japan running news

The last big track time trial of the season, probably, Saturday's Edion Distance Challenge had its biggest result in its smallest event. With only 3 women on the starting line, the 3000 mSC saw Miu Saito from Nittai University move up from all-time Japanese #9 to #8 with a 9:45.62 PB that put her almost 35 seconds ahead of her closest competitor. Panasonic 's Nanami Watanabe took the women's 5000 m fast heat in 15:29.67, but a lot of the main competition, Kae Gyu from National Corporate Women's Ekiden winner Japan Post , Yuma Yamamoto , Risa Sasaki and Tomoka Kimura from runner-up Sekisui Kagaku , top-tier collegians Nanaka Yamazaki , Nanase Tanimoto and Haruka Ogawa , and others just looked tired. Only 8 women broke 16 minutes, and with 7 others going sub-16 in the B-heat better seeding might have produced better races. Some Japan Post runners did do well in the women's 10000 m fast heat, with Miyaka Sugata winning in 31:42.28 and Caroline Kariba 3rd in 3...

  Japan-based Kenyans dominated at the revamped and improved Kumamoto Kosa Road Race across all three of its main distances. Agnes Ngetich  from the Canon  team got things started in the women's 5 km, blasting a 14:48 that left Japanese NR holder Nozomi Tanaka  almost 40 seconds behind. Tanaka, whose 15:25 was technically a NR, was only 10 seconds up on Nanami Watanabe , who continued a good season with a 15:35 for 3rd only 1 second off Tanaka's previous NR iteration. Kosa's 10 km race has historically been for high school boys, but this year's race had an excellent field of corporate league runners. Triple Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Vincent Yegon , now with the Honda  corporate team, won in 28:05 by 1 second over  Festus Kiprono . Mangata Kibet  was 3rd in 28:13, with Kenyans taking the top 6 spots. Top high schooler Mahiro Kubo  from local Omuta H.S.  ran a solid 29:58, good enough for the win a lot of years but only 14th against his older c...

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 top Japanese woman in the marathon at last summer's Oregon World Championships, Mizuki Matsuda went from 3rd to 1st on the anchor stage to give the Osaka team its fourth national title Sunday at the National Women's Ekiden in Kyoto. Osaka was 4th after the 6.0 km 1st leg and was never worse that than. 2nd runner Saya Nakajima put them in the lead, where they stayed for the next five of the 42.195 km race's nine stages except for a brief drop back to 4th when its fourth runner Chihiro Sato struggled. Fifth runner Yua Tsukamoto turned it back around, but with only a 1-second lead at the start of her stage junior high schooler Rio Kawamura couldn't hold off Fukuoka 's Shiina Sugahara and Tokyo 's Yuna Oki and dropped to 3rd. Matsuda started only 5 seconds out of 1st and had no trouble overtaking Tokyo anchor Yuri Karasawa and Fukuoka's Wakana Itsuki to go back out front. Matsuda turned in the fastest run on the 10.0 km anchor stage, 31:22, to br...

The Princess Ekiden , the official qualifying race for the Nov. 27 National Corporate Women's Ekiden, happened Sunday in Munakata, Fukuoka, 31 teams racing 42.195 km in 6 stages to pick up one of the 16 places available at Nationals. It was an unusually dynamic ekiden; except for Fourth Stage winner Teresiah Muthoni (Daiso), every woman who ran the fastest time on her stage did it while taking the overall lead, and 4 of those 5 were from different teams. Up front, Panasonic anchor Sora Shinozakura pulled off a brilliant last-second come-from-behind win to take 1st in 2:18:06. Panasonic was never out of the top 4, 2nd runner Nanami Watanabe taking the lead before the team dropped back again. Shinozakura started the 6.695 km anchor leg in 3rd, 24 seconds behind leader Momoka Hanafusa of the Kyudenko team, and steadily cut down the distance to 1st. It looked like she might run out of road before she got there, but with a hard surge from 400 m out she flew past Hanafusa to take t...

Entry lists were announced Feb. 6 for the 2019 National Cross Country Championships , to be held Feb. 23 in Fukuoka's Uminonakamichi Kaihin Park. The senior men's 10 km field of 165 is led by last year's 5000 m national champion Hazuma Hattori (Toenec), 2019 Marugame Half Marathon 4th-placer and new Aoyama Gakuin University captain Takato Suzuki , and Fukuoka native Shota Onizuka who ran the First Stage on 2019 Hakone Ekiden champion Tokai University's winning team. The senior women's 8 km features Yuka Hori , Fifth Stage record breaker at last year's National Corporate Women's Ekiden for national champion Panasonic, her teammate and Third Stage winner Nanami Watanabe and 2018 Asian Games 5000 m 6th-placer Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera). 102 women are scheduled to run. The national championships will also include junior men's 8 km and junior women's 6 km races. JAAF marathon development project leader Toshihiko Seko commented, "The...

Elevated to the winner's circle after last year's national champion Universal Entertainment was disqualified, Panasonic did it for real this year with a wire-to-wire lead for the 2018 National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships title. Last year's First Stage winner Kaori Morita did it again this year, putting Panasonic 5 seconds ahead at the first exchange. Second runner Sakiko Naito fought off multiple attacks from Nana Kuraoka of 2013-2015 national champion Denso to keep a 2-second lead at the next exchange, where 19-year-old Nanami Watanabe took the tasuki for the longest stage of the day, the 10.9 km Third Stage. The relatively unknown Watanabe was a revelation, obliterating 2:21~2:23 marathon trio Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal), Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) and Honami Maeda (Tenmaya), track star Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post), stage record holder Yuka Takashima (Shiseido) and more top-level talent to open Panasonic's lead to 57 seconds with a 34:31 stage...

The fastest woman in the world over 10000 m this year with her 30:41.85 Japanese all-comers record at July's Hokuren Distance Challenge Fukagawa meet, Pauline Kamulu Kaveke (Route Inn Hotels) added another sub-31 clocking to her name with a 30:56.94 meet record win on the first day of the 8 6th National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Osaka's Nagai Stadium. Starting off with company from fellow Japan-based Kenyan Grace Kimanzi (Starts) and the Japanese duo of Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) and Minami Yamanouchi (Kyocera), Kamulu was alone by 2000 m dead on track to equal her July mark. Fading slightly over the second half of the race she still managed to shave nearly a second off Kayoko Fukushi 's 2006-era meet record, nearly lapping the entire field. Kimanzi held on to 2nd in 32:02.39, with first Yamanouchi and then Ichiyama dropping back through the field. Seemingly close to her A-game again after a long period off with injury and a change in corporate team and...

Japan dominated the 14th Asian Cross Country Championships Thursday in Guiyang, China, winning all four team gold medals to hold the hosts China back to silver in every race. Japan's only individual gold came in the Junior Women's race, one of its usual areas of strength. Yuna Wada led a Japanese sweep of the top four positions to win the 6 km race in 20:43 with scoring teammates Ririka Hironaka and Tomomi Musembi Takamatsu just behind. Wada Yuna of Japan wins Junior Women’s 6km cross country race of 14th Asian Cross Country Championship . Japan also won Team championship pic.twitter.com/Q6l0b48pKV — Asian Athletics (@asianathletics) March 15, 2018 With the meet also serving as China's National Championships Chinese athletes won the individual gold in the other three races, Dan Li , Cairen Suolong and Jianhua Peng all showing better closing speed to beat their Japanese rivals by 3~4 seconds. Li won the Senior Women's 8 km by 3 seconds over Japan's ...

2012 national champions Universal Entertainment returned to the top Sunday in Sendai, running down breakaway leader Panasonic late in the race to win the 2017 National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships . Panasonic was an unexpected highlight, winning the first three stages and building a 42-second lead by the start of the 3.6 km Fourth Stage, the race's shortest leg. There Panasonic's Chiaki Tobe struggled, losing ground to Universal Entertainment, defending national champ Japan Post , and Shiseido , who drew within 10 seconds. On the 10.0 km Fifth Stage Universal's Moeno Nakamura , a member of its 2012 national champion squad, took her time closing on Panasonic's Shiori Morita , not fully closing the gap until exactly halfway through the stage and then pushing ahead to open a 12-second lead of her own. Behind her, marathon university national record holder Sairi Maeda  of the Daihatsu team delivered what was no doubt the run of the day, making a supe...