Skip to main content

Hyuga Endo Breaks 3000 m Japanese High School National Record

by Brett Larner


Ekiden season is underway but there is plenty of track action along the way as teams get ready for the main road races.  A week after his third-straight National Sports Festival track title, 12th-grader Hyuga Endo (Gakuho Ishikawa H.S.) became the first Japanese high schooler to break 8 minutes for 3000 m when he won Hyogo's Sumitomo Denko Cup in 7:59.18 by a margin of more than 20 seconds.  Opening with a 2:36.82 first 1000 m, Endo slowed to 2:42.50 in the middle of the race, still on track to break 8 overall but behind pace over the next 600 m.  One of Endo's main strengths to date has been his kick over the last lap, and here a 59.92 second last lap was just enough to get him under.  Endo's time was a new high school national record and the second-fastest ever by a Japanese junior.  With a steady string of new PBs from 1500 m to 5000 m over the last two years the new record was another step forward for Endo, who plans to join the Sumitomo Denko corporate team after his graduation next spring.


The same day in Fukuoka another high schooler dropped a fast 3000 m. Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki Shogyo H.S.), already Japan's fastest-ever 10th grader in the women's 3000 m, took 3 seconds off her best as she won the All-Kyushu High School Newcomers' Meet in 9:00.81.  A meet record, Hironaka's time was the 5th-best Japanese girls' high school mark and 7th-best junior mark, and it was enough to beat Kenyan Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.) by over 5 seconds.


Another fast race came at the Chubu Corporate Track and Field Meet in Gifu, where Kenyans James Rungaru (Team Chuo Hatsujo) and Hiram Ngatia (Team Toyota) pushed each other where at least Ngatia had never gone over 10000 m.  Both clocked 27:30, former Toyota runner Rungaru getting the win in 27:30.17, his best time in over five years, and Ngatia 2nd in a 10-second+ PB of 27:30.75.  Edward Waweru (Team NTN) and Patrick Muendo Mwaka (Team Aisan Kogyo) were both under 27:45, with Ngatia's teammate Yuma Hattori (Team Toyota) running a PB of 28:09.74 for 7th as the top Japanese finisher.

© 2016 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis
Post a Comment
Read more

Fujitsu and Toyoda Issue Statement on Circumstances of His Two-Year Suspension for Trenbolone

  Following 400 m hurdler Masaki Toyoda 's suspension for a violation of anti-doping regulations , the Fujitsu corporate team published a statement on its website, including comments from Toyoda's legal team , explaining the ruling and the circumstances surrounding the case. Toyoda was a member of the 2019 Doha World Championships team and holds a best of 48.87. Early in the morning of May 19, 2022, the Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) conducted a doping test of Toyoda. The prohibited substance trenbolone was detected in urine taken during the test, resulting in a two-year suspension that began May 21, 2022. He did not compete at the National Track and Field Championships the next month. The amount of trenbolone detected in Toyoda's urine sample was 1.4 ng/ml, well below the minimum analytical precision of 2.5 ng/ml required by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for analytical equipment. As a general rule, if a non-specified prohibited substance such as trenbolone is dete
Post a Comment
Read more

Saturday at Kanaguri and Nittai

Two big meets happened Saturday, one in Kumamoto and the other in Yokohama. At Kumamoto's Kanaguri Memorial Meet , Benard Koech (Kyudenko) turned in the performance of the day with a 13:13.52 meet record to win the men's 5000 m A-heat by just 0.11 seconds over Emmanuel Kipchirchir (SGH). The top four were all under 13:20, with 10000 m national record holder Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) bouncing back from a DNF at last month's The TEN to take the top Japanese spot at 7th overall in 13:24.57. The B-heat was also decently quick, Shadrack Rono (Subaru) winning in 13:21.55 and Shoya Yonei (JR Higashi Nihon) running a 10-second PB to get under 13:30 for the first time in 13:29.29 for 6th. Paris Olympics marathoner Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) was 9th in 13:30.62. South Sudan's Abraham Guem (Ami AC) also set a meet record in the men's 1500 m A-heat in 3:38.94. 3000 mSC national record holder Ryuji Miura made his debut with the Subaru corporate team, running 3:39.78 for 2n
1 comment
Read more