japan running news

Soka University 's Stephen Muthini broke the course record at the Hakodate Half Marathon Sunday to win in a PB 1:01:08. Muthini led from the early going, dragging a lead group of 10 behind him. Past 10 km he picked up the pace, cutting the lead group down to 6, including 2025 Tokyo World Championships marathon team member Yuya Yoshida (GMO). Near 15 km Takuma Yamakawa of Komazawa University went to the front, but Muthini was quick to retake the lead and gradually pulled away from Yamakawa and Yoshida. Yoshida ended up 2nd behind Muthini in a PB of 1:01:23, with Yamakawa 3rd also in a new PB of 1:01:25. Times were fast across the board, with 8 of the top 10 men running lifetime PBs. Yoshida, a 2-time winner of the Fukuoka International Marathon including a 2:05:16 CR last December, is Japan's leading hope of ending its dry spell of World Championships marathon medals, the last being Tsuyoshi Ogata 's bronze at the 2025 Helsinki World Championships. His Tokyo Worlds team...

Last month's Izumo Ekiden season opener was unusually action-packed with turnovers in the lead on every stage and a dramatic showdown between anchors Kotaro Shinohara (Komazawa Univ,), Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) and Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin Univ.). All three schools were expected to be up front again at today's National University Men's Ekiden , and race-morning lineup changes unexpectedly put Shinohara, Ota and Hirabayashi against each other again on the 2nd-to-last stage of the day. Komazawa was immediately in trouble when its first two runners Kosuke Shimako and Shunsuke Kuwata tanked, falling to 16th. AGU was out front after two of the eight legs, with Hibiki Yoshida from Izumo 4th-placer Soka University giving him a run for it and both just missing the 2nd leg CR. AGU led the rest of the way, with a 33:03 CR for the 11.8 km 4th leg by Asahi Kuroda giving it a lead of almost 1:30 that it took another CR from KGU's Ayumu Yamamoto to cut back down ...

Favorites Komazawa University ran according to plan with a course record on Day One of the 100th Hakone Ekiden, but Aoyama Gakuin University beat them to the punch with an upset win that saw them beat four of Komazawa's best. Stephen Lemayan (Surugadai Univ.) set the tone in his Hakone Ekiden with a fast start on the 21.3 km First Stage, going through 5 km in 13:59 with only Komazawa's Kotaro Shinohara , AGU's Tomoki Aramaki and Koku Gakuin University 's Kenzo Ijichi in touch. Aramaki and Ijichi quickly dropped off, and heading onto the bridge 3 km from the first exchange Shinohara, the fastest-ever Japanese-born half marathoner, picked up the pace to put Komazawa ahead by 23 seconds with the 2nd-fastest time ever on the opening stage, 1:01:02, 1:00:27 half marathon pace. Aramaki faded, dropping to 9th after being caught by the front end of the chase pack. Mebuki Suzuki handled the 23.1 km Second Stage for Komazawa and ran up to potential with a solo 1:06:20, 1:00...

There was just no stopping the best, as three-time defending champion Komazawa University led start-to-finish to win the 8-stage, 106.8 km National University Ekiden for the 4th year in a row. Yushin Akatsu led it off with a great back-and-forth sprint finish battle against Waseda University 's Jumpei Maseda to put Komazawa out front at the first exchange. Keita Sato followed that up with a 31:01 CR on the 11.1 km Second Stage, 27:57 road 10 km pace at age 19, a run that earned him this year's Nationals MVP award. And from there on out Komazawa's lead only grew. Komazawa's remaining six runners all made top 3 on their stages, and despite sunny skies and temperatures that went over 23˚, unheard of for early November, at every exchange its lead was bigger. Anchor Takuma Yamakawa started 2:49 ahead of Aoyama Gakuin University 's Yuto Tanaka and had more than enough room to coast it in for a safety win, but turned in a stage-winning 58:10 for 19.7 km to give Koma...

  Sunday is the main event at the 102nd Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships , with finals for the half marathon, 3000 m steeplechase, 800 m and 5000 m. Complete meet schedule and entry lists here . The D2/D3 men's half marathon kicks off at 9:00 a.m., with the D1 race starting 6 minutes later. Runners do four laps of the track, then head out onto the roads for 12 laps of a 1.58 km circuit before returning to finish on the track. 2023 Hakone Ekiden champ Komazawa University 's Takuma Yamakawa is the fastest man in the D2/D3 field at 1:01:36, with Goki Takayama (Koku Gakuin Univ.) and Komazawa teammate Yuto Akahoshi just behind at 1:01:42 and 1:02:00. Four men in the D1 race have run under 1:03, led by Kazuki Ishii (Juntendo Univ.) at 1:02:20. But there's a lot of potential in newcomer Brian Kipyegon (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.), already 27:51.65 for 10000 m in his first year on the collegiate circuit. The D2 men's, D1 men's and D1 women's 3000 ...

Two-time national champion Komazawa University rode the momentum of its course record win at last month's Izumo Ekiden to score a third-straight National University Men's Ekiden win Sunday in Nagoya and Mie, its 15th national title in 29 starts under head coach Hiroaki Oyagi . Komazawa's leading runner Kensuke Tsubura was 4th on the opening leg, star 1st-year Keita Sato broke the 2nd leg course record to move into 2nd, 60:40 half marathoner Chikara Yamano took the lead on the 3rd leg, and from there it was only a question of whether Komazawa could keep it together and how much they would win by. Komazawa runners won three of the remaining five stages after Yamano and took top 2 on another, with 4th-year Ren Tazawa running an incredible 49:38 course record on the 17.6 km 7th leg, 43 seconds under the old record. Anchor Kyosuke Hanao had a lead of over a kilometer for the 19.7 km 8th leg and could have jogged it in, but he soloed a 57:30 stage win to bring Komazawa h...