Skip to main content

O'Keeffe, Hattori, Nakamura and Others DNS for Sunday's Tokyo Legacy Half



At a pre-race press conference at Tokyo's New National Stadium on Oct. 14, the Tokyo Marathon Foundation announced the list of withdrawals from Sunday's inaugural Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon. On the women's side, #1-ranked Fiona O'Keeffe (U.S.A.) and collegiate marathon NR holder Sairi Maeda (Daihatsu) were the two biggest names to pull out, O'Keeffe listed as sick and Maeda with injury.

On the men's side, Tokyo Olympic marathoners Yuma Hattori (Toyota) and Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) were the biggest losses given the event's intent of commemorating the Olympic and Paralympic races, both athletes listed as injured. Other prominent withdrawals include former NR holder Yuta Shitara (Honda), 2022 National Corporate 10000 m champion Emmanuel Maru (Toyota Boshoku), 2021 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Michael Githae (Suzuki), 2022 Twin Cities Marathon winner Yuya Yoshida (GMO) and Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Shin Nihon Jusetsu).

Para athlete withdrawals include Tadashi Horikoshi (NTT Nishi Nihon), Kota Hokinoue (Yahoo) and Hiroki Nishida (Baccarat Pacific).

Top athletes remaining for Sunday's race:

Women
Betsy Saina (U.S.A.) - 1:07:49 (Marugame 2019)
Dolphine Omare (Kenya/U.S.E.) - 1:07:56 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2022)
Haruka Yamaguchi (A.C. Kita) - 1:09:50 (Gifu Seiyu 2022)
Ikumi Fukura (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:09:58 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2020)
Caroline Nyaga (Kenya) - 1:10:00 (Trento 2019)
Natsuki Omori (Daihatsu) - 1:10:18 (Sanyo Ladies 2021)
Kotomi Tsubokura (Wacoal) - 1:11:02 (Sanyo Ladies 2021)
Kotona Ota (Japan Post) - 1:11:48 (Nagoya Women's 2022)
Rie Kawauchi (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:11:49 (Nagoya Women's 2022) 

Men
Alexander Mutiso (Kenya/ND Software) - 57:59 (Valencia 2020)
Benard Kimeli (Kenya/Fujitsu) - 59:32 (Herzogenaurach 2022)
Joseph Karanja (Kenya/Aichi Seiko) - 59:48 (Madrid 2021)
Vincent Raimoi (Kenya/Suzuki) - 59:51 (Ras al Khaimah 2020)
Vincent Kipkemoi (Kenya) - 1:00:00 (Malaga 2022)
Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) - 1:00:19 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2021)
Joseph Macharia Ndirangu (Kenya/Aichi Seiko) - 1:00:30 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2015)
Nicholas Kosimbei (Kenya/YKK) - 1:00:36 (Atlanta 2022)
Masato Kikuchi (Makes) - 1:00:43 (Marugame 2020)
Joel Mwaura (Kenya/Kurosaki Harima) - 1:00:44 (Okukuma 2020)
Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) - 1:00:55 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2020)
Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) - 1:01:26 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2020)

text and photo © 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Stefan said…
Haruka Yamaguchi (A.C. Kita) is running here too! She must have clocked some major miles this year. Perhaps another PB for her? The way her season is going I wouldn't be surprised.

What a shame to see Sairi Maeda pull out due to injury. It would have been a good test to see if MGC qualification later in the year or next year is a realistic goal. I recall she qualified for the Tokyo Olympics MGC race and had to withdraw due to injury. It would be great to see her make qualify and make the starting line up this time round.
October 14, 2022 at 4:15 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...
1 comment
Read more

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...
2 comments
Read more