TBS to Hold Live Webcast of Women's World Championships Team Lineup Announcement

http://www.asahi.com/business/pressrelease/PRT201104190036.html

translated by Brett Larner

TBS, the official broadcaster of this summer's Daegu World Track and Field Championships, will broadcast Rikuren's announcement of the Japanese women's marathon team lineup live on the internet. On April 21 it's your chance to share the ecstasy of those who have emerged triumphant from the heat of the selection races to make the national team!

When: Thursday, April 21, 1:00 p.m. Japan time

Where: Go to the TBS homepage (http://www.tbs.co.jp/) and click on the [Ustream] link to go to TBS' online channel.

Translator's note: The men's team lineup has already been announced. Looking at the contenders for the women's team, thus far only defending World Championships silver medalist Yoshimi Ozaki (Team Daiichi Seimei) has secured a guaranteed spot on the Daegu team on the strength of her 2:23:56 win at February's Yokohama International Women's Marathon. Her teammate Azusa Nojiri (Team Daiichi Seimei) was the top Japanese woman in contention for a World Championships team spot at Sunday's London Marathon, where she ran 2:25:29 to clear the federation's requirement of a sub-2:26, and must be considered a lock for a spot. Likewise for Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren), who won January's Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2:26:29 with very strong headwinds over the final 10 km. Akaba also finished ahead of Nojiri in London in a PB of 2:24:09 but that result will not officially count toward her chances for a World Championships spot because she was not one of the women running London as a consequence of the cancellation of March's Nagoya International Women's Marathon. Yokohama runner-up Remi Nakazato (Team Daihatsu) clocked 2:24:29 there and is all but certain to pick up the fourth spot on the Daegu team.

The final spot on the team will most likely come down to a toss-up between Yoshiko Fujinaga (Team Shiseido) and Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku). Fujinaga was only 11 seconds behind Nojiri in London, running a 3-minute PB of 2:25:40 and clearing the sub-2:26 goalpost despite the difficult circumstances of running London after training for Nagoya and going through the stress of Japan's disasters. She finished only 13th in London but was 2nd among the women who had entered Nagoya. Ito was impressively aggressive in Osaka in January and finished 2nd behind Akaba in 2:26:55 after leading much of the race, missing a sub-2:26 thanks to the tough headwinds over the final part of the course. Comparing the two, Fujinaga's experience at two past World Championships will also work to her advantage. Ito's case is hurt by the fact that the next Japanese woman in London after Fujinaga, debutante Noriko Matsuoka (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), ran 2:26:54, but she gains points from her coach Tadasu Kawano being the federation's director of road racing. All things considered, the scales appear to tip in Fujinaga's favor.

70th Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden

The 70th running of the Yamagata-ken Judan Ekiden happened over the start of the Golden Week holidays, a 3-day, 29-leg race covering 306.9 km around the northern prefecture of Yamagata. There used to be a lot more of these races where people from the prefecture run for their hometown teams on a Tour de Whatever prefecture or area it happens to be held in, but Yamagata's is one of the few to have survived this long. And amazingly enough, local broadcaster YBC live streamed the entire thing on Youtube. There aren't many corporate teams in the mostly rural area, so runners from the ND Software corporate team played a heavy role, its 2 best runners Masato Arao and Ryoma Takeuchi winning their stages on Day 2 with Takeuchi doubling to anchor the Kita-Murayama team to an overall 5th-place finish, and Koichi Shoji breaking the 2nd leg CR on Day 1 and winning the 2nd-to-last stage on Day 3 to play a key role in the Yamagata city team taking the overall win in 16:06:51, 3:09/km ...

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...

Ogikubo Breaks Road 10 km NR - April Road Roundup

And now back to our regular schedule. Two of Japan's best current marathoners, Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko), 6th in the Paris Olympics and 2nd in Berlin last fall in a 2:06:15 PB, and Shunya Kikuchi (Chugoku Denryoku), 7th in Osaka last year in a PB of 2:06:06, were supposed to be in on the wild action at the Boston Marathon and London Marathon , but both ended up scratching with injury. It's hard not to wonder what kind of dent they might have made, especially Akasaki. In Kikuchi's absence London didn't have any elite-level Japanese athletes, and the only one in Boston was Mao Uesugi (Tokyo Metro), 2:22:11 in Nagoya last year. Uesugi went out relatively strongly but faded hard in the hills to finish only 26th in 2:34:38. One other Japanese woman, Sherry Drury , ran the BAA Mile held the Saturday before the marathon, finishing 6th in 4:43.26. Bigger news the same day as the BAA Mile came in Spain, where Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) followed up his 1:00:22 half ma...

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