Skip to main content

Ueno Solos Second-Straight Fuchu Tamagawa Half Win

http://www.komaspo.com/4157

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The 35th Fuchu Tamagawa Half Marathon took place Nov. 23 in Tokyo's western suburb of Fuchu.  In their last road race before the Jan. 1-2 Hakone Ekiden, defending Fuchu Tamagawa winner Wataru Ueno and teammate Toshiaki Nishizawa of 2012 National University Men's Ekiden champion Komazawa University went 1-2.  Both athletes ran well from the start, running together through 10 km before Ueno made a move to go alone into the lead just before 13 km, leaving Nishizawa behind to fade away.  Looking calm and composed he ran as though there was nothing else, taking the win in 1:05:01.  At the other end of the spectrum, Nishizawa's face showed the strain of the second half of the race and he drifted to a distant 2nd in 1:06:20.  In terms of their placing they showed the characteristic Komazawa strength, but neither athlete was able to reach his time goal.  Both athletes gave comments after the race.

Wataru Ueno
I was still tired from our latest training camp but the conditions were great after the rain let up and it was easy to run.  I dug deep on this one.  Coach (Hiroaki Oyagi) had given me some advice, so I picked things up at 5 km, but even so I was aiming for 64 flat and I ended up a minute short of that.  Since I ran a fair amount of it alone I think it was good mental training (for the Hakone Ekiden).  This is going to be my last Hakone so I want to win my stage and help get the overall win.

Toshiaki Nishizawa
I'm still recovering from the last training camp, so in running with Ueno he was really pushing it and I was just trying to stay with him.  But, I found that I was more fatigued than I expected and after 10 km I started to fade back and was soon by myself.  (Coach Oyagi told me that) this was my last race before Hakone and that I should work on speeding up in the second half, but I couldn't do anything to impress him in this race.  I guess I have to impress him in practice now.  I have to try to overcome my own weakness.

35th Fuchu Tamagawa Half Marathon
Fuchu, Tokyo, 11/23/12

Men
1. Wataru Ueno (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:05:01
2. Toshiaki Nishizawa (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:06:20
3. Suguru Abe (Kanagawa Univ.) - 1:07:21

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Identical Triplets Run Final Prefectural High School Champs 5000 m Together

A set of identical triplets made the final in the Niigata Prefecture High School Championships 5000 m, their last big showdown with each other. All three talked about the way they were looking at the big race at Niigata's Denka Big Swan Stadium. The Sato triplets all ran track and field in elementary school in Nagaoka, but when they went to junior high school they all opted to play basketball instead. Their sister, also a twin, was the manager of the track and field team at Chuetsu H.S. and gave them tips on training like hill repeats and running on undulating roads in their neighborhood, and while focusing on basketball they coached themselves to become better runners. Five years later they are now in their final year of high school. Yuto Sato runs for Chuetsu H.S., while Hiroto Sato and Oto Sato opted for Nippon Bunri H.S. . It was the first, and last, time for them to all face each other in the same race at the prefectural level. All three live in school dorms, their family...

Japan Dominates Half Marathon - World University Games Day 6 Japanese Results

Japan didn't quite pull off a sweep of the men's and women's half marathon at the 2025 FISU World University Games , but it was pretty close. In the men's race Waseda University 's Shinsaku Kudo , the fastest man in the race with a best of 1:00:06 from Marugame this past February, led start to finish, keeping it around 62-flat pace before finishing in a WUG record 1:02:29. Turkey's Ramazan Bastug spent most of the race in a small chase pack with Ryuto Uehara (Koku Gakuin Univ.) and Kento Baba (Rikkyo Univ.) before dropping them both for silver in 1:02:35. Uehara was just behind in 1:02:39 for bronze, with Baba missing out on the medals in 1:02:44 for 4th. In the women's race China's Xiuzhen Ma had to deal with the Japanese trio of Makoto Tsuchiya (Ritsumeikan Univ.), Mariya Noda (Daito Bunka Univ.) and Ayaka Maeda (Kansai Univ.). And she did, running a PB 1:12:48 for gold over Tsuchiya by 10 seconds. Noda scored the bronze medal in 1:13:16, with M...

Wanjiru Silver, Yanagita Bronze - World University Games Day 1-2 Japanese Results

The 2025 FISU World University Games started Monday in Rhine-Ruhr, Germany. In the Games' first final, the women's 10000 m, Daito Bunka University 's Sarah Wanjiru of Kenya shaved just over 6 seconds off her PB with a 31:41.80, but it wasn't enough for gold as Slovenian 5000 m and road 5 km and 10 km NR holder Klara Lukan dropped a 31:25.84 Games record and PB for the win. In the race for bronze Spain's Alicia Berzosa Martin outran Meijo University 1st-year Mei Hosomi by a second, 32:00.72 to 32:01.91. Ayaka Maeda (Kansai Univ.) and Wakana Hashimoto (Meijo Univ.) were far back in the field, Maeda running 33:13.83 for 15th and Hashimoto 33:49.84 for 19th. The 18-year-old Hosomi's time was good enough to crack the all-time Japanese U20 top 10 and put her 2nd in the world this year on the U20 lists. In qualifying rounds on the opening day, Shota Fuchigami (Waseda Univ.) and Ryosuke Takahashi (Hosei Univ.) took the top 2 spots in the men's 400 mH heats...