Skip to main content

Maeda and Maina Win 25th Running of the Sendai International Half Marathon

http://www.kahoku.co.jp/tohokunews/201505/20150511_14015.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Breaking the event's old record by 349 people, a record-setting 13,932 participants took part in the 25th running of the Sendai International Half Marathon on May 10 in central Sendai, Miyagi.

In the day's main event, the JAAF-certified half marathon division starting and ending at the municipal track and field grounds on the city's south side, defending champion Johana Maina (Kenya/Team Fujitsu) ran 1:02:33 to win the men's race again, his second-straight and third overall Sendai title.  His teammate and 2014 World Half Marathon Championships Japanese national team member Sota Hoshi (Team Fujitsu) was 3rd in 1:03:11, while 2015 World Championships marathoner Masakazu Fujiwara took 6th in 1:03:51.  2014 Asian Games marathon bronze medalist Yuki Kawauchi was 30th.

In the women's race, 2015 World Championships marathoner Sairi Maeda (Team Daihatsu) opened a 46-second lead over 2014 World Half Marathon Championships team member Risa Takenaka to win in 1:10:24.  Maeda's Beijing teammate Risa Shigetomo (Team Tenmaya) was a distant 3rd in 1:13:26.  Three-time men's wheelchair champion Masayuki Higuchi (Baristride) picked up a fourth title in 47:46.

25th Sendai International Half Marathon
Sendai, Miyagi, 5/10/15
click here for complete results

Men
1. Johana Maina (Kenya/Fujitsu) - 1:02:33
2. Ezekiel Chebotitin (Kenya/Toho Refine) - 1:02:34
3. Sota Hoshi (Fujitsu) - 1:03:11
4. Yuichiro Ueno (DeNA) - 1:03:21
5. Hiroaki Sano (Honda) - 1:03:41
6. Masakazu Fujiwara (Honda) - 1:03:51
-----
30. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) - 1:08:36

Women
1. Sairi Maeda (Daihatsu) - 1:10:24
2. Risa Takenaka (Shiseido) - 1:11:10
3. Risa Shigetomo (Tenmaya) - 1:13:26
4. Yui Okada (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:13:55
5. Fumiko Hashimoto (Shimamura) - 1:15:26
Labels:

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
It was 20C and sunny, so even higher? - a bit warm for a half - and windy, but all in all a good day to run. Really nice race through the streets of Sendai, a very green city.
May 11, 2015 at 6:54 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
82 comments
Read more

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .
77 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
54 comments
Read more