Chiba and Nogami Top Asian Marathon Results

At the same time as Suguru Osako's breakthrough 3rd-place finish at Sunday's Fukuoka International Marathon, his Saku Chosei H.S. teammate Kenta Chiba (Fujitsu) ran the Macao International Marathon. A specialist on the same Hakone Ekiden downhill stage that produced marathon greats Hiromi Taniguchi and Yuki Kawauchi, Chiba took 6th in 2:16:33 in a race won by Kenyan Felix Kiptoo Kirwa in a Macao all-comers record 2:10:01. Chiba's time was the fastest ever by a Japanese man in Macao, taking three minutes off the previous record.

A week earlier at the Asian Marathon Championships held in conjunction with China's Dongguan Marathon, Keiko Nogami (Juhachi Ginko), runner up at the 2015 Gold Coast Marathon and 2017 Hokkaido Marathon, added another 2nd-place finish to her resume as she took the silver medal 30 seconds behind North Korean Hye Gyong Kim. Surprisingly, Nogami's time of 2:29:05 was the fastest ever by a Japanese woman on Chinese soil, bettering the top performances at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2015 Beijing World Championships. Shogo Kanezawa (Chugoku Denryoku) was the top Japanese man at 6th in 2:16:51, just over a minute behind winner Thonakal Gopi of India.

© 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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