japan running news

Meet 3 of 5 in this year's Hokuren Distance Challenge series happened Saturday in Abashiri, Hokkaido. The biggest news came in the women's 10000 m , where 2021 National University Half Marathon champion Narumi Kobayashi  (Meijo Univ.) broke the 11-year-old collegiate women's national record and cleared the qualifying time for next year's World Championships. Running with excellent pacing by  Pauline Kamulu  (Route Inn Hotels), Kobayashi split 15:44 at 5000 m before picking it up in the second half to win in 31:22.34. Ai Hosoda  (Edion) hung with Kobayashi as long as she could but ended up 2nd in 31:39.32, with amateur club runner Haruka Yamaguchi  (AC Kita) taking 15 seconds off her two month-old PB for 3rd in 32:09.44. James Muoki  (Konica Minolta) won the men's 10000 m A-heat in 27:35.59. Muiru Muthoni  (JR Higashi Nihon) was the only other man under 28 minutes at 27:52.93, Kazuya Nishiyama  (Toyota) fading to 28:08.36 after Yuki Sato (SGH G...

Takekawa Hosei univ. 5m60 7lefts #boutakachannel #polevault pic.twitter.com/WCuSQ6Qfmr — Boutaka Channel (@BoutakaChannel) May 26, 2018 A great D1 men's pole vault brought most of the entertainment value to the thid day of the 97th Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships Saturday at Sagamihara Gion Stadium in the back corners of the Kanagawa badlands. Kosei Takekawa (Hosei Univ.) cleared 5.60 m to set a new Kanto Regionals meet record, beating Kanto Region record holder Masaki Ejima (Nihon Univ.) who could only clear 5.50 m this time out the gate. The D1 men's 3000 mSC final was also solid, with Takekawa's teammate Ryoma Aoki (Hosei Univ.) running a PB 8:42.11 for the win over Tsubasa Komuro (Toyo Univ.), whose 8:43.62 was a school record. For comparison, at almost the same time the U.S.-based Yusuke Uchikoshi (Boise State Univ.) and Takeshi Okada (UC Berkeley) ran only 8:48.03 and 9:10.41 at the NCAA West Preliminary Round meet in Sacram...

by Brett Larner #関東インカレ 1部200 予選5組(桐生君) pic.twitter.com/T4NQK1hC74 — たけはら (@imoo47910) May 27, 2017 Following up on his 100 m title and anchor run for Toyo University's 4x100 m team, Rio Olympics men's 4x100 m silver medalist Yoshihide Kiryu rolled on through day three of his final Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships , winning his 200 m heat in 20.79 +1.3 m/s. Where he easily dominated all three rounds of the 100 m, this time Kiryu had pressure. In Heat 3, second-year Jun Yamashita (Tsukuba Univ.) ran 20.71 -0.5 m/s to take the top spot heading into the semi-finals. 男子1部 棒高跳び 優勝🥇 来間弘樹(順大) 5m55 大会新記録🎉 おめでとう🎊 #関東インカレ pic.twitter.com/uUEpxeuuYf — はる (@haru__800) May 27, 2017 After a raft of meet records on the second day of Regionals, two more events saw new records on day three. In the D2 men's javelin throw, little-known Ryoma Nakaura (Ibaraki Univ.) threw a meet record 71.93 m to win by over six meters. The competition of the day c...

by Brett Larner The third day of the World U20 Championships was a good one for the Japanese contingent. Just behind PB runs from Americans Marcus Krah and Amere Lattin , Takumu Furuya ran an Asian junior record of 13.31 for bronze in the men's 110 m hurdles, Japan's first medal of the Championships.  Of the ten other athletes in action today, eight advanced through their heats and semi-finals. Naoki Kitadani and Kazuki Matsukiyo lead the way in the men's 400 m semis, both running PBs to make the final.   Jun Yamashita also delivered a PB in the opening round heats of the men's 200 m, running 20.89 for 3rd in Heat 4 to advance along with Wataru Inuzuka , 4th in Heat 1.  Yamashita ran another PB of 20.67 in the semi-finals to make it to the final, but Inuzuka was cutoff after finishing only 6th in 21.40. Along with Furuya the other men's hurdlers were also strong, both Tatsuhiro Yamamoto and Yoshiro Watanabe advancing in the 400 m hurdles with Watan...

by Brett Larner Japan sends a team of 44 athletes, 14 women and 30 men, to the rebranded World Junior Championships, hereout known as the World U20 Championships , this week in Bydgoszcz, Poland. 2015 World Youth Championships women's javelin throw gold medalist Haruka Kitaguchi (Nihon Univ.) is Japan's best chance for a medal, the only woman in the field to have thrown over 60 m.  Her teammate Mikako Yamashita (Kyushu Kyoritsu Univ.) looks like another medal contender, her 58.59 m ranking her 3rd in the javelin field.  The team features the current national high school champions in fourteen events, a few including Kitaguchi having made the top three at last month's Japanese National Championships and many ranking in the top ten in their events at World U20.  5th in the men's' 3000 m at last year's World Youth Championships, Hyuga Endo (Gakuho Ishikawa H.S.) doesn't fit any of those categories, but with new 3000 m and 5000 m bests of 8:01.95 and 13:48.1...

by Brett Larner Toyo University fourth year Daisuke Matsunaga delivered the biggest result of the third day of competition at the 2016 Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, breaking the men's 10000 m national university record by two seconds to win in 38:16.76.  Meet records also came in the D1 women's hammer throw and D1 men's pole vault, Hitomi Katsuyama (Tsukuba Univ.) breaking her own record by nearly two meters with a throw of 62.61 m and Koki Kuruma (Juntendo Univ.) clearing 5.40 m to tie the existing Kanto Regionals record. Kuruma's Juntendo teammate Kazuya Shiojiri returned from a 3rd-place finish as the top Japanese man in Thursday's D1 10000 m and the fastest time in the 3000 mSC heats on Friday to win the D1 3000 mSC final, just missing the 39-year-old meet record by 2 seconds to take first in 8:37.84.  Soyoka Segawa continued the Daito Bunka University domination of the women's steeple, claiming the title in 10:10.68. Th...

by Brett Larner videos by naoki620 After a National High School Track and Field Championships packed with new records including two junior and high school national records, three more meet records capped the final day of competition, hot temperatures in the mid-30's notwithstanding. Nao Kanai (Kawasaki Tachibana H.S.) got things started in the boys' 110 m hurdles with a record 13.85, the only boy to go under 14 seconds despite a strong +1.4 m/s tailwind.  Chihiro Nozaki (Rakunan H.S.) followed up in the boys' triple jump with a 15.80 m meet record jump to win by almost 75 cm.  Shinichi Yukinaga (Seiko Gakuen H.S.) rounded out the action in the boys' discus throw with a mark of 55.59 m for the win, like Kanai short of his PB but enough for a new National High School Championships record. The girls' 3000 m had an unexpected turn of events when favorite Nozomi Musembi Takamatsu (Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S.), the 2014 Youth Olympics 3000 m gold medalist,...