japan running news

On a windier than usual race morning the 2023 Gold Coast Marathon was kind of a throwback to ancient pre-pandemic history, 2019 to be specific. In the women's race, 2019 winner Rodah Jepkorir Tanui was the last woman left standing after a CR-pace 1:12:19 first half, fading the least in the strong headwinds after the turnaround point near 36.5 km and coming to the line in 2:27:10, 46 seconds better than when she won last time. 2018 winner Ruth Chebitok lost touch with Tanui around 25 km but held on for 2nd in 2:28:17. In 3rd, Australian Genevieve Gregson moved up through the field after a more conservative 1:14:19 first half, executing her debut perfectly with a 5-second negative split to finish in 2:28:33. In her first race since 2019, two-time world champion and two-time winner of both the Chicago and Berlin marathons Florence Kiplagat was 6th in 2:36:29. "I wished only to finish," she told JRN. "This was a start to again have something to my name." Top Jap...

Australia's ASICS Half Marathon and Gold Coast Marathon are almost always big draws for elite-level Japanese runners, offering up better weather than to be found domestically this time of year, a faster course, and international racing experience without the jet lag. Saturday's half marathon has four Japanese women and three Japanese men on the entry list, plus a lot of familiar home-grown faces. Former U.S.A. marathon national record holder Keira D'Amato is the top name in the women's race with a best of 1:07:55. Australians Ellie Pashley and Isobel Batt-Doyle are regulars in Japan, Batt-Doyle having set her 1:09:27 PB at Marugame this year and Pashley having run her marathon best in Nagoya in 2019. D'Amato said at the pre-race press conference that she hopes to take a shot at the American record of 1:06:52, and Batt-Doyle said she would be giving it a PB effort. One step down from them in the 1:10-1:11 range are four Japanese women, Kaede Kawamura , Chiharu Ik...

https://goldcoastmarathon.com.au/2023/06/02/2023-gold-coast-marathon-elite-field-reveal/

2022 100 km World Championships gold medalist Haruki Okayama (Comodi Iida) and club runner Akiko Maruichi (GRlab) took the top spots in the Shibamata 100 km ultramarathon in Tokyo, Saitama and Ibaraki. The men's race was set up as an aggressive shot at the first-ever sub-6-hour time, with three pacers leading a group including Okayama, '22 silver medalist Jumpei Yamaguchi (Eldoreso), 5th-placer Guillaume Ruel (France), sub-2:10 marathoner Jo Fukuda (Hoka) and others out at a pace of around 3:34/km. Yamaguchi survived the longest at that pace, holding it until almost 70 km before starting to slow. Okayama, who had fallen off pace after 50 km, passed him not long past 80 km and pushed on to win in 6:23:16. Yamaguchi, Ruel and Fukuda all DNFd, Fukuda after only 50 km, Ruel after 60 km, and Yamaguchi not making it to 90 km. Having ignored the early fast pace and stuck to a steady 4:00/km, Masato Takahashi (Track Tokyo) was 2nd in 6:43:01. Veteran Hideo Nojo (Mitsui Fudosan)...

As Australia's Village Roadshow Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon returned for the first time since 2019, Lindsay Flanagan became its first American winner female or male, taking 6 seconds off the course record and over 2 minutes off her PB to take 1st in 2:24:43. Accompanied by dedicated male pacers and a large group of men in a race that never saw a lead women's group congeal, Flanagan went through halfway in 1:11:59 and then sped up even further, clocking her two fastest 5 km splits of the race, 16:52 and 16:47, from 20 to 25 km and 25 to 30 km. The effects of that came down on her after 30 km as she slowed beyond 3:30/km, but with a rally over the last km she held on to crack Ruth Chebitok 's 2018 CR of 2:24:49. Post-race Flanagan and her coach, Australian NR and Oceania AR holder Benita Johnson , were elated, having just met each other in person a few days before the race after a year of online coaching. Like Flanagan, 2nd-placer and local favorite Lisa Weightman , the...

Australia's Village Road Show Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon is set to return next weekend for its first full-on in-person edition since 2019. The elite fields for its half marathon and marathon division are smaller than usual but full of top domestic talent with some international support from the U.S.A., Japan, and elsewhere. A familiar face in Japan, Eloise Wellings leads the women's half marathon, her PB of 1:09:29 set at the Marugame Half in 2016. Earlier this year she ran a marathon best of 2:25:10 in Nagoya and 1:10:42 for 4th at the Gifu Seiryu Half, setting up a good head-to-head race with Jessica Stenson , 2:25:15 in Perth last fall and with a 1:10:59 best in Marugame in 2018. Brett Robinson leads the men's half marathon with a 59:57 NR for the win in Marugame in 2020. Tim Vincent is his strongest competition on paper with a 1:01:43 on the aided Rome-Ostia Half course earlier this year, but Joel Tobin-White , 1:02:03 in Marugame 2019, Commonwealth Games-boun...

Sunday features three big races on the early post-ekiden calendar. In Yokohama, the Kanagawa Half Marathon always hosts dozens and dozens of university runners from top Hakone Ekiden schools like Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University on its fast if spectacularly unscenic industrial zone course. Kanagawa also features a high-level 10 km that usually attracts some of the better university women. The top college guys will opt for the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon , where they'll face off against national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda), 2017 winner Callum Hawkins (Great Britain), sub-60 men Zane Robertson (New Zealand/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and Kelvin Kiptum Cheruiyot (Kenya) and more. Spots on the World Half Marathon Championships are on the line for the top finishers. The women's race has three sub-1:09 women up front including Sanyo Half winner Charlotte Purdue (Great Britain), last month's Okukuma Half winner Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) an...

Held alongside the Osaka International Women's Marathon , its companion Osaka Half Marathon has grown from a mass-participation mixed gender event to now feature as one of Japan's top post-ekiden season half marathons. Not being a national team selection event for the World Half Marathon Championships it doesn't get many of the big names, who mostly line up a week later in Marugame, but the fields are definitely not bad. On the women's side, last year's winner Reia Iwade (Under Armour), the fastest female Japanese marathoner of 2019, is back as the only woman in the race to have broken 70 minutes. But she has serious competition from Yuka Hori (Panasonic), only 1:11:05 at the 2018 National Corporate Half but fresh off a 31:38.63 PB for 10000 m earlier this month. 10000 m collegiate national record holder Hikari Yoshimoto (Daihatsu) should also be one of the bigger threats to Iwade after a brilliant anchor run at last month's National Corporate Women'...

It came down to a race between #1-ranked El Mahjoub Dazza (Morocco) and top Japanese man Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) after 30 km, but the Moroccan proved the stronger as he pulled away to win the Fukuoka International Marathon in 2:07:10. Japanese men had to run under the national record of 2:05:50 to score the last spot on the 2020 Olympic marathon team. Fujimoto, 2:08 man Yuki Sato (Nissin Shokuhin) and ambitious 2:12 guy Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) were the only ones to really give it a go, staying up front in the lead pack with most of the internationals, with Bedan Karoki (Kenya/DeNA) laying down the law at the head of the pacer group. A secondary lead group quickly separated off the back of the lead group, with Japan-based Kenyan Daniel Muiva Kitonyi (Track Tokyo), 2:09:52 man Jo Fukuda (Nishitetsu), Keita Shitara (Hitachi Butsuryu) and others cutting back to 2:07 pace. European marathon champ Koen Naert (Belgium) and Pan-Am Games gold medalist Christian Pacheco (Peru)...

Jo Fukuda age: 28 sponsor: Nishitetsu graduated from: Omuta H.S., Kokushikan University best time inside MGC window: 2:09:52, 3rd, 2018 Gold Coast Marathon PB: 2:09:52, 3rd, 2018 Gold Coast Marathon other PBs: 5000 m: 14:09.18 (2017) 10000 m: 28:44.67 (2017) half marathon: 1:02:25 (2019) marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019) DNF, 2019 Tokyo Marathon 7th, 2018 Fukuoka International Marathon, 2:10:54 3rd, 2018 Gold Coast Marathon, 2:09:52 – PB 23rd, 2018 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:18:16 3rd, 2017 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:15:11 other major results: 7th, 2019 Gold Coast Half Marathon, 1:03:49 26th, 2019 Marugame Half Marathon, 1:02:25 – PB 24th, 2019 National Men’s Ekiden Seventh Stage (13.0 km), 38:38 23rd, 2019 New Year Ekiden Fourth Stage (22.4 km), 1:06:42 3rd, 2018 Kyushu Corporate Ekiden Fifth Stage (13.0 km), 38:27 20th, 2017 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, 2:16:16 9th, 2016 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:16:29 35th, 2016 Lake Biwa Marathon, 2:19:06 ...

Just over 2 months out from Japan's 2020 Tokyo Olympic marathon trials, the Sept. 15 MGC Race , 13 of the 34 men and 9 of the 15 women to have qualified for the trials will be tuning up the first weekend of July. In Australia, 7 male qualifiers will run the Gold Coast Marathon and Asics Half Marathon . Half marathon national record holder and former marathon national record holder Yuta Shitar a (Honda) leads the way in the marathon, a surprising step in what has so far been a solid recovery season from the injuries that held him back for most of last year following his 2:06:11 marathon national record. Yuma Hattori (Toyota), 2:07:27 for the win in Fukuoka last December, and Taku Fujimoto (Toyota), 2:07:57 two months earlier in Chicago, head the list in the half, where 3 of their Toyota teammates with sub-62 bests including Minato Oishi , the fastest Japanese man so far this year in the half marathon, are likewise entered. 3rd in the marathon last year on the Gold Coast, Jo ...

Continuing the best year in Japanese men's marathoning history, one that has seen the last generation of Hakone Ekiden talent finally deliver on the brilliance they showed at Hakone in college, former Toyo University leader Yuma Hattori (Toyota) ran 2:07:27 to become the first Japanese man to win the Fukuoka International Marathon since 2004. In warmer than usual conditions the lead pack ran steadily through 25 km on pace for between 2:07:15 and 2:07:20, perfect for getting as many men as could take it through the rapidly closing qualification window for the MGC Race 2020 Olympic trials. Early casualties included World Championships medalists Vincent Kipruto (Kenya) and Ghirmay Ghebreslassie (Eritrea) and Japan's best championships marathoner, Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki). Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't), who rebounded from the low point of his career this fall with excellent times in races the last two weekends, was off the back of...

Marathon season kicks off this weekend with three races featuring elite-level Japanese marathoners. Saturday morning the athletics segment of the Jakarta Asian Games gets rolling with the men's marathon. With a 2:06:54 best from February's Tokyo Marathon Japan's Hiroto Inoue is the heavy favorite if he can handle the heat. His nearest competition, Ethiopian Bahraini Abdi Abdo , ran 2:08:32 in Rome this year, and Inoue's teammate Hayato Sonoda is the only other man in the field to have broken 2:10. With Bahrain's second man, the Moroccan El Hassan El Abbassi , ranked 4th at 2:10:57 it's pretty much a Japan-Bahrain dual on the men's side. Should Inoue succeed he'll be the first Japanese man to win Asian Games gold since Takeyuki Nakayama set the still-standing championships record of 2:08:21 at the 1986 Seoul Games. It's unusual to see an A-lister like Inoue run the Asian Games, but considering the weather conditions he'll face if he makes ...

Last year the Hokkaido Marathon saw the first pair of Japanese athletes qualify for the new MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials event , with winners Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) and Akinobu Murasawa (Nissin Shokuhin) winning under the time standards they needed for MGC qualification. Since then the numbers have grown to 13 men and 6 women on the qualifier list with another 16 women and 34 men halfway there thanks to an option for qualifying via a two-race average time standard. As an August event Hokkaido is always on the hot side, but success there might predict success in Tokyo 2020 and easier time standards than any of the other domestic options for MGC qualification there's no shortage of top-level Japanese talent lining up to give it a go this year. The winning Japanese woman in Hokkaido will qualify for the MGC race if under 2:32:00, with up to 5 more qualifying if under 2:30:00. London World Championships team member Mao Kiyota (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) leads the women's...

For the third year in a row Ausralia's Gold Coast Marathon saw its women's course record fall, with this year's Barcelona Marathon winner Ruth Chebitok of Kenya taking down favorite Agnes Barsosio and local Jessica Trengove for the win in 2:24:49. Consistent and in control despite extremely high humidity, Chebitok kept the race moving just under 2:25 pace the entire way, at times talking to the male pacers to get them to stay on track. 1:12:15 at halfway in a trio with Barsosio and Trengove, Chebitok covered the back half in 1:12:37 for the win, the course record, and a new PB. Trengove, aiming to go under 2:28 to share in a $40,000 bonus offered by organizers for fast times by Australian athletes, was the first to drop off, but maintaining her speed well she overtook Barsosio almost as soon as the Kenyan faded. Holding on for a 30-second PB, Trengove finished in 2:26:31 to take 2nd and pick up the time bonus. Barsosio was 3rd in 2:27:46, holding off Japan's...

Akinobu Murasawa (Nissin Shokuhin) and Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) became the first athletes to qualify for the new MGC Race 2020 Olympic trials event , clearing the JAAF's hoops with PB runs in heat to win the 2017 Hokkaido Marathon. One of the most popular runners to come out of the current boom in university men's ekiden running, Murasawa had an unsuccessful marathon debut at Lake Biwa in March, up front until late but fading to 28th in 2:17:51. This time he stayed in the front pack through the slow opening going, ignoring a move by Shingo Igarahi (Josai Univ. Coaching Staff) and Kenichi Jiromaru (Raffine Coaching Staff) around the halfway point that put them over 30 seconds ahead. Part of a group of five who set off in pursuit at 30 km, Murasawa moved into the top spot just before 40 km and held it all the way to the finish to win in 2:14:48. As the first race at which Japanese men could qualify for the JAAF's new single-trial 2020 Olympic selection event Hokkaido...