Skip to main content

Osako Wins World University Games 10000 m

by Brett Larner

Click photo for video highlights.

2011 Hakone Ekiden champion Waseda University's star sophomore Suguru Osako, the Asian junior area record holder for the half marathon, won his first world title on the second day of the 2011 World University Games as he ran a season-best 28:42.83 to take the men's 10000 m.  Russian Sergey Rybin took the race out at a blistering speed, clocking 2:44.13 for the first 1000 m and going through halfway in 13:53.21.  The pace burned most of the competition before Rybin began to slow.  By 8000 m Rybin was running slower than 3:00 / km, and, staggering after being passed by Osako on the last lap, he dropped out with less than 200 m to go.  The 20-year-old Osako, who ran most of the race with 26-year-old South African Stephen Mokoka, executed a long kick over the last 400 m to win by more than ten seconds.  Mokoka took silver, with 26-year-old Moroccan Ahmed Tamri picking up bronze in 29:06.20.  Meiji University senior Tetsuya Yoroizaka, 21, who last month ran 27:44.30 at the Aviva UK Trials, had an off day as he finished 5th in only 29:32.21 after running together with Osako in the early stages of the race.

Osako will return Aug. 19 in the men's 5000 m where his PB of 13:31.27 from earlier this season ranks him #4 in the field.  Joining him is Komazawa University sophomore Ikuto Yufu, who ran a 10000 m PB of 28:02.46 in June.

2011 World University Games Men's 10000 m
Shenzhen, China, 8/17/11
click here for complete results

1. Suguru Osako (Waseda Univ.) - 28:42.83
2. Stephen Mokoka (South Africa) - 28:53.09
3. Ahmed Tamri (Morocco) - 29:06.20
4. Evgeny Rybakov (Russia) - 29:10.86
5. Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Meiji Univ.) - 29:32.21
6. Sibabalwe Gladwin Mzazi (South Africa) - 29:34.65
7. Joseph Chebet (Uganda) - 30:03.52
8. Rolf Rufenacht (Switzerland) - 30:18.24
9. Stsiapan Rahautsou (Belarus) - 30:29.33
10. Paul Avila (Bolivia) - 32:13.50

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Brett Larner said…
Yes, Osako was pretty sugoi. His dad emailed and said, "I was pretty surprised, to be honest. I think he was a bit lucky." I think he meant that the suicidal Russian blew up. Great last kick from Suguru, at any rate.

Most-Read This Week

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...

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

Japan Names Marathon Teams for Tokyo World Championships

On Mar. 26 the JAAF named its women's and men's marathon teams for September's Tokyo World Championships. On the women's side the team has veterans Sayaka Sato and Yuka Ando off the strength of a runner-up finish for Sato in Nagoya this year and a win in Nagoya last year by Ando, and newcomer Kana Kobayashi , 23, who has risen quickly from being a fun runner at Waseda University last year to a 2nd-place finish in Osaka Women's this year. Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Suzuki was named alternate after finishing 3rd behind Kobayashi in Osaka Women's. On the men's side the team is led by last year's Fukuoka International Marathon CR breaker Yuya Yoshida and this year's Osaka runner-up Ryota Kondo . The 3rd spot on the team is reserved for JMC Series winner Naoki Koyama , who hasn't cleared the 2:06:30 World Championships qualifying standard and has to wait for the May 4 qualifying deadline for confirmation that the 1184 points he has in the Roa...