Yuki Munehisa (Tokyo Nogyo University). source article:  http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20171011/ath17101119210001-n1.html translated by Brett Larner

by Brett Larner Rio de Janeiro Olympics 3000 m steeplechase runner  Anju Takamizawa , the first Japanese university woman to ever make an Olympic team in a distance event, led Matsuyama University to take down five-time defending national champion Ritsumeikan University and become the first school from the Chugoku-Shikoku Region to ever win the National University Women's Ekiden Championships title Sunday in Sendai. 【杜の都駅伝】 松山大学初優勝です！ pic.twitter.com/ftXf43wke1 — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) October 30, 2016 3rd last year, Matsuyama lined up against Ritsumeikan, Kanto Region champ and 2015 runner-up Daito Bunka University  and 23 other teams at the Morinomiyako Ekiden , as Nationals are popularly called.  Ritsumeikan got off to a rocky start, its lead runner Nanako Kanno  eight seconds behind 1500 m national university champion Natsu Hashimoto (Kyoto Sangyo Univ.) in 6th, but for Matsuyama and Daito Bunka the First Stage was a disaster. Matsuyama senior Ayumi U...

by Brett Larner Ekiden season rolls on this Sunday with the Morinomiyako Ekiden , the 34th edition of the National University Women's Ekiden .  25 university teams and one regional select team will race over 38.0 km in six stages.  Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University has won the national title ten times in the last thirteen years and is in the middle of the longest streak in the championships' history, with five straight wins behind them and looking to add a sixth.  The last team to beat them, Kyoto rivals Bukkyo University , have completely disappeared since the departure of head coach Kenichi Morikawa to take over at the Yamada Denki women's corporate team, while the only other team to beat Ritsumeikan since 2003, 2005 champ Meijo University of Aichi, was 5th last year almost four minutes behind Ritsumeikan. Ritsumeikan won September's Kansai Region University Women's Ekiden , but its margin over runner-up Kyoto Sangyo University was only 24 seconds over ...

http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASJ753GXQJ75PFIB001.html translated by Brett Larner Named to the Rio de Janeiro Olympic team in the women's 3000 m steeplechase, Matsuyama University third-year Anju Takamizawa , 20, held a public practice session this week at the school's Kumanodai Field.  Takamizawa ran the steeplechase at the National Championships late last month , clearing the 9:45.00 Olympic standard to win in a meet record 9:44.22 and guarantee herself a place on the Olympic team. At the public training session, after some light jogging and other warmups Takamizawa ran a series of 400 m intervals.  "This will be my first Olympics," she said.  "I'll be targeting my PB and hope to have the kind of run that will get me through to the final."

by Brett Larner 【富士山女子駅伝】 立命館大学が3連覇達成！！ pic.twitter.com/KLGTRxDwgR — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) December 30, 2015 Despite coming up short of replicating its perfect win, six stage titles and the overall victory, at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden , two-time defending champion Ritsumeikan University 's dynasty proved unstoppable as it led start-to-finish to win the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national university title for the third year in a row. Having missed being part of the winning Morinomiyako team, Nanako Kanno , one half of Ritsumeikan's pair of top-level runners, led off with a 6-second lead on the steepest of the first four downhill stages, a lead that grew to 2:22 by the end of another strong run by second-year Kotona Ota , undefeated so far in her university ekiden career.  More dynamic racing happened further back in the field, where last year's runner-up Osaka Gakuin University , 4th-placer Meijo University and 5th-placer Matsuyama University exchanged pl...

by Brett Larner In its third edition in the foothills of Mt. Fuji, the National University Women’s Invitational Ekiden Championships, renamed, appropriately enough, the Mt. Fuji Women’s Ekiden , continues to grow in popularity and stature. This year it moves from the Dec. 23 national holiday to Dec. 30, putting it into a prestigious block alongside the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men’s national championships and the biggest of them all, the university men’s Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2 and 3. Whether Mt. Fuji will reach the same level of popularity remains to be seen, but it’s a sign of faith in the event’s viability, its hilly course offering real racing and not just a handout to the fastest school. The fastest school is again two-time defending champion Ritsumeikan University of the Kansai region, fresh from a course record win at October’s Morinomiyako Ekiden against the best from the Kanto region and the rest of the country. With wins on all six stages at Morinomiyako incl...

by Brett Larner Four-time defending National University Women's Ekiden champion Ritsumeikan University delivered one for the record books, winning a fifth-straight title Sunday in Sendai as it broke the 38.0 km course record in 2:02:52.  With all six of its runners winning their individual stages including a 29:24 record for the 9.2 km Fifth Stage from Kotona Ota , the sheer quality of Ritsumeikan's win had fans talking on social media about the need for ekiden terminology like baseball's no-hitters and perfect games.  Regardless, this was about as dominant a performance as you could hope to see in an ekiden, every team member hitting it 100% running entirely alone with an unbreakable lead. Last year's runner up Daito Bunka University was 2nd again after a great battle throughout the race with Kanto Region rival Nittai University and Aichi's Meijo University , one of only two schools to crack Ritsumeikan in the last 12 years.  But despite good performances f...

http://www.fuji-news.net/data/report/sports/201410/0000003415.html translated by Brett Larner On Oct. 27 twelve of the twenty university teams to compete in the Dec. 23 Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national invitational were announced.  The top twelve placing teams at last weekend's National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai received invitations to race the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden: Ritsumeikan University Daito Bunka University Osaka Gakuin University Matsuyama University Kanoya Taiiku University Kyoto Sangyo University Meijo University Fukuoka University Tokyo Nogyo University Saitama University Hakuoh University Bukkyo University Six of the remaining spots will go to other schools with the fastest average official 5000 m times and will be determined by Dec. 1.  On Dec. 5 two select teams will also be announced, one from East Japan featuring members of other universities from the Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto and Hoku-Shinetsu regions and one from West J...

http://www.asahi.com/sports/spo/TKY200812150157.html translated and edited by Brett Larner Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo's Reiko Tosa, who dropped out of the Beijing Olympics women's marathon with a foot injury and afterwards announced that she would retire from professional running, told reporters on Dec. 14 that she will run one last race before retiring, the Mar. 22 Tokyo Marathon. "I want to finish a marathon once more before I go," she commented. Translator's note: Tosa had previously suggested that her final race would be February's Matsuyama Marathon, a local race which Tosa won in her marathon debut.

http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/sp_others/20081008ks05.htm translated by Brett Larner At the All-Japan University Women's Ekiden on Oct. 26 in Sendai, Beijing Olympic marathoner Reiko Tosa's alma mater Matsuyama University, will represent central Shikoku in its first-ever appearance at the national championship ekiden. The team's assistant coach is Keiichi Murai (34), Matsuyama alumnus and coach and husband to Tosa. In a classic example of a running marriage, Murai cultivated a winning athlete. The day before the Sept. 23 qualification race for All-Japan, Murai held a meeting with his runners at Matsuyama. "When I told Reiko that I thought we would definitely make All-Japan she said that I shouldn't say that. 'You don't know what'll happen, especially in such a high-pressure situation. As the coach you should be more careful about what you say.'" Understanding the tension his runners would be feeling and trying to help them relax such words of wisdo...