Skip to main content

Fujiwara, Gebrselassie, Kawauchi, Mathathi Headline Fukuoka International Marathon Field

http://www.chunichi.co.jp/s/chuspo/article/2012110801001672.html
http://mainichi.jp/sports/news/20121109k0000m050013000c.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

On Nov. 8 the organizers of the Dec. 2 Fukuoka International Marathon announced the elite field for this year's Moscow World Championships selection race edition.  The domestic field of four consists of London Olympian Arata Fujiwara (Miki House) and 2011 Daegu World Championships team members Hiroyuki Horibata (Team Asahi Kasei), Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref.) and Yoshinori Oda (Team Toyota).  Eleven athletes from seven countries including former world record holder Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia) and, in his marathon debut, 2007 World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), make up the international field.

Japanese men must run 2:07:59 or better to qualify for the World Championships team.  Speaking at the press conference announcing the field, Federation executive Toshio Kiuchi commented, "It would be great to see a Japanese athlete break the finish tape," expressing the hope that Fukuoka will see its first Japanese winner in eight years.

2012 Fukuoka International Marathon Elite Field
Fukuoka, 12/2/12

Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia) - 2:03:59
Dmytro Baranovskyy (Ukraine) - 2:07:15
Isaac Macharia (Kenya) - 2:07:16
Henryk Szost (Poland) - 2:07:39
Arata Fujiwara (Miki House) - 2:07:48
Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref.) - 2:08:37
James Mwangi (Kenya/Team NTN) - 2:08:38
Yoshinori Oda (Team Toyota) - 2:09:03
Cyrus Njui (Kenya/Team Hitachi Logistics) - 2:09:10
Hiroyuki Horibata (Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:09:25
Harun Njoroge (Kenya/Team Komori Corp.) - 2:09:38
Frank de Almeida (Brazil) - 2:12:03
Cuthbert Nyasango (Zimbabwe) - 2:12:08
Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - debut - 58:56 half marathon
Mohamed Trafeh (U.S.A.) - 1:00:39 half marathon

General Division - others expected from cancelled ING New York City Marathon
Andrew Lemoncello (GBR) - 2:13:40
Yusei Nakao (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 2:14:43
Simon Bairu (Canada) - 2:19:52

Pacers
Reid Coolsaet (Canada)

Comments

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...