Skip to main content

Fujiwara and Nojiri Lead Weekend Marathon Results



With the 22nd typhoon of the season hitting Japan's eastern coast, five of Japan's biggest amateur marathons faced the decision of whether to go ahead as scheduled.

The biggest of them, the third running of the Yokohama Marathon, 10th largest in the world last year with 22,594 finishers, was the only one to cancel, a controversial decision that went out Saturday evening ahead of milder-than-expected conditions on race morning.

With almost 13,000 finishers last year, the Kanazawa Marathon scored a new course record in its third edition as Kazuya Deguchi (Asahi Kasei) won in 2:18:44, the event's first sub-2:20 apart from disqualified Russian Victor Ugarov's 2:17:19 at Kanazawa's first running two years ago. Deguchi ran Kanazawa as a tuneup for December's Fukuoka International Marathon. Mitsuko Ino (R2 Nishi Nippon) took eight minutes off the women's course record with a 2:42:24 win.



For the second time in its three runnings to date, local resident Olympian Arata Fujiwara won the 11,000 runner-plus Toyama Marathon, breaking his own course record with a training run-effort 2:16:32. Former sub-2:25 elite Azusa Nojiri (Raffine) had a comeback of sorts to win the women's race, breaking 2:40 for the first time in three years with a 2:38:46 course record.

On the edge of clearing the 10,000 finisher barrier in its first running last year, the Mito Komon Manyu Marathon also saw new course records in both the men's and women's races. Haruki Okayama (Comody Iida) took the men's title in 2:22:57, with Shoko Miyazaki running 2:49:11 to win the women's race.

The smallest of the five with just over 7,500 finishers last year, the Shimada Oikawa Marathon joined the course record rush thanks to a 2:16:33 win in the men's race by Tadashi Suzuki (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), runner-up in the nearby Shizuoka Marathon last March and also Fukuoka-bound. Shiho Katayama won the women's race in 3:01:11. With nine runnings including this year Shimada Oikawa was the oldest of the day's five marathons, all part of the boom set off by the Tokyo Marathon in 2007.

© 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

M.I.A.

Sorry to have been silent for a while. JRN associate editor Mika Tokairin  was in Taiwan for Ironman Penghu, where she won her age group to qualify for Kona for the first time. Right after that we moved for the first time in 14 years, and immediately after that I headed to the U.S. to help Keita Sato  get settled in his new training base in Flagstaff. We'll be resuming normal operations shortly with a big roundup of results over the last 2 weeks. Brett Larner
Post a Comment
Read more

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...
3 comments
Read more