japan running news

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/sports/yuki-kawauchi-marathon.html

A correction to the NYT article: At the time of this year's Boston Marathon, Kawauchi's 2:08:14 PB was over a minute faster than Rupp's. Rupp later ran 2:06:07 in Prague after his DNF in Boston.

The worldwide elite-level marathon season wrapped up for the first half of 2018 with last Sunday's Gold Coast Marathon in Australia and Hakodate Marathon in Japan. Yes, they were technically on July 1, but it was still June 30 in much of the world so we're going to count them anyway. Which countries led the way in performance and which races were the world's best in the first six months of the year? JRN breaks down the numbers to find the answers. Click any of the tables below to enlarge them. Corrections and additions are always welcome.

In terms of time, Ethiopia led the way this season with the fastest overall men's time and the fastest averages of its ten best men's and women's times. Vivian Cheruiyot's 2:18:31 win in London was the only Kenyan performance to make a dent in the Ethiopian domination of the time lists. For both men and women it's already Ethiopia's best year on record. Ethiopian women are knocking on a top ten average under 2:20 …

A Bank of America Chicago Marathon press release

The Bank of America Chicago Marathon announced today that reigning Boston Marathon champion and “citizen runner” Yuki Kawauchi and 2016 Olympian and Nike Oregon Project runner Suguru Osako will join the elite competition as they both seek to become the first Chicago Marathon champion from Japan since Toshihiko Seko took the crown in 1986.

"I'm really happy to have the chance to race in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon and the Abbott World Marathon Majors," Kawauchi said. "I'm looking forward to running the same race where Toshinari Takaoka set the former national record and so many other great Japanese athletes have run well. My results in the other American Abbott World Marathon Majors races, Boston and New York, were pretty good, and I'll do everything I can to line up in Chicago ready to produce good results there too."

“Yuki and Suguru are exciting additions to our elite field,” said Executive Rac…

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/prague-international-marathon-galen-rupp-winner-1.4650600

Prague Marathon Men's Results
Prague, Czech Republic, 5/6/18
click here for complete results

1. Galen Rupp (U.S.A.) - 2:06:07
2. Sisay Lemma (Ethiopia) - 2:07:03
3. Stephen Chemlany (Kenya) - 2:09:42
4. Barselius Kipyego (Kenya) - 2:10:18
5. Yuma Hattori (Japan/Toyota) - 2:10:26
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8. Suehiro Ishikawa (Japan/Honda) - 2:16:39

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo.

Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “If M…

Japan's Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) and Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki) will run the 2018 Boston Marathon as part of the John Hancock Elite Athlete Team. Kawauchi holds world records for everything from most career sub-2:12 marathons to most sub-2:20, while Nakamoto is Japan's best championships marathoner of modern times with four top 10 finishes at the Olympics and World Championships.

Longtime rivals, their duel at the 2013 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon was one of the classics of Japanese marathoning, both running sub-2:09 PBs as Kawauchi set a still-standing course record of 2:08:15. The pair has a 3-3 record in the marathon so far, their most recent meeting coming at last summer's London World Championships where Kawauchi ran Nakamoto down in the last kilometer to take 9th. Boston will be their 7th and likely final face-off.

Our 2018 #BostonMarathon International Elite Field includes 46 of the world’s best marathoners from 13 countries. Watch to see the …

2017 saw Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) saw him extending his range at both ends of his spectrum with two sub-2:10s, breaking Ethiopian great Abebe Mekonnen's world record for most career sub-2:12 marathons, and, in his final race of the year, tying American Doug Kurtis' sub-2:20 world record. Along the way he set at least 10 course records, won 5 marathons, and took the top Japanese spot at 9th in the London World Championships, altogether making for one of the better years he's had so far.

Based on the assumption that his performance at the 2016 Fukuoka Marathon, the "Miracle in Fukuoka," was going to be enough to get him on the London team Kawauchi spent the New Year running on the London course and in preparation for August's World Championshps planned to run one overseas marathon a month starting in April. He tuned up at February's amateur-level Ehime Marathon, where an unexpectedly aggressive debut by local boy Yohei Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) …

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/1766072.html
http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20170116-00000213-sph-spo

translated and edited by Brett Larner



The Sumitomo Denko corporate men's team announced on Jan. 16 that Kensuke Takezawa, 30, a 2008 Beijing Olympian in the 5000 m and 10000 m, has made the decision to retire from competition.  Via a statement from the company Takezawa said, "I will retire from active competition at the end of this season.  The last few years I haven't been able to produce good results, but the strong, heartfelt support and encouragement I've received from everyone has made it possible to keep going this long.  I sincerely thank you all.  Please continue to cheer on the Sumitomo Denko team."

Takezawa graduated from Hyogo's Hotoku Gakuen H.S. before going to Waseda University, where he set the still-standing collegiate 5000 m record of 13:19.00 and as a fourth-year in 2009 broke the Hakone Ekiden Third Stage record despite a…

From Farah to Fukushi to Kawauchi, Ageo to Hakone to New York and back, JRN's ten most-read articles of the year.

川内優輝さん！スーツ姿で爆走中‼︎ pic.twitter.com/GcOwRWrXlN — ▽・x・▽ tru2 (@M31007) March 13, 2016
1.Kawauchi Breaks World Record for Half Marathon in a Suit by 18 Minutes - Mar. 13
A week after running 2:11:53 at the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) ran his hometown Kuki Half Marathon dressed in his work clothes, a full three-piece suit including tie, belt and dress socks.  Kawauchi ran 1:06:42 for 3rd to beat the official Guinness World Record by 18 minutes, but because Kuki is not a certified course his time was not ratified as a new record.

2.Tsegay Over Makau for Fukuoka Win, Miracle-Worker Kawauchi 3rd - Dec. 4
2015 World Championships silver medalist Yemane Tsegay (Ethiopia) stopped former world record holder Patrick Makau (Kenya) from claiming a third-straight Fukuoka title.  Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) overcame injuries to bo…

by Brett Larner

No real surprises in the men's marathon to wrap up the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.  Berlin and London Marathon winner Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) for gold, Tokyo Marathon winner Feyisa Lilesa (Ethiopia) for silver, Galen Rupp (U.S.A.) stepping up for a medal in bronze, world champion Ghirmay Ghebreslassie (Eritrea) just missing the podium, DNFs for Kenyan and Ethiopian B-men Stanley Biwott and Tesfaye Abera, and irrelevant performances from the Japanese men.  The Japanese men finished in PB order, Satoru Sasaki and Suehiro Ishikawa hanging on to the pack for a while until fading to 16th and 36th, Hisanori Kitajima never in it and finishing 94th in 2:25:11.

Four men born outside Africa qualified for Rio with sub-2:10 times.  The Japanese men were three of them.  Sasaki was the only non-African-born athlete to have qualified sub-2:09.  This was a good team, one of the best in the field.  And yet, they were irrelevant, again.  Hats off to the less accomplished athletes like …