Skip to main content

2020 Olympic Marathon Trials Winner Honami Maeda Out of Hokkaido Marathon With Corona

On Aug. 15 the organizing committee of the Aug. 28 Hokkaido Marathon announced that 2020 Olympic marathon trials winner and 30 km national record holder Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) has withdrawn from the race after contracting COVID-19. Maeda became the first woman to qualify for the 2020 trials when she won Hokkaido in 2017. This was to be her first marathon since the Tokyo Olympics marathon in Sapporo last summer. A win would have qualified her for next year's Olympic trials. The remainder of the Hokkaido field is listed here.

Translator's note: Another major blow for Japanese marathoning. Maeda has been running well this season, with two half marathon PBs. She was a leading contender for the win in Hokkaido. Her withdrawal with COVID-19 follows the last-second withdrawals of women-only NR holder Mao Ichiyama, women's half-marathon NR holder Hitomi Niiya, and men's NR holder Kengo Suzuki from last month's Oregon World Championships marathons after testing positive for coronavirus.

source article:
translated and edited by Brett Larner

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Stefan said…
Wow! This is a cursed year for some of the headlining Japanese women athletes.
First Seira Fuwa gets injured early in the year and misses the World Champs, then Mao Ichiyama and Hitomi Niiya contract COVID just prior to their world championship race and now the 'in form' Honami Maeda contracts COVID too. It's hard to believe! I can just hope all the athletes mentioned recover fully and can be at their best in the very near future. I was so looking forward to watching Honami Maeda in this race. I'm gutted. I can only imagine how she must be feeling.
August 15, 2022 at 3:57 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Hakone Champ AGU Hits 50 km a Day in Spring Break Training Camp

Having scored its 3rd-straight Hakone Ekiden win this past January, Aoyama Gakuin University spent the Golden Week spring holidays training on the Myoko Plateau in Niigata from May 2-6. Along with the champion men's ekiden team, the first 2 members of AGU's new women's long distance team Nodoka Ashida and Kairi Ikeno , and AGU alumni and 2026 New Year Ekiden champion GMO team members Yuya Yoshida and Asahi Kuroda also took part in the training camp. Depending on the day's training schedule, mileage at the camp was over 50 km a day. AGU men's captain Kaito Nakamura confidently said, "This Golden Week training camp is where we lay the foundations for our 4th-straight Hakone title." A lot of people spend Golden Week on vacation, but the AGU ekiden team spent their time working hard on Myoko's rolling land amid the sprouting leaves of spring. On the 2nd day of the camp, May 3, team members woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do their warmup. The team assembled a...
1 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

Shikama and Njeri Win Sendai International Half Marathon

Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed) and Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) won the Sendai International Half Marathon Sunday in Sendai, Shikama in 1:01:31 and Njeri in 1:09:20. Mizuki Nishimura (Tenmaya) was the top Japanese woman at 2nd overall. The men's race went through 5 km in 14:34 and 10 km in 29:22. Shikama ran alongside top competition including Shoki Yamaguchi (Soka Univ.), who has been running well in half marathons this season, and Tokyo World Championships marathon team member Naoki Koyama (Honda). On a course with many small ups and downs, Shikama attacked on a downhill just after 15 km, quickly breaking free of the lead group of 7. 13 seconds up by 20 km, Shikama covered the last 1.0975 km in 3:06 to seal his first Sendai title. A graduate of Juntendo University , Shikama is in his 4th season with Logisteed. At the 2024 National Corporate Half Marathon he ran 1:00:41, and at last year's East Japan Corporate Ekiden he won the Third Stage. In his marathon d...
Post a Comment
Read more