japan running news

by Brett Larner In its first running last year the Saitama International Marathon tagged a small elite women's race, the descendant of the defunct Yokohama International Women's Marathon and Tokyo International Women's Marathon, onto a new 3500-runner amateur race.  Tokyo International was a high-profile, high-prestige elite event that served an important role in both the development of women's marathoning worldwide and Japanese national team selection.  The profile and prestige dipped with the move to Yokohama, its 2014 winner Tomomi Tanaka controversially left off the 2015 Beijing World Championships team, and both dropped again last year with the move out to Tokyo's northwestern suburbs in Saitama. Its legacy as the inheritor of Japan's premier women's race and nominal current role as a women's event are obscured by the co-ed mass marathon, local boy  Yuki Kawauchi proudly splashed across the Saitama website's top page for this year's...

by Brett Larner Hot conditions in the final kilometers of the 2009 Berlin Marathon kept times slower than anticipated. With Team Kanebo's Tomohiro Seto a no-show, three elite Japanese men joined the field behind the anticipated duel between Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and Duncan Kibet of Kenya. Former national record holder Atsushi Fujita (Fujitsu) and 2009 World Championships marathon alternate Kensuke Takahashi (Team Toyota) ran together in the second pack, relaxing through a slow first 10 km in 30:53 before the pace began to ratchet downward. At halfway the pair were right together in 1:04:18, Fujita well on track for his sub-2:10 target and Takahashi looking smooth. When the pack broke apart in the second half Takahashi began to drift away and by 40 km was 45 seconds behind Fujita, who had fallen off sub-2:10 pace himself. Takahashi rallied for a strong finish but could only come within 6 seconds of Fujita by the goal line. Fujita was 8th overall in 2:12:54, Takahashi 9th in...