Skip to main content

Kenyans Karukuwa, Waroru Take Course Records at Tamana Half Marathon

by Brett Larner

click here for photos of the race

With ideal weather across most of the country, Kenyans Dishon Karukuwa (Team Aisan Kogyo) and Titus Waroru (Chinzei Gakuin H.S.) ran through light rain to take down the course records in the men's half marathon and high school boys' 10 km divisions at the 62nd running of the Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon Mar. 6 in Tamana, Kumamoto. Back on the roads after running January's Osaka International Women's Marathon, last year's runner-up Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera), one of the nine Japanese women training in Christchurch, New Zealand at the time of the recent major earthquake, took the women's 10 km by a wide margin.

The 19 year-old Karukuwa ran 1:02:20 to break the standing half marathon course record by 18 seconds. He was the first Kenyan winner in Tamana history and only the third non-Japanese to ever take the title. Runner-up Yukinobu Nakazaki (Team Toyota Kyushu) ran a strong 1:03:09, fast enough to have won all but three Tamana runnings but nearly a minute behind Karukuwa. Karukuwa reports having returned from altitude training in Kenya last week and plans to run next week's Jitsugyodan Half Marathon Championships as well as to debut at the marathon later this year.

Waroru, last year's high school 10 km runner-up and Karukuwa's successor at Chinzei, posted even bigger gains with an outstanding 28:07 mark, taking 44 seconds off the course record set last year by Steven Njeri (Kenya) to make it three three straight years of Kenyan victory. Local runner-up Kazuma Kubota (Kyushu Gakuin H.S.) was a distant 29:41 but led teammates Kyosuke Yoshida and Kazuma Watanabe under 30 minutes along with rival Shohei Otsuka (Oita Tomei H.S.).

Miyauchi, who won in 2009 in 32:33 and finished 2nd behind multiple national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) last year in 32:43, became the first woman to win Tamana three times, clocking 32:53. Fukushi, scheduled to defend the title, sat out as she deals with post-traumatic stress from being caught in the Christchurch earthquake. Kamimura Gakuen H.S. teammates Misuzu Nakahara and Nozomi Nishiyama were a distant 2-3 in 33:38 and 33:44.

2011 Kanaguri Hai Tamana Half Marathon
click division header for complete results
1. Dishon Karukuwa (Kenya/Team Aisan Kogyo) - 1:02:20 - CR
2. Yukinobu Nakazaki (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 1:03:09
3. Takehiro Arakawa (Team Asahi Kasei) - 1:03:17
4. Takahiro Gunji (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:04:33
5. Koji Inagaki (Team Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) - 1:04:41

1. Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera) - 32:53
2. Misuzu Nakahara (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.) - 33:38
3. Nozomi Nishiyama (Kamimura Gakuen H.S.) - 33:44
4. Rina Hidaki (Fukuoka Univ.) - 33:45
5. Akane Sueyoshi (Team Kyocera) - 33:46

1. Titus Waroru (Chinzei Gakuin H.S.) - 28:07 - CR
2. Kazuma Kubota (Kyushu Gakuin H.S.) - 29:41
3. Kyosuke Yoshida (Kyushu Gakuin H.S.) - 29:42
4. Kazuma Watanabe (Kyushu Gakuin H.S.) - 29:43
5. Shohei Otsuka (Oita Tomei H.S.) - 29:50

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

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."...

10 Meet Records and a National Record at Hyogo Relay Carnival

The grand prix distance events were absent from the program this year at the 73rd Hyogo Relay Carnival , with the top performances in the women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m Asics Challenge races going to steepler Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu) in 15:49.48 and Japan-based Kenyan Emmanuel Kiplagat (Mitsubishi Juko) in 28:12.42. But there were a lot of new meet records, and one national record. Ryosuke Kusumi (Shiga) set a T37-class NR of 58.35 m in the para men's 400 m. Kairi Ikeno (Suma Gakuen H.S.) came less than 2 seconds short of a new high school record in the women's 2000 m , beating her own MR from last year by over 3 seconds in 5:55.36, almost 17 seconds ahead of 2nd place. The top 5 all broke or tied the men's high jump meet record, with both Yuto Seko (FAAS) and Tomohiro Shinno (Kyudenko) clearing 2.25 m and Takashi Eto (Kobe Digital Labo), Chao-Hsuan Fu (Taiwan) and Naoto Hasegawa (Niigata Albirex RC) clearing 2.20 m. Yuki Hashioka (Fujitsu) won the men...