The Tokyo Marathon Foundation announced today that it's launching a new elite and mass-participation half marathon on Oct. 16, The Tokyo Legacy Half, with a field of 15,000 and a price tag to match, 20,700 yen for the privilege of starting and finishing in the Tokyo Olympic Stadium. The course follows a scaled-back version of the MGC and Paralympic marathon courses, downhill at the start, turning around at Nihonbashi and the Imperial Palace, then back up the hill to the stadium. Entries for the first year will be restricted to Japan-only, at least for the mass-participation field, with the note that they might open it up to international tour groups later. More info including course map and elevation here.
Less than five months since the 2023 10000 m National Championships went down at the 2021 Olympic stadium in Tokyo, the 2024 edition happens Friday at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium, with NHK broadcasting it live starting at 19:25 local time. Doubling up on Nationals like this lets Japanese athletes double dip on placing points to try to get into the Paris Olympics on rankings. But between the number of people who've hit the 30:40.00 women's standard and 27:00.00 men's standard and the lopsided eight spots given away to top placers at World XC, there are only four women's spots and three men's available via rankings. Of those, three of the four women's spots and two of the three men's spots are currently occupied by top placers at December's 2023 Nationals, Ririka Hironaka , Haruka Kokai and Rino Goshima for women and Ren Tazawa and Tomoki Ota for men. The 2023 Nationals did get close to the standards, with Hironaka leading the top four women under
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