Skip to main content

Avenging Beijing! Ogata Joins Tokyo Marathon Lineup

http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/flash/KFullFlash20090222081.html

translated by Brett Larner

On Feb. 22, Beijing Olympics men's marathon 13th place finisher Tsuyoshi Ogata (Team Chugoku Denryoku) announced that he will run next month's Tokyo Marathon after having pulled out of December's Fukuoka International Marathon and February's Marugame International Half Marathon with minor injuries. "[After the Olympics] I was a lot more tired than I thought and my condition kind of broke down," stated Ogata, "but now I plan to do the Tokyo Marathon." Commented on his remaining training for Tokyo, Ogata said, "I don't know if everything is going to go smoothly or not, but there's only a month left so I want to do whatever I can to be ready."

Translator's note: The Tokyo Marathon has not yet released details on its elite field for this year's race on Mar. 22. In theory the addition of substantial prize money and a women's race this year in Tokyo could mean a high quality elite field, but with the strength of the fields already announced for London, Boston and Rotterdam there are doubts about what foreign athletes Tokyo will be able pull in. As a selection race for the men's Berlin World Championships team Tokyo will have many top domestic runners, and in fact this year it seems to have drawn many domestic elites away from this week's selection race, the Biwako Mainichi Marathon (aka Lake Biwa Marathon).

Comments

Most-Read This Week

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 ...

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...

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...