Skip to main content

'Ozaki Looking for Lifetime Best'

http://lrn.london-marathon.com/ozaki-looking-lifetime-best/

Note: In its London preview, American fan website letsrun.com inexplicably calls Ozaki, the 2009 World Championships silver medalist, a 'wanna-be.' It also incorrectly claims that she has never won a major marathon despite then listing her 2:23:30 win, which came at the 2008 Tokyo International Women's Marathon, one of the world's premier elite women's races, rather than the 2008 Tokyo Marathon as suggested in the website's preview. In her Tokyo International Women's Marathon win Ozaki beat London entrants Mara Yamauchi (GBR) and Svetlana Zakharova (RUS), 2009 Boston Marathon winner Salina Kosgei (Kenya), 2009 New York City Marathon winner Derartu Tulu (Ethiopia), 2:19 woman / 2009 Osaka International Women's Marathon winner Yoko Shibui (Team Mistui Sumitomo Kaijo) and 2009 World Championships team member / 2010 Nagoya International Women's Marathon winner Yuri Kano (Second Wind AC).

Besides these two strong performances, Ozaki was 2nd in her debut marathon at the 2008 Nagoya International Women's Marathon, a close 2nd behind London as the world's top-ranked elite women's marathon. London will be Ozaki's 4th marathon. As she states in the article linked at the top, her goal is a 2:21.

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."...