Ueda Dominates Tsumagoi Skyrun

2019 Skyrunner World Series men's champ Ruy Ueda won both days of the Tsumagoi Skyrun, a new trail race held in the mountains of Gunma over the weekend with 41 men and 11 women starting each race individually at 30-second intervals. In Saturday's Vertical Race, elite entrants had to do two runs up a 3.8 km trail with 600 m of climb starting at 1470 m elevation, with their final finishing ranking based on the combined times from both runs.

On his first attempt Ueda clocked 23:45, beating Mt. Kosha Vertical Kilometer winner Ryunosuke Omi by almost two minutes. On his second run he went even faster, clocking 23:01 to seal up 1st with a total time of 46:46. Omi was 2nd in 50:57, with Shoma Otagiri 3rd in 52:20.

Skyrunning national team member Yuri Yoshizumi took the women's race, one of the few people in the elite race not to negative split as she opened with an aggressive 30:49 only to follow up in 31:20 for a total time of 1:02:09. Mt. Kosha winner Takako Takamura was a distant 2nd in 1:06:51, Suzuha Kusuda taking 3rd in 1:07:16.

On Sunday most of the field returned for the Skyrace, three laps of an 8.0 km trail with 620 m elevation difference between its lowest point, 1470 m, and its highest at 2090 m. Ueda dominated again, running 2:05:22 to win by more than 13 minutes over Omi, 2nd again in 2:18:24. Masato Kamijohara was a close 3rd in 2:20:11.

Yoshizumi didn't run day two,but both Takamura and Kusuda were there, going 1-2 in the women's race in 2:44:29 and 3:00:49. 3rd-placer Aya Wakabayashi clocked 3:14:36.

© 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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