japan running news

Part three of three in JRN's interview with Tsutomu Akiyama , one of the people responsible for first bringing Kenyan athletes to run in Japan. Read part one and part two. Stephen Mayaka told me that jitsugyodan teams want Kenyans mostly for the New Year Ekiden. In the last few years they’ve restricted foreign runners to one stage, the “International Stage,” and have dramatically shortened it to 8 km. Do you think this is going to result in fewer opportunities for Kenyans to find a place on a Japanese team? With regard to that, my opinion is this: At the Olympics, the World Championships or major marathons they don’t say, “You are faster so you have to run 43 km or 44 km.” It’s the same for everyone. Everyone has the same start line and finish line. In these Japanese corporate ekidens, where they tell fast foreigners that they can only run a particular stage, the only Japanese runners who run that same stage are the slowest ones. It makes it so that you can’t really tell ho...

Part two of a 2010 interview with Tsutomu Akiyama , one of the people responsible for bringing the first Kenyans into Japan's high school, collegiate and corporate running worlds. Read part one here . Can you talk more about World Half Marathon Championships silver medalist Philes Ongori? Well, as of April she’s leaving and going back to be based in Kenya. She’s superb up to the half marathon. She has run in the 67:30’s. At the World Half in the U.K. she ran 67:38 and came 2nd, just beating 3rd at the very end. But looking toward the marathon…she can train up to what’s necessary for the half marathon, but the marathon has to be double that. I don’t know how that’s going to turn out. I can’t say one way or the other. Looking back a bit, when she came over in high school she was running 2:23 for 800 m. The first stage of the National High School Ekiden is the same as the first stage of the National Inter-Prefectural Ekiden. On the first stage of the National High School Eki...

Tsutomu Akiyama is a key figure in the history of both Japanese running and Olympic marathoning. A senior advisor to Yamanashi Gakuin University's ekiden and track and field programs and one half of the partnership responsible for beginning to bring Kenyans to Japan in the wake of Olympic medalist Douglas Wakiihuri 's arrival, Akiyama discovered and has been a mentor to the likes of marathon great Daniel Njenga , World Half Marathon silver medalist Philes Ongori , World Championships marathon medalist Tsuyoshi Ogata , Hakone Ekiden course record breaker  Mekubo Mogusu , corporate league star,  Gideon Ngatuny , multiple world-level medalist  Paul Tanui and Beijing Olympics marathon champion and winner of the legendary 2010 Chicago Marathon, Samuel Wanjiru In 2010 Akiyama gave JRN a one-on-one interview in which he talked about everything, from the human side of his athletes to problems with foreign agents, from picking a teenaged Wanjiru up at the airport during his ...

With just over three weeks to go the Saitama International Marathon has released the elite field for its third running scheduled for Nov. 12, and it's a small one. A problematic event that carries the diminished legacy of the Tokyo International Women's Marathon and Yokohama International Women's Marathon, Saitama occupies a place in the national team selection process that should go to the far superior Tokyo Marathon women's race but remains out in the northwestern suburbs thanks to the sponsor and TV broadcast income it generates for the JAAF. But with a field like this, how much longer will it be able to generate any sponsor interest or income? The move of the National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships from mid-December to late November, just two weeks after Saitama, means that not a single corporate league woman is entered in Saitama's elite field. Not one. The home crowd is represented by 22-year-old Reia Iwade (Dome), who quit the Noritz corpora...

by Brett Larner Two-time National Corporate Half Marathon champion Tomomi Tanaka (Team Daiichi Seimei) continued her transition to the marathon today, following up on her 2:26:05 debut for 5th in Nagoya in March with a 2:26:57 win over London Olympics gold medalist Tiki Gelana (Ethiopia) and others at the final running of the short-lived Yokohama International Women's Marathon . The race started close to target pace with a 16:56 opening 5 km split, but from there to 10 km the Kenyan pacer Purity Cherotich lost control, running 16:35, sub-2:20 pace, and dropping all but independent Azusa Nojiri (Hiratsuka Lease) and debuting 19-year-old Reia Iwade (Team Noritz).  With a 20-second lead over Tanaka and formerly Japan-based Kenyans Philes Ongori and Caroline Rotich both Nojiri and Iwade let go and coasted, returning to a more sensible pace with a 16:57 for the next 5 km.  Rotich soon closed the gap and went by the leading Japanese pair, Nojiri letting her go but Iwade t...

by Brett Larner The 6th running of the Yokohama International Women's Marathon brings in a good field headed by formerly Japan-based London Olympic marathon gold medalist Tiki Gelana (Ethiopia), lending credibility to its struggle to remain relevant.  The equally formerly Japan-based Philes Ongori (Kenya) tops a trio of 2:23 women including Caroline Rotich (Kenya) and Olena Shurkhno (Ukraine) who should give Gelana a swing of it, with Marisa Barros (Portugal), 2014 Nagano Marathon winner Alina Prokopeva (Russia), Irvette Van Zyl (South Africa) and, welcomed back to Yokohama again after her drug suspension, Zivile Balciunaite (Lithuania), rounding out the international field in Yokohama's usual boutique style. The Japanese field is thin, with only three or four contenders for the top ten.  Independent 2014 Hokkaido Marathon winner Azusa Nojiri (Hiratsuka Lease) is the top Japanese woman on paper, but the better bet to factor into the race is her former teammate To...

http://www.iaaf.org/news/report/fourth-japanese-marathon-victory-for-mayorova

by Brett Larner The organizers of the Nov. 17 Yokohama International Women's Marathon have released this year's elite field and it is looking pretty okay.  2012 Nagoya Women's Marathon winner Albina Mayorova  (Russia) is back in Japan for more and leads the way among the internationals with her 2:23:52 best from Nagoya, joined at the 2:24 level by Yamanashi Gakuin graduate and longtime Hokuren corporate team member  Philes Ongori  (Kenya) and Jessica Augusto  (Portugal).  Top Japanese elite Remi Nakazato  (Team Daihatsu) with a best of 2:24:28 is something of a question mark after bailing on last month's Berlin Marathon. Should she falter, #3-ranked domestic woman Mizuho Nasukawa  (Team Univ. Ent.), the top Japanese woman last year in an anaemic performance that saw her left off the Moscow World Championships team in favor of an empty seat, is the best bet to pick up the reins.   Azusa Nojiri  (Hiratsuka Lease) and Eri Okubo  (M...

http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20121218/ath12121816390000-n1.html translated and edited by Brett Larner On Dec. 18 the organizing committee of the Jan. 27 Osaka International Women's Marathon announced the domestic and international elite fields for next year's Moscow World Championships selection race edition. Osaka will be an historic showdown between Japan's #1 long distance woman Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal), marathon national record holder and Athens Olympics marathon gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex), and 10000 m national record and former marathon national record holder Yoko Shibui (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo). Others in the field include three-time World Championships team member Mari Ozaki (Team Noritz), Beijing Olympian Yurika Nakamura (Team Tenmaya), 2011 Tokyo Marathon winner Noriko Higuchi (Team Wacoal) and London Olympics marathon 5th-place finisher Tetyana Gamera-Shmyrko (Ukraine). Noguchi was scheduled to run the 2012 Osaka Intern...

http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20121030/ath12103015430001-n1.html translated by Brett Larner The organizers of the Nov. 18 Yokohama International Women's Marathon announced Oct. 30 that two of its overseas invited elites have withdrawn.   Philes Ongori  (Kenya) has pulled out with a leg injury, while Yolanda Caballero  (Colombia) has withdrawn due to poor fitness.

by Brett Larner The organizers of the Yokohama International Women's Marathon have announced the elite field for this year's 4th running on Nov. 18.  With the Japanese federation dictating a sub-2:24 requirement for Japanese women to be considered for next year's Moscow World Championships marathon squad they have assembled a field with at least three runners potentially in range of that goal. Kenyan Lydia Cheromei  serves as the one to follow for those chasing the Moscow time, her 2:21:30 coming as part of the miracle in Dubai last January.  The main contenders to achieve the federation's target time behind her are three of this year's top ten Japanese women, 2011 Osaka International Women's Marathon winner Yukiko Akaba  (Team Hokuren), spring 2011 Yokohama runner-up and 2012 Nagoya International Women's Marathon 3rd-placer  Remi Nakazato  (Team Daihatsu) and Nagoya 5th-placer Mai Ito  (Team Otsuka Seiyaku).  2009 Tokyo Marathon winner Mizuho...

It's been a long time coming but here at the end of the month we are proud to present at last a three-part interview with Tsutomu Akiyama , one of the men responsible for the discovery of Samuel Wanjiru , Mekubo Mogusu , Gideon Ngatuny and more. Akiyama speaks freely on controversial topics, naming names and telling it as he sees it. Our best interview yet, and one available only to JRNPremium subscribers. Subscribers click here to log on . Newcomers click here to subscribe and receive access to the entire 2010 series of JRNPremium exclusives.

interviewed and edited by Brett Larner photo courtesy of Stephen Mayaka Stephen Mayaka was the first Kenyan high school runner in Japan and the first to go the complete route from high school to university and on into the corporate running world. Now a Japanese citizen, married to a former World Championships-level Japanese marathoner and head coach of Sozo Gakuen University’s track and field team, Mayaka is a mentor to Kenyan athletes both across Japan and back in Kenya. He was the man who guided Samuel Wanjiru through his time in Japan and who currently manages Kenyan XC champion Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko), World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Martin Mathathi (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and other notables including Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and Philes Ongori (Team Hokuren). JRN interviewed Mayaka just before New Year, 2010 for an article in this month's issue of Running Times magazine . In the wide-ranging, in-depth three hour interview Mayaka talked about eve...