Skip to main content

Win a Japanese National Team Singlet in JRN's World Championships Marathon Prediction Contest

Japanese marathoners have won individual medals at every World Championships marathon since 1991 except for 1995. The members of this year's national team are extremely motivated to continue this legacy after the debacle at last summer's Beijing Olympics marathons, and there are realistic prospects.

To show its support JRN is holding a World Championships marathon prediction contest with the grand prize of a 2009 World Championships Japanese national team singlet. To enter, send an email with the subject line 'Marathon prediction contest' to the address in Brett Larner's user profile. Copy and paste the list of Japanese athletes below into the body of the message and fill in your prediction for each runner's overall finishing place and time including seconds. List 'DNS' for any runner you think will not start, including the alternates. List 'DNF' for any athlete you think will start but not finish. You must fill out both the men's and women's listings to be elligible for the grand prize. Entries must be received by 4:00 p.m. on Sat., Aug. 22nd Japan time to be considered. Late, incomplete or multiple entries will not be accepted.

The entry with the most accurate predictions for both the men's and women's marathons will win the grand prize. Runners-up, i.e. the entrants who give the most accurate predictions in either race, will also receive quality schwag. Winners will be notified via email.



Men's Marathon
Arata Fujiwara - place: / time:
Satoshi Irifune - place: / time:
Kazuhiro Maeda - place: / time:
Atsushi Sato - place: / time:
Masaya Shimizu - place: / time:
(alternate: Kensuke Takahashi - place: /
time: )

Women's Marathon
Yukiko Akaba - place: / time:
Yoshiko Fujinaga - place: / time:
Yuri Kano - place: / time:
Yoshimi Ozaki - place: / time:



Below is a quick guide to the Japanese marathon teams at this year's World Championships. The first column shows each athlete's fastest marathon time within the World Championships qualification window of Sept. 3, 2007 to Aug. 3, 2009. The second column shows his or her slowest time in a serious race effort during the same period. The third column shows the runner's lifetime best. Click here for a more detailed preview of the men's team, or here for a profile of the women's team. You can also search this blog for more info on a particular athlete. Click here for complete entry lists for the World Championships marathons. Good luck.

Comments

Kevin said…
I think akaba will be the top japanese finisher cause of her impressive half marathon pb. This what I think
Akaba 7th place 2:25:25
yoshiko fujingaga 18th 2:28:09
Yuri Kano 11th place 2:26:34
yoshimi Ozaki 10th place 2:26:00
Yoko shibui 16th 2:27:16 I also think shibui will run wth the lead pack for 30km but is going to fade badly to 16th place.
Brett Larner said…
Kevin--

Please email me your predictions if you want to enter the contest. Remember to include predictions for the men's race.
Anonymous said…
Great idea, I´ll definitely take part (although I have no clue what Ozaki has been doing of late)!
Btw how is the combined accuracy of place and time measured and how is a DNS or DNF accounted for ´mathematically´?

Joe
Brett Larner said…
Joe--

Essentially, for each runner you will be assigned 10 pts. per place different from the actual finishing place and 1 pt. for each second difference in predicted and actual finishing time. Incorrect DNS or DNF predictions will incur substantial penalties. A perfect prediction will score zero points, and thus the lowest score wins. One person can only win one of the three prizes (overall, men's, women's). In case of a tie the winner will be chosen through a vote by the JRN editorial board.
Brett Larner said…
P.S. I will have men's and women's marathon previews up by the end of the week. I'll try to summarize each Japanese runner's recent performances. For more info on Ozaki or anyone else you can use the search function to find all the articles I've had about her.

Most-Read This Week

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi

10000 m NR Attempt In the Works Saturday at Hachioji Long Distance - Streaming and Preview

There are a bunch of other time trial meets this weekend and next, but Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance is the last big meet for Japanese men, 8 heats of Wavelight-paced 10000 m finely graded from target times of 28:50 down to 26:59 for the fastest heat. Heat 6 at 17:55 local time is effectively the B-race, with 35 Japan-based Kenyans targeting 27:10 at the front end, and in a lot of cases a spot on their teams at the New Year Ekiden national championship on Jan. 1. Corporate teams are only allowed to field one non-Japanese athlete in the New Year Ekiden, and only on its shortest stage, and getting to that has a big impact on African athletes' contracts and renewal prospects. Toyota Boshoku , Yasukawa Denki , Chugoku Denryoku , Aisan Kogyo , JR Higashi Nihon , Subaru and 2024 national champion Toyota are all fielding two Kenyans, and Aichi Seiko three. For people like Toyota's Felix Korir and Samuel Kibathi , getting as close to the 27:10 target time as they can and