Skip to main content

Gideon Ngatuny Takes Kumamoto Kosa 10 Miler

by Brett Larner

Two weeks after running a course record 1:00:11 to win the Nagoya Half Marathon in his debut at the distance, Team Nissin Shokuhin's Masai Kenyan ringer Gideon Ngatuny won Kyushu's elite Kumamoto Kosa 10 Mile Road Race, clocking 45:15 and beating runner-up Hailu Mekonnen of Team Honda by 44 seconds. Teammates Samuel Ndungu and Jacob Wajuki of Team Aichi Steel came in together in 46:32 to round out the top positions.

Curiously, Kumamoto Kosa organizers scored the four African runners, all of whom are based in Japan and run professionally for Japanese teams, in a separate 'International Division' with a one-minute head start over the 'General Division,' which was made up exclusively of professional Japanese runners including many of the African runners' nominal teammates. Although the International Division ran first and the 'winner' of the General Division, Ngatuny's fellow Nissin runner Kosaku Hoshina, clocked only 46:40, slower than the last finisher in the International Division, the race's official results listing displays the General Division results first, with the International Division results tucked away following last place General Division finisher Shogo Murakami's lackluster 59:06.

At any rate, one of Team Nissin Shokuhin's star rookies, half-Filipino former Senshu Univ. leader Bene Zama, took '2nd place' in the General Division, just 4 seconds behind Hoshina and beating Team Toyota Kyushu's ace Yu Mitsuya by 5 seconds. Zama was undoubtedly allowed to compete in the General Division rather than the International Division due to the fact that he took Japanese citizenship before graduating from Senshu, legally changing his name from Benedict to the Japanese name Bene. Mitsuya's teammate Masato Imai, the legendary Hakone Ekiden 5th stage 'God of the Mountains,' was '6th' in 46:53.

Team Nissin Shokuhin, with winners in both Kumamoto Kosa divisions and six finishers in the top fifteen of the General Division, looks to have a solid lineup for next month's New Year Ekiden. With the addition of Zama and fellow rookie Satoru Kitamura to its roster the team is all but guaranteed to improve on its 6th place finish at the 2008 New Year Ekiden and may even give defending champion Team Konica Minolta a scare.

2008 Kumamoto Kosa 10 Mile Road Race Top Finishers
International Division
1. Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 45:15
2. Hailu Mekonnen (Team Honda) - 45:59
3. Samuel Ndungu (Team Aichi Steel) - 46:32
4. Jacob Wajuki (Team Aichi Steel) - 46:32

General Division
1. Kosaku Hoshina (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 46:40
2. Bene Zama (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 46:44
3. Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 46:49
4. Tomoaki Bungo (Team Asahi Kasei) - 46:52
5. Yoshihisa Takemura (Team Shikoku Denryoku) - 46:52
6. Masato Imai (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 46:53
7. Hiroki Kadota (Team Kanebo) - 46:54
8. Kazuyoshi Tokumoto (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 46:54
9. Terukazu Omori (Team Shikoku Denryoku) - 46:55
10. Naoto Morimoto (Team Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) - 46:56

Complete results including the high school boys' 10 km, high school girls' 5 km, and junior high school boys' 5 km races are available here.

(c) 2008 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

CR Holder Teruki Shimada Returns to Launceston Half - Preview and Streaming

Last year's McGrath Launceston Running Festival Peppers Silo Half Marathon in Tasmania, Australia shaped out into a great Australia vs. Japan dual meet , with Jessica Stenson outrunning Yumi Yoshikawa to take the women's title in a 1:09:51 CR, and Teikyo University school record holder Teruki Shimada executing a tactically brilliant race to drop Isaac Heyne , then-NR holder Brett Robinson , and Teikyo teammate Jinya Ozaki for the win in 1:01:12, just a second off the Australian all-comers record. Marathon NR holder Andy Buchanan took that record down to 1:01:08 at the Gold Coast Half a month later, but its chances of surviving this weekend aren't looking good. Shimada leads last year's top 4 back to Launceston this year, and there's a lot of tough new competition. 2025 National Corporate Half winner Tsubasa Ichiyama , Australia's Haftu Strintzos , new Teikyo record holder Yuta Asakawa and American Ethan Shuley have all run faster that Buchanan's rec...
Post a Comment
Read more

Murayama and Sasaki Making U.S. Debut at New York Mini 10 km

Every year since 2012 that there's been a United Airlines NYC Half , JRN has partnered with the NYRR and November's Ageo City Half Marathon to bring two top-tier collegiate Japanese men to the NYC Half for what's usually been their international debuts. For years we've wanted to extend that program to include top collegiate women, but that has always faced 2 problems. For one, while the half marathon distance is the main focus for Japanese collegiate men due to the stage lengths at the Hakone Ekiden, few collegiate women run it. Those that do run the National University Women's Half Marathon in Matsue, held the same day as the NYC Half. This year, though, we're finally making it happen in a slightly different way. Amisa Murayama and Nazuki Sasaki of 2025 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national collegiate championship runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University are joining the field for the NYRR's Mastercard New York Mini 10 km on June 6. After running an 18:14 CR ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Some Reflections on the Ekiden

by Brett Larner This ekiden season I've had a few thoughts kicking around, and watching this week's Hakone Ekiden a few of them became clearer.  These are still in progress, but at the moment this is what I'm thinking in terms of running as a spectator sport and about the quality of Japanese men's distance running right now. Quality: Japanese men's running is coming up very, very quickly.  I was in the lead car at November's Ageo City Half Marathon , where 18 men, 17 of them university runners, broke 63 minutes.  As it was going on we all thought it was a slow race because there were so many people running that pace all the way, no separation at all in the mass of the pack. See the JRN header photo above, taken just past halfway.  That's pretty unusual in Japan, especially at the university level; generally you'll get a handful of guys who run an aggressive pace and a mass running dead on a safe pace, 3:00/km in a half marathon, for example. Th...
18 comments
Read more