Skip to main content

An Olympic Selection Race, With an Emphasis on Time

an editorial by Tetsuhiko Kin

Kin is a television commentator, coach, and former Waseda University ekiden runner.

The battle to determine the Japanese national representatives in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics three years from now has begun. The Marathon Grand Challenge (MGC) selection race features an unprecedented two-tier arrangement and will automatically select the Olympic team members when it is held in or after September, 2019. Athletes must first qualify in order to the run MGC race.

The first race in the MGC Series of races in which athletes can earn their spots in the MGC race took place Aug. 27 at the Hokkaido Marathon, with high school and university ekiden star Akinobu Murasawa (Nissin Shokuhin) taking the men's race and the young Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) the women's to pick up their places in the Olympic qualifier.

Both races were hesitant and passive. The men's race in particular went out slowly from the start, and with the winner needing to break 2:15 to qualify for the MGC race Murasawa barely made it, clocking 2:14:48. Maeda also ran a conservative pace from the start to win. At the Tokyo Olympics they'll need to roll right from the start to be able to get rid of their rivals, but there was none of that to be seen here.

If you think of qualifying for the MGC race as the top priority, the number of runners unwilling to aggressively go out front is bound to increase. The Series races will just become competitions between the Japanese runners, far from the current worldwide trends in marathoning.

In addition, three years is still a long way to go. This national team will have the honor of representing the Olympic host country on home soil. Athletes are going to have to expend a lot of energy on the selection race over the next two years. Even though it will be almost a year between the team lineup being set and the Olympics, there is fear that the members won't have enough time to catch their breath. The ideal solution to erase concerns is for as many athletes as possible to qualify for the MGC race on time. To do that men have to run under 2:08:30 and women under 2:24:00 at any IAAF certified race in the world.

Hopefully just making the MGC race will not prove to be a problem, and I hope to see top-level athletes, the ones with enough ability that they should be a given for the team, come forward and put all their energy into the Olympic main event. Unfortunately the results at August's London World Championships, where not a single Japanese man or woman made the top eight, and other world-level championships suggest a downward spiral. For Japan the marathon is now at the tipping point of whether it is going to become hopelessly out of range or be restored to the position of one of our national specialties.

source article: 
https://mainichi.jp/sportsspecial/articles/20170902/ddm/035/070/163000c
translated by Brett Larner
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Rui Aoki and Shunsuke Kuwata Making U.S. Debut at United Airlines NYC Half

When the National University Half Marathon was canceled in 2011 after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan 2 days before the race, JRN talked to the New York Road Runners about bringing 2 collegiate runners to the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon the next weekend as a show of support. It wasn't possible to pull it together in the immediate aftermath of the disasters, but a year later we brought 2 young 2nd-years from Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Toyo University , Kento Otsu and Yuta Shitara , who had been the top 2 Japanese collegiate finishers at the Ageo City Half Marathon in November before Hakone. Shitara ran 1:01:48, at the time the fastest-ever by a Japanese man on U.S. soil, with Otsu running a solid 1:03:15. Thanks to that great start the Ageo-NYC partnership became a regular thing, and except for the pandemic it's continued every year since, expanding this year to June's New York Mini 10 km when 2 runners from Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden runne...
2 comments
Read more

Kuwata Runs Fastest-Ever Half Marathon by Japanese Man Outside Japan at United Airlines NYC Half

When the NYRR changed the United Airlines NYC Half course back in 2018 to more or less its current Boston-style hilly one-way version it seemed like it had been repurposed from a fast course to something more tactical. That went out the window last year with new course records of 59:09 and 1:07:04 from Abel Kipchumba and Sharon Lokedi , and this year's results backed that up. Hellen Obiri ground Lokedi down and took over 30 seconds off her CR, winning in 1:06:33 with Lokedi only 6 seconds off what she ran in 2025 but a distant 2nd in 1:07:10. British road 10 km NR holder Megan Keith rolled up hard late in the race to finish 3rd in 1:07:13 less than 10 seconds off old CR too. The men's race saw a big group of 18 attack the hilly first half on sub-59 pace, American Joe Klecker leading through 5 km in 13:57 and Houston Marathon winner Zouhair Talbi through 10 km in 27:56. Right up in it was Shunsuke Kuwata , a 20-year-old 2nd-year at 2025 National University Ekiden champ Koma...
1 comment
Read more

16 Women and 26 Men on the Current Olympic Trials Qualifier List

Last weekend's Nagoya Women's Marathon and the Tokyo Marathon the weekend before brought the main part of the first year of qualification for the Marathon Grand Championship Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials to be held in Nagoya in October, 2027, to an end. There are still a few races like the Nagano Marathon and overseas World Athletics platinum label races this season where people might qualify, but for the most part we're not likely to see many new additions until August's Hokkaido Marathon, where the qualifying period opened last year. As of right now 16 women and 26 men have qualified, although the first woman to make the cut, Ai Hosoda , announced that she was retiring after Tokyo earlier this month. Out of the 16 women to have qualified so far, Mikuni Yada is the fastest with her 2:19:57 debut at Osaka Women's in January. Including Hosoda that makes 2 qualifiers for the Edion corporate team, but Daihatsu has the biggest share of the field so ...
1 comment
Read more