On Aug. 15 the organizing committee of the Aug. 28 Hokkaido Marathon announced that 2020 Olympic marathon trials winner and 30 km national record holder Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) has withdrawn from the race after contracting COVID-19. Maeda became the first woman to qualify for the 2020 trials when she won Hokkaido in 2017. This was to be her first marathon since the Tokyo Olympics marathon in Sapporo last summer. A win would have qualified her for next year's Olympic trials. The remainder of the Hokkaido field is listed here . Translator's note: Another major blow for Japanese marathoning. Maeda has been running well this season, with two half marathon PBs. She was a leading contender for the win in Hokkaido. Her withdrawal with COVID-19 follows the last-second withdrawals of women-only NR holder Mao Ichiyama , women's half-marathon NR holder Hitomi Niiya , and men's NR holder Kengo Suzuki from last month's Oregon World Championships marathons after testing posi
The Hokkaido Region University Ekiden took place Aug. 13 in Moerenuma Park in Sapporo, women running 35.86 km in 6 stages and men 101.06 km in 8 stages. In the women's race, Sapporo Gakuin University won for the 6th year in a row, running 2:15:08 and qualifying for the Oct. 30 National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai. All 6 SGU runners won their stages, definitively beating 2nd-placer Hokkaido University by over 9 minutes. Anchor Hazuki Kurokawa said, "It was my first time to break a tape at the finish line, and I loved it." SGU's Nei Tsu took the lead 2 km into the first stage, opening a gap of over a minute on 2nd. Rikako Hamada and Yuno Ishikawa handled the next two stages before the tasuki went to captain Akane Yatame on the fourth stage. The only 4th-year on the team, post-race Yatame said, "I had a lot of responsibility out there today. The younger runners really helped out." Third runner Ishikawa had suffered fractures in her left fibu