Skip to main content

Lidia Simon Looking for Osaka Top Three

http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/090121/spg0901210501001-n1.htm

translated by Brett Larner

The 2009 Osaka International Women's Marathon athletes' village officially opened on Jan. 20. Making her first appearance in Osaka, Russian Gulnara Vygovskaya, 28, arrived in the athletes' village together with her coach Volker Wagner, 59, a former coach of men's marathon world record holder Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia.

Also arriving in the athletes' village for her ninth Osaka was three-time winner Lidia Simon of Romania, 35. "I want to break 2:25 and be in the top three," Simon told reporters. As part of the pre-race festivities, runners in the athletes' village took part in a mochi-making ceremony (photo above). Simon professed her love for the traditional pounded rice-paste delicacy.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Lidia Simon is a joke. She can't keep up with shibui or akaba. She always run slow 2:30:00 pace. She'll definitely won't win.

Most-Read This Week

Top 7 Break NR at Ginza Road Mile

The mile isn't really a thing in Japan, especially on the roads, but it's starting to change a little bit. At Nike's new Ginza Mile road race, even in the middle of heavy rain the top 7 in the men's race all broke the national record of 4:00.02 set in March by Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.). Soma Nagahara (Juntendo Univ.) was first across the line to become the official new NR holder in 3:57.0, just beating Shunsuke Kuwata (Komazawa Univ.) by 0.3 in Kuwata's best race since the NYC Half in March. Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.) and Yuto Miyake (Chuo Univ.) were right behind in 3:57.9 and 3:58.1, and while there doesn't seem to be an official Taiwanese road mile NR it's pretty much a given that the 3:58.9 by Chien Tzu-Chieh (Chuo Univ.) for 5th was Taiwan's best-ever. Women's NR holder Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) easily won in 4:33.8, almost 2 seconds off her NR from 2023, with Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) 2nd in 4:36.87 and Ran Urabe ...

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .

Nagoya Asian Games Team Announced

Following this past weekend's National Championships, the JAAF has announced the complete lineup of 41 women and 45 men for September's Nagoya Asian Games national team. Times listed are athletes' 2025-26 best. Women 100 m Midori Mikase (Sumitomo Denko) - 11.33 Abigail Fuka Ido (Toho Ginko) - 11.35 200 m Abigail Fuka Ido (Toho Ginko) - 22.79 Aiko Iki (Osaka Gas) - 23.41 400 m Nanako Matsumoto (Toho Ginko) - 52.14 800 m Rin Kubo (Sekisui Kagaku) - 1:59.52 Ayano Shiomi (Iwatani Sangyo) - 2:01.01 1500 m Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 4:04.16 Mizuki Michishita (Sekisui Kagaku) - 4:10.48 5000 m Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 14:34.10 Yuma Yamamoto (Sekisui Kagaku) - 14;59.89 10000 m Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 30:54.40 Ririka Hironaka (Uniqlo) - 30:56.32 100 mH Hitomi Nakajima (Hasegawa) - 12.71 Mako Fukube (NKK) - 12.72 400 mH Honoka Aoki (Zenrin) - 55.92 Satsuki Umehara (Sumitomo Denko) - 56.22 3000 mSC Miu Saito (Panasonic) - 9:24.72 Manami Nishiyama (Mitsui...