japan running news

There was a lot of action on the track over Japan's Golden Week holidays. Highlights: Shizuoka International Meet - Fukuroi, 3 May Men's 800 m NR holder Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) broke his own record with a 1:43.90 win. Daigo Usuki (18 Ginko) and Gakuto Mishima (Nippatsu) both broke the NR in the T20 men's 400 m, Usuki getting the win in 49.08 and Mishima 2nd in 49.15. Lauren Bruce (New Zealand) threw a meet record 67.44 m on her final attempt in the women's hammer throw, but even her shortest throw of 64.31 m was over 3 m better than the rest of the field. Kazuki Kurokawa (Sumitomo Denko) got the men's 400 mH meet record with a 48.50 for the win. Women's 3000 mSC NR holder Miu Saito (Panasonic) won the steeple in 9:31.83, the 2nd-best time in her career so far, despite falling. 2nd through 4th all broke 10 minutes. National University Men's Ekiden Kanto Region Qualifier - Hiratsuka, 4 May The top 8 teams at November's National University Men...

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun Even with a few withdrawals there was a massive group of Japanese athletes at the Berlin Marathon this year, most of the group that typically goes to the Chicago Marathon seeming to opt for Berlin instead. With men's winner Sebastian Sawe taking a shot at the world record, Akira Akasaki , Yuhei Urano and NR holder Kengo Suzuki sat back in a 3rd group targeting the JAAF's 2:06:30 standard for 2028 Olympic marathon trials qualification. The group held steady on that pace, quickly passing and leaving behind Hakone fan favorite Aoi Ota , who went out with a 14:26 opening 5 km only to finish in 2:14:02. Suzuki dropped off, but Akasaki and Urano were together through 30 km until Urano did the same. The top Japanese finisher in the Paris Olympics last year, from there Akasaki had what had to have been an incredibly fun last 12 km, picking faster people off one by one as he rolled on. Ultimately he made it all the way up to 2nd in a 2:06:15 PB. ...

At the 68th Fukushima Prefecture Junior High School Track and Field Championships, Haru Tsuburaya won the boys' 800 m to qualify for his first National Junior High School Championships. Kokichi Tsuburaya , 1964 Tokyo Olympics marathon bronze medalist and a native of Sukagawa, was the younger brother of Haru's great-grandfather. Haru admits that he "doesn't really know much" about his famed relative, but was enthusiastic about his own performance, saying, "I ran a PB of 1:59.43 at the Prefectural Championships, and I want to run about 1:56 at Nationals to go for the win." Haru started running with the Kagamiishi Sports Club track team his first year of elementary school. In junior high he joined the basketball team in addition to running track. He started running the 800 m last fall, and even though he started off in only 2:07~09 range he trained steadily with the goal of making Nationals. As a result of that diligent training his times got better. ...

The New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championship kicks off 2025 early, with streaming starting at 9:00 a.m. local time January 1st and the race going off at 9:15. At 7 legs totaling 100 km it's the peak of the year for the corporate leagues, the reason they have teams and bring in Kenyans. Last year Toyota led from the Second Stage to the finish, outrunning 2022-2023 winner Honda and 2017-2020 winner Asahi Kasei to take the national title for the first time since 2016. How is Toyota looking this year? On the one hand they've picked up fresh incoming talent like last year's Komazawa University captain Mebuki Suzuki . On the other, some of its key players like Tomoki Ota and Ren Tazawa have been dealing with injury, and at November's Chubu Region qualifying race Toyota lost by a minute to Toyota Boshoku , who broke the Chubu CR. A lot of Honda's A-list was missing from its lineup at the East Japan Region qualifying race , where it was only 7th out...

We're deep into championship ekiden season. Over the last two weekends the six regions making up the corporate leagues held their qualifying races for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships. The New Year Ekiden is one of the only national-level championship ekidens that doesn't give its podium finishers auto-qualifying spots for the next year, meaning every team has to run the regional races every November. It's not hard to see how that eats into the fall marathon season and how doing it the same way they do for all the other big ekidens, including the corporate women's national championships later this month, and having the top teams auto-qualify, would open up the fall schedule and improve Japan's performances in men's marathoning. But it is what it is right now. In place of an auto-qualifying spot for podium finishers, the national corporate federation redistributes the wealth of qualifying slots available in each region based ...

The Kobe World Para Athletics Championships kicked off Friday, with Japan taking two bronze medals in the first three days of competition. Kenya Karasawa got things started with a bronze medal in the men's T11 5000 m on the opening day, and Uran Sawada followed that up with a T12 women's long jump bronze Sunday. Six days remain, with the results in Kobe weighing heavily in athletes' chances of being at the Paris Paralympics later this year. Two weeks after winning the 10000 m National Championships in a PB 27:17.46, Jun Kasai 's chances of making the Paris Olympics got a boost when he ran 27:34.14 for 5th at the Night of the 10,000 m PBs in the U.K. Saturday. Japanese men currently occupy 25th and 27th in the 27-deep Paris 10000 m quota, 2023 and 2024 Nationals runner-up Tomoki Ota in 25th with 1249 points and former NR holder Akira Aizawa in 27th with 1228. With this run Kasai's score comes in at 1232, enough to bump Aizawa down to 28th and out of the quota b...

  Less than five months since the 2023 10000 m National Championships went down at the 2021 Olympic stadium in Tokyo, the 2024 edition happens Friday at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium, with NHK broadcasting it live starting at 19:25 local time. Doubling up on Nationals like this lets Japanese athletes double dip on placing points to try to get into the Paris Olympics on rankings. But between the number of people who've hit the 30:40.00 women's standard and 27:00.00 men's standard and the lopsided eight spots given away to top placers at World XC, there are only four women's spots and three men's available via rankings. Of those, three of the four women's spots and two of the three men's spots are currently occupied by top placers at December's 2023 Nationals, Ririka Hironaka , Haruka Kokai and Rino Goshima for women and Ren Tazawa and Tomoki Ota for men. The 2023 Nationals did get close to the standards, with Hironaka leading the top four women under...

  The JAAF has announced that the Wavelight electronic pacing system will be used in the May 3 10000 m National Championships at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium. The Wavelight uses 400 LED lights spaced at 1 m intervals around the track that can be illuminated to show different target paces, making it easier for athletes to go for particular times. The system has also been popular with audiences for adding some color and making it easier to follow the race's progression. The Wavelight system is used abroad in Diamond League meets and other races targeting high-level long-distance times. In Japan, it was used last year in the Hokuren Distance Challenge series and at December's 10000 m National Championships. In that race Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) set a new national record of 27:09.80, with the next three finishers Tomoki Ota (Toyota), Akira Aizawa (Asahi Kasei) and Ren Tazawa (Toyota) setting the all-time #2 through #4 Japanese marks. At the 10000 m National Championships in Ma...

This National Championship was the biggest day in Japanese 10000 m history, four women going under 31 minutes and three men breaking the national record thanks to a combination of the fast track at Tokyo's National Stadium, the Wavelight pacing system, superb pacing work from Kenyans, perfect weather, the continuing evolution in shoe tech, fans allowed onto the track at the Olympic stadium to roar their support, and the carrot of the Paris Olympics hanging just out of reach. In a lot of ways it was the same race twice, with both the women's and men's races seeing packs of four Japanese athletes, including two teammates, led by a Japan-resident Kenyan pacer locked onto the Wavelight, steady splits just off a historic mark, and a fast last 200 m by the winner to clear the mark. In the women's case it was Judy Jepngetich (Shiseido) leading teammates Rino Goshima and Yuka Takashima , former 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) and underdog Haruka Kokai (Daiich...

Given all the breakthrough runs over 10000 m in Japan the last few weeks, enough to take Japan to 30 men sub-28 for the distance this year, it seems a bit odd to have the 10000 m National Championships happening this Sunday in Tokyo's National Stadium. But relative to the timing of ekiden season, the rest of the National Championships in the late spring, and next summer's Paris Olympics, it makes sense. NHKBS is broadcasting it live, with the men's race starting at 16:03 and the women's at 16:43. The 27:00.00 would be a stretch at this point for any of the Japanese men in the race, but one woman, former 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) has actually cleared the 30:40.00 standard before with a 30:39.71 at the 2022 Oregon World Championships. But that was before the qualifying window opened, so she'll have to try to continue to build back from the injuries she suffered last winter if she wants to hit the standard here. Her best this year is 31:35.12 at ...

This is one of the best athletics articles I’ve ever read, an unbelievably detailed look at just about every detail you’d want to know about the 10000 m, by Yoshimasa Noguchi . Use machine translation and you won't be disappointed: https://www.jaaf.or.jp/jch/107/news/article/19264/?fbclid=IwAR3KvaXtEH_uFxO4Yh9ypAhHSTqoJ2IVKLCEPevJZNWiDnvOExUdq7lWCZk

  The National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Gifu were the main track action this weekend, but there were also two big time trial meets in the greater Tokyo area. At the Nittai University Time Trials meet in Yokohama Saturday, Charles Kamau Wanjiku (Musashino Gakuin Univ.) was right up there with the best in the corporate leagues, soloing a 27:29.56 to win the B-heat by over 40 seconds. Antipas Kibet (Komori Corp.) won what was technically the A-heat in 27:57.48, with the next three runners including Taisei Nakamura (Yakult) squeezing under 28 minutes, in Nakamura's case in 27:59.96. Erika Tanoura (Sekisui Kagaku) won the women's 5000 m A-heat in 15:47.07, but there wasn't much difference from the B-heat where Momoa Yamada (Tamagawa Univ.) won in 15:50.92. The women's 3000 m was low-key, with Harumi Okamoto (Yamada Holdings) taking the A-heat in 9:10.92 and the next four runners all getting under 9:12. The men's 1500 m saw one noteworthy perform...

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...

A crowd reported at over 6000 filled the lower stands at Tokyo's National Stadium Saturday to see the 10000 m component of this year's National Track and Field Championships . In the women's race, Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) and Rino Goshima (Shiseido) sealed up their places on the Oregon World Championships team by going 1st and 3rd, with NR holder Akira Aizawa (Asahi Kasei) making a comeback for the win in the men's race but falling short of the Worlds standard. The dynamic in the women's race was changed dramatically a few hours before the race when top-ranked Seira Fuwa (Takushoku Univ.) announced she had withdrawn after not making enough progress in her comeback from an injury in January. In her absence Goshima took things out on pace to crack the standard, which only she, Hironaka and top collegian Narumi Kobayashi (Meijo Univ.) held going into the race. Following Goshima's lead were Hironaka, Kaede Hagitani (Edion), Mikuni Yada (Denso), Sayaka Sa...

Japan's outdoor track season got moving with Saturday's Kanakuri Memorial Meet in Kumamoto. Mostly geared toward setting up chances for people to hit qualifying marks for this season's National Championships, the day's biggest race was the men's 1500 m . NR holder Kazuki Kawamura (Toenec) was a late scratch, but on the starting line were all-time JPN #2 Nanami Arai (Honda), U20, U18 and HS NR holder Keita Sato in his debut wearing the Komazawa University uniform, 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.), indoor 5000 m NR holder Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) and more of Japan's best. Sato spent most of the race up front, going through the first three laps in 56-1:55-2:55, while Endo hung back until the bell. Going right past the lead group, Endo had a lead of almost 2 seconds over Arai with 200 m to go. But in the home straight Miura launched an incredible kick that just got Endo at the line. Miura clocked 3:36.59, good for all-time JPN #2 at 1.17 sec...

The 25th National University Half Marathon took place Sunday in western Tokyo alongside the Tachikawa City Half Marathon . The race that decides the #1 collegiate half marathoner in the country was won by 19-year-old Koku Gakuin University 1st-year Kiyoto Hirabayashi , who pulled away from the field after 14 km to win in 1:01:50. Consistently strong throughout his rookie season, Hirabayashi made KGU's starting team for all the Big Three University Ekidens and took 2nd on the Hakone Ekiden's competitive Ninth Stage. Taiga Nakanishi , KGU's captain for the upcoming 2022-23 year, was 2nd in 1:02:02, just beating Toyo University 2nd-year Kazuki Matsuyama at the line to make it a KGU 1-2. All three qualified for the Japanese team for June's Chengdu World University Games. On one of the first days of true spring warmth, Hirabayashi shouted in joy as he crossed the finish line. When Nakanishi came in seconds later Hirabayashi hugged him, laughing. "This was my first ...