Skip to main content

Mai Ito Wins Hot and Sunny Shibetsu Half Marathon in Final Tuneup for Rio Olympics Marathon

http://dd.hokkaido-np.co.jp/sports/sports/marathon/1-0296687.html
http://news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye2828867.html
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/s/article/2016072401001248.html
http://dd.hokkaido-np.co.jp/sports/sports/marathon/1-0296700.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The 30th anniversary Suffolkland Shibetsu Half Marathon  was held July 24 in Shibestu, Hokkaido.  Top-level Japanese athletes and amateur runners alike braved blazing sunshine to give it their best on the JAAF-certified course.  A total of 2136 runners including a large number of corporate league runners from Toyota and the Kansai region took part.  Special guest runners included ski jumper Sara Takanashi and the winner of the first Shibetsu Half women's race, Eriko Asai.

In the men's half marathon, Kokushikan University assistant coach James Mwangi won by a second over Yuki Oshikawa (Team Toyota Kyushu) in a course record 1:03:22.  Rio de Janeiro Olympics men's marathon team member Suehiro Ishikawa (Team Honda) withdrew from the race, his management citing changes in his plans for the last stretch of his training.  2014 Asian Games marathon bronze medalist Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) was 16th in 1:06:10.

Running her final domestic tuneup before representing Japan in the Rio Olympics marathon, Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) led in temperatures of over 28 degrees to win the women's half marathon by more than 45 seconds in 1:13:31.  "There's a good chance the weather in Rio will be as hot as it was today, so being able to push it like this was a big confidence builder," she said.  "I think this was a good time at this stage."

Ito has been training in Hokkaido since late May, her workouts including tough 50 km runs.  She has been working on stabilizing her form and doing extensive core training in order to deal with possible windy conditions along the seaside portion of the Rio course.  Her coach Tadasu Kawano gave a favorable evaluation of her performance in Shibetsu, saying, "As a training run she earned a perfect score."  Ito will travel to the U.S.A. at the end of the month for her final preparations.

30th Suffolkland Shibetsu Half Marathon
Shibetsu, Hokkaido, 7/24/16
complete results coming soon

Women's Half Marathon
1. Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:13:31
2. Sayo Nomura (Team Daiichi Seimei) - 1:14:17
3. Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Hokuren) - 1:14:28
4. Ai Inoue (Team Noritz) - 1:14:36
5. Kikuyo Tsuzaki (Team Noritz) - 1:15:47

Men's Half Marathon
1. James Mwangi (Kokushikan Univ. staff) - 1:03:22 - CR
2. Yuki Oshikawa (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 1:03:23
3. Tsubasa Hayakawa (Team Toyota) - 1:03:28
4. Taku Fujimoto (Team Toyota) - 1:03:40
5. Kento Otsu (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 1:04:14

Women's 10 km
1. Mizuki Matsuda (Team Daihatsu) - 33:48
2. Mao Ichiyama (Team Wacoal) - 34:35
3. Kanako Takemoto (Team Daihatsu) - 34:42
4. Saki Wada (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 34:42
5. Rie Kawauchi (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 34:56

Comments

Most-Read This Week

On the Loss of the ARRS Database

At some point in the last few months I discovered that both versions of the ARRS database, the static one and the searchable version , are gone. Last week David Monti posted a link to the ARRS history of an event he covered in Race Results Weekly, I guess copying and pasting a link from last year without looking at it, and that reminded me to write something about the loss of the database. The Association of Road Racing Statisticians was basically a one-man show operated from the remote Northern California shores by Ken Young . When the site existed its intro read: The Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyses and publishes results and statistics regarding elite distance running at distances 3000m and longer...The data of ARRS is stored in the ARRS database, which has more than 1.3 million performances from more than 240,000 races by more than 95,000 elite and sub-elite distance runners worldwide...This website ...

Multiple National Records This Weekend

Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest. U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back. Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3...

Japan's Team Lineup in Copenhagen

Re-upping an earlier post on Japan's team lineup for this weekend's  Copenhagen World Road Running Championships . The JAAF chose not to name any women to the team in the mile. Women 5 km Kana Mizumoto (Edion) - 15:06.98 Rina Kusu (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:10.91 Half Marathon Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon) - 1:09:14 Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:09:20 Rina Shimizu (Noritz) - 1:09:22 Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:09:23 Men Mile Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.) - 3:37.53 (1500 m) Tomoki Nakano (Toenec) - 3:37.92 (1500 m) 5 km Yota Mashiko (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.35 Rui Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.64 Half Marathon Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 1:00:22 Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:26 Neo Namiki (Subaru) - 1:00:29 Daisuke Sato (Chuo Univ.) - 1:00:40 © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved