Where Japan's Paris Olympic Marathon Trials Qualification Is At

Last Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon was the last of the main chances for Japanese marathoners to qualify for the Oct. 15 MGC Race, the country's official marathon trials for the 2024 Paris Olympics. At the trials the top 2 finishers will be named to the Olympic team, with the 3rd finisher provisionally in and the 4th and 5th placers named provisional alternates. After that it's one last turn through the winter 2023-24 season of the big domestic races where people will have the chance to steal the 3rd spot on the team and bump the 3rd-placer at the trials down to alternate.

The deadline for qualifying for the trials is May 31, and there are still a few smaller domestic races like this Sunday's Tokushima Marathon and April's Nagano Marathon, and overseas races with a World Athletics elite label or better where those who haven't qualified yet can try to make a miracle happen. But for the most part, almost all the real contenders are already in.

62 men and 29 women have qualified at this point. It's really interesting that both of these are double the number who qualified for the first MGC race ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, 34 men and 15 women, even though the men's standards are tougher this time. About half the men and half the women qualified by being in the top 3 Japanese finishers in the race where they qualified and under the designated time standards. Another 15 men and 10 women made it by placing in the top 6 Japanese in their race and under tighter time standards. 18 men and 4 women qualified by running 2 marathons averaging 2:10:00/2:28:00 or better since the qualifying window opened on Nov. 1, 2021.

For those who haven't qualified yet and are planning to race internationally in April or May, they can get in with 2:08:00/2:24:00 or better. But realistically the 2-race average is the more likely criteria to shoot for. Not including qualifiers or people who've retired, another 55 men and 10 women have run a marathon 2:12:00/2:30:00 or better inside the qualifying window, putting them within a reasonable range of hitting the 2-race average marks.

Out of those, 19 men and 2 women ran their first race under 2:10:00 or 2:28:00, meaning they could run another race slower and still make it. Kento Nishi leads the men with a 2:08:11 in Osaka last month and would only need to run 2:11:49 by May 31 to qualify. Yuri Karasawa is the fastest woman with a 2:27:27 also in Osaka and needs to run 2:28:33. In a lot of cases the people who ran slower than 2:10:00 or 2:28:00 would need to run a PB to get in. Takashi Soma ran 2:11:50 in Nobeoka in February and would need to pull out a 2:08:10. Shiho Kaneshige had a 2:29:26 in Tokyo last year and would need a 2:26:34. All of the women who made the Tokyo Olympics have qualified this time, but the top 2 men at the last trials, winner Shogo Nakamura and runner-up Yuma Hattori, have yet to make it.

Japan being Japan there's a good chance a few people like that will drop something big, but the chances are we'll see a few more men pull off last-second qualification but very few or no more women. Apart from Tokushima and Nagano, the overseas races whose results the JAAF will accept for trials qualification are:

Mar. 19: Chongqing Marathon, CHN
Mar. 19: Wan Jin Shi Marathon, TPE
Mar. 19: Rome Marathon, ITA
Mar. 19: Seoul Marathon, KOR
Mar. 19: Wuxi Marathon, CHN
Mar. 19: Barcelona Marathon, ESP
Mar. 26: Suzhou Taihu Marathon, CHN
Apr. 2: Xiamen Marathon, CHN
Apr. 2: Daegu International Marathon, KOR
Apr. 2: Paris Marathon, FRA
Apr. 16: Rotterdam Marathon, NED
Apr. 16: Shijiazhuang Marathon, CHN
Apr. 16: Wuhan Marathon, CHN
Apr. 17: Boston Marathon, USA
Apr. 22: Qingdao Marathon, CHN
Apr. 23: London Marathon, GBR
Apr. 23: Vienna Marathon, AUT
May 7: Prague Marathon, CZE
May 28: Jilin International Marathon, CHN
May 28: Ottawa International Marathon, CAN

Given history the European marathons will draw some numbers, but as the real last chance Ottawa is probably going to be the one that ends up with a planeload of Japanese marathoners like Hamburg before the last trials when the deadline was a month earlier. We'll update with final numbers after the May 31 deadline.

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi

10000 m NR Attempt In the Works Saturday at Hachioji Long Distance - Streaming and Preview

There are a bunch of other time trial meets this weekend and next, but Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance is the last big meet for Japanese men, 8 heats of Wavelight-paced 10000 m finely graded from target times of 28:50 down to 26:59 for the fastest heat. Heat 6 at 17:55 local time is effectively the B-race, with 35 Japan-based Kenyans targeting 27:10 at the front end, and in a lot of cases a spot on their teams at the New Year Ekiden national championship on Jan. 1. Corporate teams are only allowed to field one non-Japanese athlete in the New Year Ekiden, and only on its shortest stage, and getting to that has a big impact on African athletes' contracts and renewal prospects. Toyota Boshoku , Yasukawa Denki , Chugoku Denryoku , Aisan Kogyo , JR Higashi Nihon , Subaru and 2024 national champion Toyota are all fielding two Kenyans, and Aichi Seiko three. For people like Toyota's Felix Korir and Samuel Kibathi , getting as close to the 27:10 target time as they can and

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