Skip to main content

Marugame Half and Beppu-Oita Marathon Headline Weekend Action


Post-ekiden road season is up to full speed in Japan with two major races this Sunday. First up, the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon kicks off its 75th anniversary edition at 10:35 a.m. with an Aussie-heavy field and the usual domestic depth. Kenyan Nancy Jelagat is the class of the women's field on paper with a 1:05:21 in Berlin 2021, but without any race results in 2022 it's a question how she'll fare against Japan-based Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels), the Aussie trio of Sinead Diver, Eloise Wellings and Isobel Batt-Doyle, Brit Charlotte Purdue, American Sarah Pagano, and top-ranked domestic woman Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu).

Sub-58 man Alexander Mutiso (ND Software) fronts the men's field, with Aussies Jack Rayner and Riley Cocks set to mix it up with debuting 27:20.34 man Cleophas Kandie (Mitsubishi Juko) and a million domestic men including sub-61 half marathoners Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima) Takashi Namba (Toenec) and Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota). BS-Fuji has the live TV broadcast starting at 10:30.

Nishiyama won the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon last year, but this year he's swapped places with half marathon NR holder Yusuke Ogura (GMO), who has opted for Beppu instead of a return trip to the place he set his NR. The international field is tiny, with just three 2:07-level Africans, Hamza Sahli (Morocco), Ibrahim Hassan (Djibouti) and Daniel Kipchumba (Kenya), a pretty clear sign of what kind of time the powers that be hope the race will end up delivering. Alongside Ogura are 2:07 men Shin Kimura (Honda), Kento Kikutani (Toyota Boshoku), Kazuki Muramoto (Sumitomo Denko), Tsubasa Ichiyama (Komori Corp.) and Tatsuya Maruyama (Toyota), another 4 men at the 2:08 level, and 2022 Hokkaido Marathon winner Luka Musembi (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.). With conditions looking good expect to see a few more names join the list of qualifiers for October's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials.

TBS will be broadcasting Beppu-Oita live starting at 11:50 a.m. Sunday local time. Partial streaming will be on local broadcaster RKB's site, so check there for more info. JRN will be on-site locally and will have limited coverage on @JRNLive.

© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges.  Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...
1 comment
Read more

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
12 comments
Read more

10 Meet Records and a National Record at Hyogo Relay Carnival

The grand prix distance events were absent from the program this year at the 73rd Hyogo Relay Carnival , with the top performances in the women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m Asics Challenge races going to steepler Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu) in 15:49.48 and Japan-based Kenyan Emmanuel Kiplagat (Mitsubishi Juko) in 28:12.42. But there were a lot of new meet records, and one national record. Ryosuke Kusumi (Shiga) set a T37-class NR of 58.35 m in the para men's 400 m. Kairi Ikeno (Suma Gakuen H.S.) came less than 2 seconds short of a new high school record in the women's 2000 m , beating her own MR from last year by over 3 seconds in 5:55.36, almost 17 seconds ahead of 2nd place. The top 5 all broke or tied the men's high jump meet record, with both Yuto Seko (FAAS) and Tomohiro Shinno (Kyudenko) clearing 2.25 m and Takashi Eto (Kobe Digital Labo), Chao-Hsuan Fu (Taiwan) and Naoto Hasegawa (Niigata Albirex RC) clearing 2.20 m. Yuki Hashioka (Fujitsu) won the men...
Post a Comment
Read more