Skip to main content

World University Cross Country Championships Results - Japan Takes Team Silver and Bronze

by Brett Larner

A local Ugandan newspaper as tweeted by WUCCC organizers FISU.

Hosts Uganda dominated the 19th edition of the World University Cross Country Championships Mar. 22 in Entebbe, winning both individual gold medals and the women's team gold.  The women's race, four laps of a roughly 1.5 km loop, went out as a race between Uganda and neighboring Kenya, with Kenya's Sheila Kandie leading Uganda's Winnie Nanyondo and Dorcus Ajok through the first lap before Nanyondo moved to the front.  Uganda's third woman, Prim Twikiriza, sat a few seconds back in the chase back with Japan's Ayumi Uehara, Fuyuka Kimura and Natsumi Ozawa.

On the third lap Nanyondo surged, covering it in 4:56.24, to drop both Kandie and Ajok, and from there she ran alone all the way to the finish to claim gold by a margin of nearly 30 seconds.  Ajok also got clear of Kandie on the third lap for silver, but on the fourth lap she was nearly run down by Twikiriza who surged hard to shake off her Japanese competition and was rewarded with bronze just five seconds back from Ajok, making it an Ugandan sweep of the podium.  Uehara, Kimura and Ozawa all ran Kenyan Kandie down on the bell lap to finish 4th through 6th and give Japan the team silver medal, with Canada's Julie-Anne Staehli also catching Kandie to lead Canada to the team bronze.

The seven-lap men's race also went out as a duel between Uganda and Kenya, with the top nine runners at the end of the first lap all hailing from those two countries.  By the end of the second lap the front group was down to Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei and Martin Chemtengin and Kenya's Daniel Muindi and Mark Lokwanamoi, with South African Alfred Mokopane and Japan's Shota Baba, of 2013 National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University, moving up to join the chase pack. A big move from Cheptegei on the third lap dropped all but Muindi, and from there the pair ran side-by-side for three laps.  On the sixth lap Cheptegei attacked again and got a gap on Muindi that proved permanent, Cheptegei claiming gold by six seconds over his Kenyan rival.

Chemtengin faded badly after the third lap, dropping to 8th by race's end.  After losing contact with Cheptegei and Muindi, Kenyan Lokwanamoi ran alone steadily in 3rd, but despite his teammate Calvin Chemoiywo's efforts to catch him Lokwanamoi was never in danger of losing the bronze.  Chemoiywo was next across the line to seal up the team gold for Kenya and disrupt Uganda's perfect sweep, the hosts consigned to team silver. Baba came up just short of catching Kenya's fourth man Joseph Kariuki but took a decent 6th, the first athlete from another country to cross the line and spearheading the Japanese men's team bronze medal.

Just behind him, Canada's Tristan Woodfine ran a very canny race, running each lap after the third progressively faster and closing with the third-fastest final lap in the field behind only top two Cheptegei and Muindi.   Woodfine ran down Uganda's second and third men Chemtengin and Julius Ochieng for 7th less than four seconds behind Baba after having been as far as 35 seconds back, but the rest of the Canadian men were unable to match him as the team failed to make the top five.

19th World University Cross Country Championships
Entebbe, Uganda, 3/22/14
click here for complete results

Women - Individual Results
1. Winnie Nanyondo (Uganda) - 20:33.77
2. Dorcus Ajok (Uganda) - 21:01.85
3. Prim Twikiriza (Uganda) - 21:06.14
4. Ayumi Uehara (Japan/Matsuyama Univ.) - 21:16.97
5. Fuyuka Kimura (Japan/Daito Bunka Univ.) - 21:22.31
6. Natsumi Ozawa (Japan/Hakuoh Univ.) - 21:30.63
7. Julie-Anne Staehli (Canada) - 21:31.34
8. Sheila Kandie (Kenya) - 21:39.15
9. Thembi Lucia Baloyi (South Africa) - 21:43.40
10. Anne Chebet (Uganda) - 21:43.50
-----
16. Maya Iino (Japan/Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) - 22:16.52

Women - Team Results
1. Uganda - 6
2. Japan - 15
3. Canada - 38
4. South Africa - 48
5. Italy - 51

Men - Individual Results
1. Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda) - 31:06.71
2. Daniel Muindi (Kenya) - 31:12.79
3. Mark Lokwanamoi (Kenya) - 32:33.26
4. Calvin Chemoiywo (Kenya) - 32:39.92
5. Joseph Kariuki (Kenya) - 32:51.36
6. Shota Baba (Japan/Komazawa Univ.) - 32:55.88
7. Tristan Woodfine (Canada) - 32:59.25
8. Martin Chemtengin (Uganda) - 33:00.09
9. Julius Ochieng (Uganda) - 33:12.93
10. Alex Baldaccini (Italy) - 33:16.55
-----
12. Masaya Kakihara (Japan/Kanagawa University) - 33:22.03
13. Mitsunori Asaoka (Japan/Tokyo Nogyo University) - 33:24.53
16. Hiroshi Ichida (Japan/Daito Bunka University) - 33:47.93

Men - Team Results
1. Kenya - 14
2. Uganda - 29
3. Japan - 47
4. South Africa - 74
5. Italy - 88

(c) 2014 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

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

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

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr