japan running news

There still aren't many Japanese athletes on the ground in athletics at the Paris Olympics. Day 3 on Saturday saw only 3 men in action, all in the 100 m. Abdul Hakim Sani Brown was the only one to make it out of the heats and into Sunday's semifinals, running 10.02 (0.0) for 2nd in Heat 4 behind Jamaican Oblique Seville . Ryuichiro Sakai missed a time qualifying spot by only 0.01, running 10.17 (+0.3) for 5th in Heat 7. Akihiro Higashida was 5th in Heat 1, running 10.19 (+0.6). In the semifinals Sani Brown had an unlucky draw, running SF 3 against Kishane Thompson , Fred Kerley , Andrew De Grasse , Ferdinand Omanyala and others. Totally determined to make the final, Sani Brown ran a PB 9.96 (+0.5) for 4th, the 2nd-fastest ever by a Japanese man and just 0.01 off the NR. But with the fastest times ever in Olympic semifinals coming in two of the three races it took a 9.93 to make the final on time, putting it out of Sani Brown's range. His best just wasn't enough, bu...

Getting stuck in the shinkansen cancelation headaches yesterday means we're a day late getting to the weekend's track roundup, but better late than never. At the top of the list, women's 100 mH national record holder Mako Fukube (NKK) took 0.04 off her own record to win in 12.69 (+1.2) at the All-Star Night Games in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa in her last race before the Paris Olympics. Other Paris team members won their races too: 4x400 m squad member Takuho Yoshizu (GK Line) took the win in the men's 400 m in 45.89. Men's 400 m hurdler Daiki Ogawa (Toyo Univ.) set a meet record 49.09 for the win. Sumire Hata (Sumitomo Denko) set a women's long jump MR of 6.61 m (+0.8). Marina Saito (Suzuki) and Momone Ueda (Zenrin) both threw over the old MR held by world champion and Paris teammate Haruka Kitaguchi , Saito getting the win with a final attempt of 58.45 m, Ueda next at 57.93 m and 3rd-placer Yuki Yamamoto (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) also going over the old MR at 57...

  Off and on rain throughout the day, sometimes heavy, impacted a lot of events on the last day of Japan's National Track and Field Championships , U20 National Championships, and Olympic trials, but at least 6 of the 12 finals saw people seal up places at the Paris Olympics, and one saw a new youth record by its winner. Complete results here . Men's 100 m Final   -0.2 m/s Fastest in the semifinals, Ryuichiro Sakai  did it again in the final to add the 2024 national title to his 2023 win in 10.13 (-0.2). Akihiro Higashida  and Hiroki Yanagita  went a close 2-3 in 10.14, both of them pretty much guaranteeing that they'll be on the Paris team with Abdul Hakim Sani Brown , who sat Nationals out after running the Olympic standard earlier this season. Former NR holder Yoshihide Kiryu  took 5th in 10.20 and will only have a shot at being in Paris as a relay alternate. 1. Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) - 10.13 2. Akihiro Higashida (Sekisho) - 10.14 3. Hiroki Yanagita...

Haruka Kitaguchi lived up to her #1 in the world ranking with a last-second comeback to take gold on the 7th day of the Budapest World Championships . Stunningly consistent with her first five throws all between 61.78 m and 63.00 m, Kitaguchi sat in 4th place just out of the medals when she stepped up for her 6th and final attempt. Australian Mackenzie Little and Latvian Anete Kocina were just ahead at 63.38 m and 63.18 m, but with Colombia's Flor Denis Ruiz Hurtado having opened with a 65.47 m area record it would take something special for Kitaguchi to move into the top spot. And that's exactly what she delivered. Kitaguchi threw 66.73 m, the second-furthest of her career and just 31 cm off her month-old national record, right when it mattered. With that she stepped into the history books as the first Japanese woman ever to win a World Championships gold medal in an event other than the marathon. Back home there were immediate calls for a national holiday to be declared. ...

Sumire Hata moved up a level globally with a 6.97 m +0.5 m/s Japanese national record to win the women's long jump gold medal on day 3 of the Bangkok Asian Athletics Championships. Already in first with a 6.74 m +1.7 m/s jump in the 4th round, Hata closed with the 6.97 m jump, the 4th-furthest in the world so far this year, to increase her margin over silver medalist Shaili Singh of India to 0.43 m. Bronze medalist Jiawei Zhong was another 8 cm back at 6.46 m. Another big gold came in the men's 100 m, where Hiroki Yanagita followed up on his 10.10 PB in the first round with a dominating 10.02 +0.0 m/s for gold, winning by 0.17 and moving up to all-time Japanese #7. National champion Ryuichiro Sakai was 6th in 10.26. With many of the main names in Japanese men's spring struggling this season as they hit mid and late career phases, Yanagita's jump up in performance couldn't have come at a better time. Still another was in the men's 110 mH. Shunya Takayama was...

The 107th National Track and Field Championships and 39th U20 National Championships wrapped up Sunday in Osaka with a new national record and a meet record on the books. Running into a -0.9 m/s headwind, Shunsuke Izumiya (Sumitomo Denko) pushed the second half of the men's 100 mH final to shave 0.2 off the NR with a 13.04 for the win. Izumiya was already at #2 in the world this season with his previous SB of 13.07, but his new NR inched him closer to current world leader Grant Holloway 's 13.01. Nine years after setting the Japanese men's NR, Sho Kawamoto (Suzuki) unexpectedly turned in a 1:46.18 MR to win the 800 m. Kawamoto was pushed over the last 200 m by Junya Matsumoto (FAJ), whose 1:46.52 PB for 2nd was enough to move him up to all-time Japanese #10. The absence of NR holder Ryota Yamagata and relay team regulars Yoshihide Kiryu , Shuhei Tada and Aska Cambridge from Nationals has raised a lot questions about the Japanese men's 4x100 relay team's chanc...

Like the National University Track and Field Championships two weeks ago, this long weekend's National Corporate Track and Field Championships come at a funny point in the season, after two months of road season base training in Hokkaido and right at the start of ekiden and overseas marathon season. Half the country is in Berlin this weekend and another chunk is at the new Okukuma Ekiden , a raced backed by Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University head coach Susumu Hara that brings together top high school, university and corporate league men's teams. But a lot of corporate leaguers will be lining up in Gifu for Corporate Nationals. Day 1 is being streamed live above starting at 15:25 Friday local time. The main events start at 15:30 with the first-round heats of the men's 100 m, featuring past 4x100 m national relay team members Shuhei Tada (Sumitomo Denko), Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) and Shota Iizuka (Mizuno). The junior women's 3000 m at 16:30 has a pret...

The men's race walks were expected to be Japan's only real chance at medals at the Oregon 22 World Athletics Championships , but in the women's javelin throw Haruka Kitaguchi came through with the country's first-ever women's field event medal at the World Championships as she took bronze. Kitaguchi came to Eugene in good form with a first-ever Japanese win in a Diamond League event under her belt and got off strong when she led the qualifying round with a 64.32 m throw on her first attempt. Kitaguchi opened with a 62.07 m that put her in bronze medal position behind Australians Kelsey-Lee Barber and Mackenzie Little , where she stayed until the fourth round. There China's Shiying Liu threw 63.25 m to move into 2nd by 3 cm over Little, pushing Kitaguchi down to 4th. It took until the final round for Kitaguchi to respond. Summoning up a big throw, she bettered Liu by just 2 cm to overtake her at 63.27 cm. American Kara Winger also came up a big closer, throw...

The Oregon 22 World Championships kicked off with Japan's two best medal chances coming through for gold and silver in the men's 20 km race walk, and most of its other top people performing up to potential. 2019 world champ and Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Toshikazu Yamanishi set the tone with a fast start and threw in a series of surges whenever the pace slowed much beyond 4:00/km. In the late going he made a move for real, with only Tokyo silver medalist Koki Ikeda and Kenya's Samuel Gathimba able to stay with him. Ikeda took his turn with a surge of his own, and Gathimba dropped back to deal with 2019 bronze medalist Perseus Karlstrom of Sweden. But Yamanishi wasn't going to let Ikeda get away, and over the last 2 km he pulled away for a second-straight gold medal in a season-best 1:19:07. Ikeda scored silver in 1:19:14, with Karlstrom 4 seconds back for bronze again. Hiroto Jusho was 8th in 1:20:39, making for what will probably be the best Japanese team perf...

After losing most of last year to a hernia, Abdul Hakim Sani Brown (Tumbleweed TC) was back, winning the 100 m national title for the third time in his career on Day 2 of the 2022 National Track and Field Championships Friday in Osaka. After running 10.11 in the heats and then clearing the 10.05 standard with a 10.04 in the semifinals, Sani Brown overcame a slow start to run down Ryuichiro Sakai (Osaka Gas) and Hiroki Yanagita (Toyo Univ.) for the win in 10.08 (+1.1). With a top 3 finish and the standard his place on the Oregon World Championships team is guaranteed, but in his post-race interview he said he was disappointed at the weakness of his performance in the final and promised he'd better it at Worlds. Sakai continued his rise through the ranks of Japanese sprinting with a PB 10.10 for 2nd, with 18-year-old Yanagita not quite matching his run in the semis but still impressive at 10.19 for 3rd. Olympic team members Yuki Koike (Sumitomo Denko) and Yoshihide Kiryu (Niho...