Cold and Rain Again - Tsegay Takes Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon

Cold and Rain Again - Tsegay Takes Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon - Video Highlights

by Brett Larner

click here for detailed race coverage on JRNLive

Yemane Tsegay of Ethiopia wins the 2010 Biwako Mainichi Marathon in 2:09:34. Click photo for video highlights courtesy of NHK.

The cold, rain and wind that cursed January's Osaka International Women's Marathon and February's Tokyo Marathon returned this month to take down hopes of fast times at the 65th Biwako Mainichi Marathon on Mar. 7. After an early snafu when several of the pacemakers took a wrong turn in the first km the drizzling, cool first half was moderately slower than hoped for, 1:04:07. Ethiopian Yemane Tsegay then took the pace down to 2:54/km to run a solo second half. Tsegay kept the splits under 3:00 through 30 km but after the pacemakers departed the temperature dropped from 9 to 7 degrees and the rain intensified. His pace dropped to as slow as 3:22/km.

Behind him first-timer Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN) led a pack of six which included three runners in their marathon debuts, one doing his second race, veteran Tomoyuki Sato (Team Asahi Kasei) and Eritrean Abraham Tadesse. Kitaoka, the top Japanese man at last year's World Half Marathon, did the lion's share of the work to keep things moving at 2:08 pace, but as the weather worsened he could not keep it up and the speed dropped. At 35 km Kitaoka made a move to get things back on track but the calm and composed Sato, a member of Japan's 2007 World Championships marathon team, soon broke free. As leader Tsegay dropped down to 3:20/km territory Sato was approaching 3:05, but he was too far back to close the gap of over one minute. Tsegay jogged in to a 2:09:34 win with Sato just missing a sub-2:10 with a 2:10:07 2nd place finish, over 30 seconds faster than the Ethiopian over the final 5 km.

Tadesse shook off Kitaoka for 3rd, but Kitaoka hung on to 4th in 2:10:51, a solid debut in the difficult conditions. Fellow first timers Naoto Yoneda (Team Konica Minolta) and Satoshi Yoshii (Team Sumco Techxiv) also turned in credible debuts in 2:11:00 and 2:12:24, with second-time marathoner Kenichiro Setoguchi (Team Asahi Kasei) 6th in 2:11:44. All told a slower day than hoped for but a good crop of results from the young set.

None of the other invited elites fared well, with top Kenyan Charles Munyeki never to be seen and 2:06 man Hendrick Ramaala fading from the top once the worst of the rain started and falling from 9th to 11th over the last 2 km. In his post-race interview winner Tsegay told reporters, "I thought the new course was great, but the weather was terrible. The cold rain made my legs tighten up and I couldn't keep up my pace. I wanted to run 2:06 or better today to set the record here, but when the weather got worse in the second half it was impossible." Runner-up Sato felt the same way. On the strength of his performance Sato is now, along with Tokyo Marathon winner Masakazu Fujiwara (Team Honda), one of the two frontrunners for a spot on the Japanese team for November's Asian Games.

2010 Biwako Mainichi Marathon - Top Finishers
click here for complete results
1. Yemane Tsegay (Ethiopia) - 2:09:34
2. Tomoyuki Sato (Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:10:07
3. Abraham Tadesse (Eritrea) - 2:10:46
4. Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN) - 2:10:51 - debut
5. Naoto Yoneda (Team Konica Minolta) - 2:11:00 - debut
6. Kenichiro Setoguchi (Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:11:44 - PB
7. Satoshi Yoshii (Team Sumco) - 2:12:24 - debut
8. Tomoya Shimizu (Team Sagawa Express) - 2:13:25
9. Munehiro Sugaya (Team Toyota) - 2:15:07 - PB
10. Takeshi Ueno (Team JFE Steel) - 2:15:26 - PB
-----
11. Henrick Ramaala (South Africa) - 2:15:29
16. Steve Osaduik (Canada) - 2:18:29
-----
DNF - Charles Munyeki (Kenya)
DNF - Yuriy Hychun (Ukraine)
DNF - Masaya Shimizu (Team Asahi Kasei)
DNF - Mark Tucker (Australia)
DNS - Adil Annani (Morocco)
DNS - Laban Kagika (Kenya/Team JFE Steel)

(c) 2010 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Evaluating the Japan Marathon Championship Series IV Awards

The JAAF held the award ceremony for its Japan Marathon Championship Series IV last night in Tokyo, the whole thing streamed live on Youtube. The two-year series, in this case running from April, 2023 to March, 2025, scores marathoners on time and place in domestic races and high-level international races, with athletes' two best performances combining to give them their series rankings. Series winners score guaranteed places on the 2025 Tokyo World Championships team , with the top 8 women and men earning prize money: 1st: ¥6,000,000 (~$40,000 USD) 2nd: ¥3,000,000 (~$20,000) 3rd: ¥1,000,000 (~$6,700) 4th: ¥800,000 (~$5,300) 5th: ¥700,000 (~$4,700) 6th: ¥500,000 (~$3,300) 7th: ¥300,000 (~$2,000) 8th: ¥200,000 (~$1,300) Points for time are scored according to World Athletics scoring tables, with placing points based on races' designated level. Given the JAAF's financial interests in the big domestic races and the income stream from their TV broadcasts, the scoring system ...

Takeshi Soh Reflects on 54 Years in the Sport on His Retirement as Asahi Kasei Head Coach

After 54 years at the Asahi Kasei corporate team, first as athlete and then as coach, Takeshi Soh will retire at the end of this month. Together with his twin brother Shigeru Soh they formed a duo who were icons of the Japanese marathoning world and went all the way to the Olympics. After retiring from competition Takeshi devoted himself to coaching young athletes and came to play a primary role in the leadership of Japanese long distance. His list of achievements is long, and so is the list of those he influenced and inspired. His twin Shigeru was chosen for three Olympic teams in the marathon, Montreal in 1976, Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984. Takeshi was named to the Moscow and Los Angeles teams, placing 4th in L.A. to confirm his position as one of the greatest names in the sport in that era. After becoming a coach the twins helped lead Hiromi Taniguchi to gold at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships, Koichi Morishita to silver a year later at the Barcelona Olympics, and o...

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...

japan running news

Search This Blog