Yuki Sato Misses Mark in Flanders Cup

by Brett Larner

Like rival Kensuke Takezawa (Team S&B) in Spain just 24 hours earlier, the prodigious Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) couldn't crack the barrier in his last attempt at earning a World Championships A-standard in the 5000 m. A week after running a 3000 m PB Sato ran the 5000 m at the July 26 Flanders Cup meet in Brasschaat, Belgium. Sato needed to attain the A-standard of 13:20.00 to join his former high school teammate Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) in the 5000 m on the national team for next month's World Championships. His time of 13:35.32 was good for 2nd in the Flanders Cup race but fell short of even the B-standard. A small group of other Japanese runners also ran the Flanders 5000 m, with Sato's training partner Satoru Kitamura (Team Nissin Shokuhin) landing 12th in 13:41.44.

In April Sato ran 27:38.25 for 10000 m, the third-best ever by a Japanese man and comfortably clearing the World Championships A-standard. Injury troubles held him back at June's National Championships where he was 10th in only 28:58.46, leading disappointed Rikuren officials to say he had no chance of being named to the national team. At the moment only B-standard holder Yuki Iwai (Team Asahi Kasei), the top Japanese finisher at Nationals, has a spot on the 10000 m squad. With a handful of decent 5000 m marks and a new 3000 m PB from the last few weeks in Europe to show that he is on his way back to full fitness just in time to peak for the World Championships it would be surprising and unfortunate if Rikuren did not relent and send the young Sato, who along with Takezawa is the best hope for the next generation of Japanese distance men, to Berlin to get his first experience of world-level competition.

Already holding the World Championships B-standard but having performed poorly at Nationals, 1500 m specialist Kazuya Watanabe (Team Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) also tried to score a mark which would impress Rikuren officials enough to have them add him to the Berlin roster. It was clearly not his day as Watanabe ran in last place throughout the race and struggled home alone in 3:50.48 with a gap of three seconds separating him from the nearest straggler.

2009 Flanders Cup Meet in Brasschaat - Top Finishers
click here for complete results
click event headers for race videos
Men's 5000 m
1. Dame Tasama (Ethiopia) - 13:34.97
2. Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 13:35.32
3. Scotty Bauhs (U.S.A.) - 13:35.39
4. Mark Kennealy (Ireland) - 13:36.71
5. Brent Vaughn (U.S.A.) - 13:37.16
-----
9. Yusei Nakao (Team Toyota Boshoku) - 13:38.93
12. Satoru Kitamura (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 13:41.44
14. Suehiro Ishikawa (Team Honda) - 13:44.69
15. Naoki Okamoto (Team Chugoku Denryoku) - 13:49.60

Men's 1500 m A-heat
1. Kristof van Malderen (Belgium) - 3:39.43
2. Daniel Salel (Kenya) - 3:39.51
3. Taylor Milne (Canada) - 3:39.62
-----
13. Kazuya Watanabe (Team Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) - 3:50.48

Men's 1500 m B-heat
1. Darren Gauson (U.K.) - 3:42.53
2. Tim Konoval (Canada) - 3:42.53
3. Yasunori Murakami (Team Fujitsu) - 3:43.37
-----
13. Daisuke Tamura (Japan) - 3:51.02

Men's 800 m B-heat
1. Marc Wieczorek (U.S.A.) - 1:47.97
2. Takeshi Kuchino (Japan) - 1:48.33
3. Stefan Van Aelst (Belgium) - 1:48.80
4. Taiki Tsutsumi (Japan) - 1:48.97

(c) 2009 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges. Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...

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."...

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

japan running news

Search This Blog