Ota Breaks Road 5 km NR

Another busy weekend in Japan and for Japanese athletes racing abroad. On the roads, the biggest thing at home was ASICS’ Tokyo:Speed:Race Wavelight-paced promo event for its new road shoe lineup. After setting a 59:27 NR at the Marugame Half in February, Tomoki Ota (Toyota) added another low-hanging NR fruit to his resume with a 13:30 for 10th in the 5 km. Harbert Kibet (Uganda) took the win in 13:00. Jemal Mekonen (Ethiopia) won the men’s 10 km in 27:10, where Kyosuke Hanao (Toyota Kyushu) was the top Japanese man in 28:23, technically also a new NR, but come on. Triathlete Hayden Wilde (New Zealand) was 7th in an excellent 27:39, only to crash on his bike in Tokyo the next day and suffering multiple broken bones and a punctured lung.

Marathon NR holder Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) had a mini comeback in the women’s 5 km, finishing 13th in 15:48 as the top Japanese finisher. Caroline Nyaga (Kenya) won in a stellar 14:19, with the top 5 all breaking 15 minutes. Joy Cheptoyek made it an Ugandan double for domination of the 10 km, winning the women’s race in 30:22. Kaede Kawamura (Iwatani Sangyo) topped the Japanese finisher list at 14th in 32:43.

Overseas, Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei) was back in Prague for the Prague Marathon, where he followed up his 4th-place finish at September’s Sydney Marathon and 8th-place at December’s Shanghai Marathon with a solid 3rd in 2:09:10. Amateur Mitsuko Ino was 11th in the women’s race in 2:46:53. In Canada, 2024 Ibusuki Nanohana Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (ANDS) ran his first sub-2:20 in over a year and a half with a 2:18:16 for 3rd in the Vancouver Marathon.

On the track, the biggest news was the Diamond League debut of this year’s Hakone Ekiden Seventh Stage CR breaker Keita Sato (Komazawa Univ.) in the men’s 5000 m at the Shanghai/Keqiao Diamond League meet. Hoping to break Suguru Osako‘s 13:08.40 NR, Sato finished 12th in 13:19.58 behind Ethiopian winner Berihu Aregawi‘s 12:50.54 MR. Notably, with the exception of pacer Emmanuel Kibet who jogged it in after finishing his pacing duties, Sato was the only athlete in the 15 finishers who accelerated every 100 m over the last 600 m, 5th-fastest in the field over the last 400 m in 59.5, 4th-fastest over the last 300 m in 44.1, 4th-fastest over the last 200 m in 29.1, and 3rd-fastest over the last 100 m in 14.4. Japanese-born collegiate men have broken 13:20 in the 5000 m a total of 7 times in history, and 3 of those have now been by Sato, including the only sub-13:10.

Also in Keqiao, Rachid Muratake (JAL) was 2nd in the men’s 110 mH in a season best 13.10 (+0.6 m/s). Olympic champ Haruka Kitaguchi (JAL) was 4th in the women’s javelin throw with a 60.88 m SB, well off Greek winner Elina Tzengko‘s 64.90 m. Sato’s Rakunan H.S. teammate Ryuji Miura (Subaru) was a DNS in the men’s 3000 mSC after developing some pain in his right leg after arriving in China.

At the Grand Slam Miami meet in the U.S., Nozomi Tanaka (New Balance) was last in the women’s 3000 m in 8:44.51 and 7th of 8 finishers in the 5000 m in 15:06.78.

The Golden Games in Nobeoka meet actually produced faster domestic marks than both Sato and Tanaka’s times at the higher-level international meets. In the men’s 5000 m B-heat, 10000 m NR holder Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) turned in an unexpected 13:13.59 PB for 7th, the fastest time by a Japanese man since the 2024 National Championships last June. Emmanuel Kiprop Kipruto won in 13:06.71. In the women’s 5000 m A-heat, Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) continued to build her comeback season, edging Tanaka’s time in Miami with a 15:05.69 for 3rd behind winner Lucy Nduta‘s 15:03.66.

At the Shizuoka International Meet, teenaged 800 m NR holders Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) and Rin Kubo (Higashi Osaka Keiai H.S.) both ran the 2nd-fastest times of their careers, Ochiai just holding off Kenyan Felix Muthiani and China’s Dezhu Lu to win in 1:45.16 and Kubo easily taking women’s final in 2:00.28.

In the women’s 400 m, Arie Flores (Nittai Univ.) won in a collegiate record 51.71, beating the 51.75 Japanese NR set before she was born by 0.04. But because Flores’s transfer of nationality from Peru to Japan has not yet been finalized by the Japanese government, she will not be credited with a new NR. In the men’s 200 m, Towa Uzawa (JAL) won the final in 20.05, just off the 20.03 but with a tailwind just over the legal limit at +2.1 m/s. Still, his performance raised the possibility of seeing not only a new NR this season but Japan’s first sub-20.