japan running news

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/p-sp-tp0-20121215-1059960.html translated and edited by Brett Larner Their ace is leading the way to the crown.  Aiming for their first Hakone Ekiden win in five years at the 89th running of the race on Jan. 1-2, national champions Komazawa University  held a public training session on Dec. 14 in Tokyo.  Having turned heads in November by running down leader Toyo University  on the anchor stage to bring Komazawa its tenth National University Ekiden title and giving Beijing Olympics 5000 m bronze medalist Edwin Soi  a run for it at the International Chiba Ekiden , junior Shinobu Kubota  is now aiming for his second-straight Hakone stage win.  "Last time we weren't even close to being able to compete with Toyo," he says.  "The disappointment hasn't faded a year later.   If you're not #1 in Hakone then you can't really be called the best.  That's what I want to become." He has further...

by Brett Larner Continuing on with its unique and entertaining format of alternating men and women on each stage the Nov. 23  International Chiba Ekiden boasts its strongest overall field since switching from separate men's and women's races, with London Olympics medalists Priscah Jeptoo  and Thomas Longosiwa of Kenya and American  Galen Rupp crowning the lists.  The race will be broadcast live nationwide on Fuji TV beginning at 1:00 p.m. local time.   Keyhole TV  has reportedly not been working recently, leaving limited viewing options for international fans.  JRN will cover the ekiden via Twitter  @JRNLive .  Please note that this is not the regular  @JRNHeadlines  feed, so follow both to be sure to get all updates.  Live results should be available after each stage on  the official race website .   Fuji's race website  is also worth a check. Defending Chiba winner and course record holder  Kenya i...

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20121112-1046022.html translated and edited by Brett Larner On Nov. 12 Rikuren, the Japanese Federation, released the entry lists for the Nov. 23 International Chiba Ekiden , a six-stage, 42.195 ekiden featuring teams of three men and three women.  Thirteen national teams along with a Japanese University select team and a team from hosts Chiba Prefecture make up the field. The Japanese national team includes London Olympics women's 10000 m 9th-place finisher and 5000 m national champion  Hitomi Niiya  (Team Univ. Ent.) and her Olympic teammate, 10000 m national champion Mika Yoshikawa  (Team Panasonic) along with top-ranked collegiate runner Suguru Osako  (Waseda Univ.) and past 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno  (Team S&B).  The Japanese University team features three members of Izumo Ekiden course record-setters Aoyama Gakuin University, Takehiro Deki , Kazuma Kubota...

interview by Brett Larner Hara and Deki at the Aoyama Gakuin University ekiden team's dormitory, 2/29/12. Aoyama Gakuin University junior Takehiro Deki has been one of the bigger surprises on the Kanto region university men’s circuit over the last year and a half. He emerged from nowhere at the October, 2010 Takashimadaira 20 km road race to tie the 58:51 course record held by former Tokai University great Hideaki Date , then followed up with an upper-echelon mark of 1:07:50 for 23.2 km on the Hakone Ekiden’s most competitive stage to prove Takashimadaira wasn’t a fluke. Since then he has steadily improved over shorter distances, but his greatest aptitude has continued to be for longer distances with another win at Takashimadaira and a 1:07:26 on the same Hakone stage, the all-time #8 mark and the 4th-best ever by a Japanese runner. Following Hakone came the surprising news that Deki would make an early marathon debut at age 21 at this year’s Lake Biwa Mainichi Maratho...

by Brett Larner Update: Half-marathon national record holder Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku) has withdrawn with an injury to his left thigh.  Invited athlete Satoshi Yoshii  (Team Sumco) withdrew earlier in the week. Note for Canadian readers: My ability to cover Dylan and Steve live will be pretty limited, but I'll do what I can. Official Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon course preview video. This Sunday's  Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon  is the last chance for Japanese men to make the London Olympics marathon team.  With strong times of 2:07:48 and 2:08:38 from the top two Japanese men at last weekend's Tokyo Marathon and good conditions in the forecast we should see the top Japanese contenders gunning for Kazuhiro Maeda 's 2:08:38 Tokyo mark to have a shot at picking up an Olympic ticket.  If two of them do it Maeda will likely be left on the sidelines come August. Biwako, as the race is universally known in Japan, will be broadcast live and comm...

by Brett Larner Right on schedule the organizers of the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon , the last chance for Japanese men to make the London Olympics marathon team, have announced the complete field for this year's race.  Coming on Mar. 4 just a week after the Tokyo Marathon, Biwako, as the race is known in Japan, has managed to put together a strong international field, both at the front end and further back at the level where people will be trying to meet their countries' Olympic qualification times.  The clear favorites in the first category are 2:06 Kenyan Nicholas Manza  and 2:07 Ethiopian Bekana Daba , but with Japan based Kenyans Gideon Ngatuny  (Team Nissin Shokuhin) and Samuel Ndungu  (Team Aichi Seiko) on the list to make their debuts the lead pack could be deeper than usual.  Biwako has always been good to Spanish marathoners, and with sub-28 runner Ayad Lamdassem entered for an apparent debut it is possible that this year could see another one f...

by Brett Larner Members of Japan's top two university teams, 2011 Hakone Ekiden winner Waseda University  and 2009-2010 winner Toyo University , held a midsummer face-off July 23 in Isesaki Gunma at the Trial in Isesaki meet hosted by locally-based Jobu University .  With early pacing provided by Jobu graduate Yusuke Hasegawa  (Team S&B), Waseda second-year Suguru Osako , the Asian junior area record holder in the half marathon, won the men's 3000 m A-heat with a gap of nearly six seconds over Toyo's Takanori Ichikawa  and Hiroyuki Uno , running 8:05.70.  2009 Ageo City Half Marathon winner Shota Hiraga  (Waseda Univ.) was off his game as he finished only 7th in 8:18.29. For Osako the meet was a tuneup for next month's World University Games in Shenzhen, China.  Although he set the Asian junior record at the half marathon last fall as a first-year, Osako has since backed off the distance and focused on the track.  At the World Univers...

by Brett Larner The 2011 Nittai University Time Trials series gets underway next weekend in Yokohama. A tuneup event for other track meets on Japan's spring calendar, the 214th edition of Nittai sees the return to action of Japan's current #1 marathoner, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama T&F Assoc.). The amateur who made worldwide news with a moving 2:08:37 3rd-place finish at February's Tokyo Marathon, Kawauchi comes to Nittai fresh from having been named to Japan's 2011 World Championships marathon team as its #1 man. Entered in both Saturday's 10000 m A-heat and Sunday's 5000 m A-heat it's unlikely he will run both, but whichever distance he chooses it is safe to say that everyone will be watching Kawauchi. This early in the season most distance men are focusing on 5000 m, and as a result the 5000 m A-heat features a larger number of noteworthy names. Among them are Japan's top man at last month's World XC Championships, Hirotaka Tamura (Nihon Univ...

by Brett Larner Sunday's Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon is always one of the biggest and fastest Japanese half marathons of the year, the site of the women's national record and a sub-60 men's course record. Last year's race saw a quick 1:08:37 from unexpected women's winner Nikki Chapple (Australia) and the only sub-70 half of the year by a Japanese woman along with two university men breaking 62 minutes. Start lists have not yet been published but Chapple is scheduled to defend her win again this year. It won't be easy, as the top woman of 2010, Elvan Abeleygesse (Turkey), and national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) are also on the entry list. Should all three start it would be very surprising if someone else factored into the win. Likely contenders for the second pack include Silviia Skvortsova (Russia), Yoshiko Fujinaga (Team Shiseido) and Megumi Seike (Team Sysmex). In the men's race, the withdrawal of 27:38 10000 m runne...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/e-japan/nagano/news/20110117-OYT8T01097.htm http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2011/01/17/kiji/K20110117000067200.html translated and edited by Brett Larner Saku Chosei H.S. head coach Hayashi Morozumi , 44, announced Jan. 17 that in April he will take over as head coach of his alma mater, 2011 Hakone Ekiden 4th-place Tokai University. Morozumi will replace current Tokai coach Toshihiro Arai , 58, who coached Morozumi during Morozumi's student days and asked him to be his replacement. Morozumi told reporters, "My goal is not just to do well at the Hakone Ekiden but to produce Olympians." Morozumi graduated from Tokai Dai-San Prep H.S. before running for Tokai University where he competed in the Hakone Ekiden all four years. He later ran professionally for the Nissan and Daiei teams. Morozumi has been head coach at Saku Chosei since 1995 and brought the school its first National High School Ekiden Championships title in 2008 along with twelve t...

by Brett Larner As the year is winding down Japan's distance runners, all the way from junior high school to the jitsugyodan corporate world, are gearing up for the national championship ekidens. It's a quirk of the system that the biggest of them all, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden , is a regional university men's event for the Kanto area around Tokyo. Twenty teams, ten men per school, each man running one of ten stages roughly a half marathon in distance over the course of two days all with a live national broadcast with 30% viewership ratings and millions more lining the course. It's hard to overstate how important and popular it is and how captivating to watch. The 2011 Hakone Ekiden entry lists were released today and overall the field shows unparalleled quality. 45 men hold 10000 m PBs under 29 minutes, 2 of them under 28, with a raft of others holding noteworthy marks at 5000 m, 20 km and the half marathon. Takushoku University 's Kenyan first-years John Maina a...

by Brett Larner photos by Daniel Seite On a windy and wild Nov. 23, a select team of Japanese university all-stars staged a surprise upset at the 2010 International Chiba Ekiden , coming up in the second half of the race to take its first-ever win over a field including ten national teams. 1st Stage leaders. In running order: Yuichiro Ueno (Japan), Vincent Yator (Kenya), Craig Mottram (Australia), Taku Fujimoto (Japan Univ.), Bobby Curtis (U.S.A.) While the expected battle between Kenya and Japan took place up front, 2010 Kanto Regional University 5000 m champion Taku Fujimoto (Kokushikan Univ.) ran a gritty 1st Stage to put the university team into 3rd as 2009 double 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno had a rare perfect run, putting Japan into 1st over Kenyan ace Vincent Yator just 1 second off the stage record. 2010 National University 5000 m runner-up Risa Takenaka (Ritsumeikan Univ.) caught up to Kenyan Mercy Njoroge on the 2nd Stage while her male counterpart, 2...

by Brett Larner Sophomore Shota Hiraga brings Waseda University in for a course record win at the 2010 Izumo Ekiden. With starting temperatures an unseasonable 27 degrees, Waseda University head coach Yasuyuki Watanabe finally put it together Oct. 11 with the biggest success of his career, a sleek and scintillating course record win at the 22nd Izumo Ekiden . Despite a slight edge on paper over rivals Komazawa University and Nittai University , Watanabe's history of drilling talented squads into the ground and arriving at important races in tatters stood against Waseda's chances. The fears of another blowup were groundless. All six Waseda runners, juniors Yo Yazawa and Yuki Yagi , sophomore Saku Chosei HS grads Hiroyuki Sasaki and Shota Hiraga and star frosh recruits and 2010 World Jr. Championships teammates Suguru Osako and Fuminori Shikata ran perfectly, the first time in recent memory that can be said of a Waseda team. Yazawa pushed Kenyan Cosmas Ondiba (Yamanashi ...