Skip to main content

Tanui and Suzuki Win Corporate 10000 m Titles

by Brett Larner
click here for Day Two results and report

The last major track meet of the year on the Japanese calendar, the National Corporate Track and Field Championships kicked off in near-secrecy on Sept. 25 at Gifu's Nagaragawa Field with the men's and women's 10000 m races.  Organizers hit back at the increasing number of fans turning up at their meets and sharing pictures and videos on social media with a ban on use of all cameras including phones unless owners registered with them in advance and paid a fee.  Most fans gave the meet a miss as a result, with relatively empty stands and lack of online chatter seeming to indicate success in organizers' attempts to prevent their work from becoming popular among the general public.

Beijing World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko) outran a solid field of Japan-resident Africans to win the men's A-heat in 27:37.13 six seconds ahead of runner-up James Mwangi (Team NTN).  Bernard Kimanyi (Team Yakult) rounded out the podium in 27:54.30.  Former 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno (DeNA RC) was the top Japanese man at 7th in 28:12.95, his best time this year.

In just the third 10000 m of her career a few weeks after a frontrunning 5000 m PB in the Beijing World Championships final, 2013 World University Games 10000 m gold medalist Ayuko Suzuki (Team Japan Post Group) took more than a minute off her best to win the A-heat in 31:48.18, over fifteen seconds ahead of 2014 World Half Marathon Championships bronze medalist Sally Chepyego (Team Kyudenko) and easily clearing the Rio de Janeiro Olympics standard.  Shiho Takechi (Team Yamada Denki) was far back in 3rd, running 32:26.38.

The National Corporate Track and Field Championships continue throughout the weekend.

63rd National Corporate Track and Field Championships Day One
Nagaragawa Field, Gifu, 9/25/15
click here for complete results

Men's 10000 m Heat 3
1. Paul Tanui (Kyudenko) - 27:37.13
2. James Mwangi (NTN) - 27:43.25
3. Bernard Kimanyi (Yakult) - 27:54.30
4. Melaku Abera (Kurosaki Harima) - 27:55.19
5. Charles Ndungu (Komori Corp.) - 28:1014
6. Patrick Muwaka (Aisan Kogyo) - 28:11.39
7. Yuichiro Ueno (DeNA) - 28:12.95
8. Joseph Kamathi (Toyota) - 28:20.85
9. Johana Maina (Fujitsu) - 28:22.61
10. Shuho Dairokuno (Asahi Kasei) - 28:26.72

Women's 10000 m Heat 2
1. Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post Group) - 31:48.18
2. Sally Chepyego (Kyudenko) - 32:03.96
3. Shiho Takechi (Yamada Denki) - 32:26.38
4. Hanae Tanaka (Daiichi Seimei) - 32:28.29
5. Reia Iwade (Noritz) - 32:28.76
6. Michi Numata (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 32:28.91
7. Rina Yamazaki (Panasonic) - 32:34.25
8. Misaki Kato (Kyudenko) - 32:35.04
9. Sayaka Kuwahara (Sekisui Kagaku) - 32:37.09
10. Yukari Ishizawa (Edion) - 32:57.39

Men's 10000 m Heat 2
1. Mitsunori Asaoka (Hitachi Butsuryu) - 28:51.59
2. Takuya Noguchi (Konica Minolta) - 28:53.05
3. Chiharu Nakagawa (Toenec) - 28:53.30
4. Shota Kai (Yachiyo Kogyo) - 28:54.08
5. Shinji Yoshimoto (Kurosaki Harima) - 28:54.88

Women's 10000 m Heat 1
1. Rika Toguchi (Route Inn Hotels) - 33:02.37
2. Ai Utsunomiya (Miyazaki Ginko) - 33:13.31
3. Hiroko Miyauchi (Hokuren) - 33:25.25
4. Manami Kamitanida (Hitachi) - 33:31.41
5. Yurie Doi (Starts) - 33:31.42

Men's 10000 m Heat 1
1. Daiki Taguchi (Hitachi Butsuryu) - 28:51.82
2. Hayato Sonoda (Kurosaki Harima) - 29:00.11
3. Masatoshi Kikuchi (Fujitsu) - 29:00.72

(c) 2015 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...

Japan Names Marathon Teams for Tokyo World Championships

On Mar. 26 the JAAF named its women's and men's marathon teams for September's Tokyo World Championships. On the women's side the team has veterans Sayaka Sato and Yuka Ando off the strength of a runner-up finish for Sato in Nagoya this year and a win in Nagoya last year by Ando, and newcomer Kana Kobayashi , 23, who has risen quickly from being a fun runner at Waseda University last year to a 2nd-place finish in Osaka Women's this year. Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Suzuki was named alternate after finishing 3rd behind Kobayashi in Osaka Women's. On the men's side the team is led by last year's Fukuoka International Marathon CR breaker Yuya Yoshida and this year's Osaka runner-up Ryota Kondo . The 3rd spot on the team is reserved for JMC Series winner Naoki Koyama , who hasn't cleared the 2:06:30 World Championships qualifying standard and has to wait for the May 4 qualifying deadline for confirmation that the 1184 points he has in the Roa...