Skip to main content

Watanabe, Sato Clear World Championships 5000 m B-Standard at Golden Games in Nobeoka

by Brett Larner

The men's 5000 m Heat E.

Pre-typhoon rain couldn't hold back the times at the 2011 Golden Games in Nobeoka meet, May 28 in Noboeka. With a focus on the 5000 m, the meet's top men's heat saw two Japanese men, former middle-distance specialist Kazuya Watanabe (Team Shikoku Denryoku) and Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) break the World Championships B-standard. Watanabe ran a PB of 13:23.15 to win outright over a largely African field and become the all-time 8th-best Japanese man over the distance, while Sato was just off his PB with a 13:25.53 clocking, his best in five years. The Japanese man with the best 10,000 and half-marathon times of 2011, Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) also ran a PB of 13:30.30. Just behind him Waseda University sophomore Suguru Osako, the Asian half-marathon jr. area record holder, likewise ran a large PB of 13:31.52 for 8th after a gutsy push to the front at 4000 m. Although none of the Africans in the top ten ran PBs, times were overall fast despite the conditions with Kenyan Edward Waweru (Team NTN) 2nd in 13:24.09 and Ethiopian Alemu Desta (Team Yasukawa Denki) 3rd in 13:24.23.

Five of the eight men's 5000 m heats had winning times under 14 minutes. Outside the top heat, the fastest time came in the first heat, where Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) ran a shocking 32-second PB to win in 13:35.74 over defending 5000 m national champion Yuki Matsuoka (Team Otsuka Seiyaku). Daegu World Championships marathoner Hiroyuki Horibata (Team Asahi Kasei) took the fourth heat in a PB of 13:53.07, continuing his steady progression of PBs since running 2:09:21 at March's Biwako Mainichi Marathon.

The women's 5000 m A-heat was a showdown between the top two Kenyan women currently based in Japan, Ann Karindi (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) and Sally Chepyego (Team Kyudenko). Karindi emerged victorious, breaking Chepyego's winning streak by running 15:15.89 to Chepyego's 15:17.75. Karindi's teammate Yuriko Kobayashi (Team Toyota Jidoshokki), the 1500 m national record holder and fastest Japanese woman over 5000 m in 2010, ran 15:43.61 for 3rd in her first race of the season.

2011 Golden Games in Nobeoka
Nobeoka, 5/28/11
Men's 5000 m Heat E
1. Kazuya Watanabe (Team Shikoku Denryoku) - 13:23.15 - PB
2. Edward Waweru (Kenya/Team NTN) - 13:24.09
3. Alemu Desta (Ethiopia/Team Yasukawa Denki) - 13:24.23
4. Gideon Ngatuny (Kenya/Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 13:25.17
5. Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 13:25.53
6. Paul Kuira (Kenya/Team Konica Minolta) - 13:27.20
7. Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) - 13:30.30 - PB
8. Suguru Osako (Waseda Univ.) - 13:31.27 - PB
9. Patrick Mwaka (Kenya/Team Aisan Kogyo) - 13:31.52
10. Daniel Gitau (Kenya/Team Fujitsu) - 13:34.24

Women's 5000 m Heat A
1. Ann Karindi (Kenya/Team Toyota Jidoshokki) - 15:15.89
2. Sally Chepyego (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) - 15:17.75
3. Yuriko Kobayashi (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) - 15:43.61
4. Mai Ishibashi (Bukkyo Univ.) - 15:43.81 - PB
5. Mika Yoshikawa (Team Panasonic) - 15:45.77
6. Grace Kimanzi (Kenya/Team Starts) - 15:53.63
7. Hiroko Shoi (Team Nihon ChemiCon) - 15:57.73
8. Yukie Nagata (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) - 15:57.75
9. Chisa Nomura (Meijo Univ.) - 15:58.61
10. Seika Nishikawa (Team Sysmex) - 15:58.67

Men's 5000 m Heat D
1. Hiroyuki Horibata (Team Asahi Kasei) - 13:53.07 - PB
2. Takahiro Mori (Team Asahi Kasei) - 14:00.33
3. Yoshihiro Hinomoto (Team YKK) - 14:00.63

Men's 5000 m Heat C
1. Tomoya Adachi (Team Asahi Kasei) - 13:49.73
2. Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 13:53.31
3. Shinji Ando (Team Togami Denki) - 13:57.68

Men's 5000 m Heat B
1. Shinobu Kubota (Komazawa Univ.) - 13:49.53 - PB
2. Kenta Matsumoto (Team Toyota) - 13:57.27
3. Hideohito Takamine (Team Fujitsu) - 13:57.58

Men's 5000 m Heat A
1. Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) - 13:35.74 - PB
2. Yuki Matsuoka (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 13:40.76
3. Yo Yazawa (Waseda Univ.) - 13:44.39

Women's 5000 m Heat B
1. Shiho Takechi (Bukkyo Univ.) - 15:50.10
2. Kyunghee Lim (Korea) - 15:57.96
3. Yurie Doi (Team Starts) - 16:06.07

Men's 1500 m
1. Yasuhiro Tago (Team Chugoku Denryoku) - 3:41.50
2. Hiroshi Ino (Team Fujitsu) - 3:44.49
3. Toshiki Imazaki (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 3:48.85

Women's 1500 m
1. Mika Tanimizu (Meijo Univ.) - 4:24.54
2. Ayumi Takada (Canon AC Kyushu) - 4:25.52
3. Minami Nakaarai (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) - 4:30.61

Men's 800 m
1. Masato Yokota (Team Fujitsu) - 1:46.86 - MR
2. Yasuhiro Nakamura (Tsukuba Univ.) - 1:48.95
3. Taiki Tsutsumi (SDF Academy) - 1:51.94

Women's 800 m
1. Ayako Jinnouchi (Team Kyudenko) - 2:06.61
2. Ruriko Kubo (Team Edion) - 2:07.28
3. Chihiro Sunaga (Team Shiseido) - 2:07.66

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Hakone Champ AGU Hits 50 km a Day in Spring Break Training Camp

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...
1 comment
Read more

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...
3 comments
Read more

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 ...
1 comment
Read more