Skip to main content

16-Year-Old Hyuga Endo Runs 13:58.93 Tenth-Grade Record at Nittai Time Trials (updated)



by Brett Larner
photo by Kazuyuki Sugimatsu 
video by kozai1802

It was an amazing weekend of racing that saw world records fall at the Kumamoto Kosa 10-miler, Patrick Makau return and Japan get its 9th and 10th sub-2:10 men of the year in Fukuoka and Yuki Kawauchi take almost ten minutes off the Naha Marathon course record, but it didn't stop there.

In the 41st and final 5000 m heat of the day well after dark at the last full Nittai University Time Trials meet of 2014, 16-year-old Hyuga Endo (Gakko Hojin Ishikawa H.S.) took 36 seconds off his PB to finish 5th in 13:58.93, the first Japanese 10th grader to ever break 14 minutes.  Post-race he tweeted:
The Nittai University Time Trials were today!  My time was 13:58!  I'm really happy to have run the #1 time ever by a 10th grader.  Thanks to everyone who cheered for me I kept my pace all the way to the end without slowing down!  Thank you all very, very much for cheering!
And he wasn't alone.  12th grader Ryuya Kajitani (Hakuo Prep Ashikaga H.S.) was 3rd in 13:57.81 and 11th grader Rei Hasegawa (Toyokawa H.S.) 6th in 13:59.03, a solid showing in the buildup to the National High School Ekiden Championships in two weeks.  With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when Endo will be a senior in university, on their horizons, Japan's young distance runners keep raising the bar for each other.

Nittai University Time Trials Men's 5000 m Heat 41
Yokohama, Kanagawa, 12/7/14
click here for complete results

1. Tatsuro Okazaki (Team Osaka Gas) - 13:53.88
2. Samuel Mwangi (Kenya/Team Konica Minolta) - 13:55.64
3. Ryuya Kajitani (Hakuo Prep Ashikaga H.S.) - 13:57.81
4. Ataru Otani (Nanyo City Hall) - 13:58.21
5. Hyuga Endo (Gakko Hojin Ishikawa H.S.) - 13:58.93
6. Rei Hasegawa (Toyokawa H.S.) - 13:59.03
7. Yuki Iwasaki (Team Sekino Reform) - 13:59.05
8. Shun Suzuki (Nanyo City Hall) - 13:59.65
9. Yasunari Kusu (Team Komori Corp.) - 14:00.60
10. Yoshihiro Wakamatsu (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 14:01.03

text (c) 2014 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
finish photo (c) 2014 Kazuyuki Sugimatsu, all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Sprinter Shoji Tomihisa Retires From Athletics at 105

A retirement ceremony for local masters track and field legend Shoji Tomihisa , 105, was held May 13 at his usual training ground at Miyoshi Sports Park Field in Miyoshi, Hiroshima. Tomihisa began competing in athletics at age 97, setting a Japanese national record 16.98 for 60 m in the men's 100~104 age group at the 2017 Chugoku Masters Track and Field meet. Last year Tomihisa was the oldest person in Hiroshima selected to run as a torchbearer in the Tokyo Olympics torch relay. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the relay on public roads was canceled, and while he did take part in related ceremonies his run was ultimately canceled. Tomihisa recently took up the shot put, but in light of his fading physical strength he made the decision to retire from competition. Around 30 members of the Shoji Tomihisa Booster Club attended the retirement ceremony. After receiving a bouquet of flowers from them Tomihisa in turn gave them a colored paper placard on which he had written the characters