Skip to main content

Horibata Leads Japanese Men to World Champs Team Silver

by Brett Larner

Hiroyuki Horibata (Team Asahi Kasei) finished 7th at the World Championships men's marathon to lead the Japanese squad to team silver, the county's only hardware in a running event at this World Championships, continuing Japan's streak of men's marathon team medals in every World Championships since 1997.  In a race full of high-profile DNF's Horibata ran with tenacity to finish in the prize money in 2:11:52, the third-best time of his career and the fastest mark in the race by a non-African.

While Asian Games silver medalist Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN) and 2011 Tokyo Marathon 4th-placer Yoshinori Oda (Team Toyota) lost touch after less than 10 km, Horibata, Kentaro Nakamoto (Team Yasukawa Denki) and Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref.) hung in the lead pack through halfway until the big Kenyan break that led to defending gold medalist Abel Kirui's second-straight win.  Kawauchi, who led early in the race, fell back in the second half but held on to finish as the third scoring member of the Japanese team in 2:16:11, like Horibata the third-best  time of his career.  Nakamoto lasted longer, as predicted coming through with a valuable run.  He finished as the second man on the Japanese team, 10th in 2:13:10, also the third-best time of his career.

Kenya took the team gold by a wide margin on the strength of Kirui and Vincent Kipruto's individual gold and silver medal runs and David Barmasai Tumo's 5th-place finish, with Morocco taking team bronze thanks in part to Abderrahime Bouramdane's gutsy 4th place finish.  Only Kenya and Japan had more than one runner in the top ten.

2011 World Championships Men's Marathon
Daegu, Korea, 9/4/11
click here for complete results

1. Abel Kirui (Kenya) - 2:07:38
2. Vincento Kipruto (Kenya) - 2:10:06
3. Feyisa Lilesa (Ethiopia) - 2:10:32
4. Abderrahime Bouramdane (Morocco) - 2:10:55
5. David Barmasa Tumo (Kenya) - 2:11:39
6. Eliud Kiptanui (Kenya) - 2:11:50
7. Hiroyuki Horibata (Japan/Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:11:52
8. Ruggero Pertile (Italy) - 2:11:57
9. Stephen Kiprotich (Uganda) - 2:12:57
10. Kentaro Nakamoto (Japan/Team Yasukawa Denki) - 2:13:10
-----
18. Yuki Kawauchi (Japan/Saitama Pref.) - 2:16:11
29. Yoshinori Oda (Japan/Team Toyota) - 2:18:05
38. Yukihiro Kitaoka (Japan/Team NTN) - 2:23:11

Team Scoring
click here for complete results

1. Kenya - 6:29:23
2. Japan - 6:41:13
3. Morocco - 6:42:18
4. Spain - 6:53:41
5. China - 6:54:32

Update 9/7/11: Click here for a screenshot of American track fansite Letsrun.com's strangely bigoted response to Japan's silver medal.

(c) 2011 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
Horibata finished in the prize money? How low does it go? Do you have a list of the prize money?
Anonymous said…
hey just wondering what is going on with the japanese sprint corps? couple years ago masashi eriguchi and naoki tsukahara both ran under 10.10 and i thought they were soon gonna break the 10 second barrier. what happened? injuries? regression?
Brett Larner said…
Prize money is 8-deep for individuals, 6-deep for teams. There is a link to a breakdown in the preview I posted a while back.

Tsukahara has been injured and Eriguchi has not been able to translate his success in college to his pro career yet. A few other potentially strong guys are on their way up but the sprint scene has not yet really blossomed the way it looked after Beijing.
Anonymous said…
ok that is what it seemed like... i remember shingu suetsugu who said he was going to take a year off after beijing but seemingly retired afterwards. I guess he retired?
Brett Larner said…
Yeah, I think it's been a few years since he's raced. Tamesue is still trying but age seems to have caught up with him.

Most-Read This Week

Ninja Runner Yuka Ando Leads Japanese Women's Marathon Team in London: "I Want to Go For It"

Her form has been dubbed "ninja running." Both arms held straight down with almost no movement. That idiosyncratic style carried Yuka Ando , 23, to the fastest-ever marathon debut by a Japanese woman, 2:21:36, at March's Nagoya Women's Marathon to land at #4 on the all-time Japanese lists. All at once Ando found herself catapulted to the top level of women's marathoning, a candidate for Japan's next great marathoner. When she was younger Ando ran moving her arms like other runners, but she had a bad habit of moving robotically, her upper body and lower body not working in sync. The turning point came in 2014 when she joined Suzuki Hamamatsu AC . Working there with coach Masayuki Satouchi to eliminate the faults in her form, the pair arrived at the ninja running style that let her run relaxed. "Other people keep asking me, "Isn't it hard to run like that?" but for me it's comfortable," she said. The efficient form helped her mai

Yamaguchi 10th at United Airlines NYC Half - Weekend Overseas Results

2024 national cross-country champion Tomonori Yamaguchi was the top Japanese finisher in the men's race at the United Airlines NYC Half , taking 10th in 1:04:36. A 2nd-year at Waseda University , Yamaguchi was one of three collegiate runners running New York in the 11th year of JRN's development program collaboration between the Ageo City Half Marathon and the New York Road Runners, a program that has seen people like future half marathon and marathon NR breaker Yuta Shitara and Paris Olympic team member Akira Akasaki make their international debuts. Yamaguchi's Waseda teammate Taishi Ito started fast, going with the leaders through 5 km in 14:29 before losing touch. Hosei University senior Rei Matsunaga went through in 14:42 in his last race before joining the JR Higashi Nihon corporate team in April. Yamaguchi, who caught COVID after winning last month's National Cross-Country Championships, started more conservatively with a 15:11 first 5km. But where both Ito

Rui Aoki Wins National University Men's Half Marathon - Weekend Results

Yuka Ando 's win at the Nagoya Women's Marathon was the big news of the weekend, but there were other high-level races happening, even in Nagoya. Held in parallel with the marathon, the Nagoya City Half Marathon saw Australians Natalie Rule and Ed Goddard take easy wins by about 2.5 minutes each, Rule in 1:13:57 and Goddard in 1:04:01. The new Biwako Marathon also had a non-Japanese winner, China's Yousheng Guan scoring 1st in 2:14:58 with Japan's Hirohito Sugai next in 2:16:40. Mikiko Ota won the women's race in 2:50:44. The Shizuoka Marathon returned for its first running in five years, with club runner Shumpei Oda leading the top 7 men under 2:20 in 2:15:36. Women's winner Remi Tanaka ran 2:41:23, beating runner-up Ayumi Sano by exactly 7 minutes. And in Tokyo, Rui Aoki continued what has been a great season so far for Koku Gakuin University with a win at the National University Men's Half Marathon . Aoki and Hiro Konda of Chuo Gakuin Unive