japan running news

With championship ekiden season a wrap this weekend gets Japan's winter road racing season up to full steam. The main race of the weekend is Sunday's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon. Everything is about qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics more-or-less one-shot trials right now, and that's obvious with a look at what's probably the strongest-ever Beppu-Oita entry list. Ten men in the field have broken 2:10 in the last three years, five of them Japanese, with last year's top two Desmond Mokgobu (South Africa) and Hayato Sonoda (Kurosaki Harima) leading the way.

Sonoda, Daisuke Uekado (Otsuka Seiyaku) and 2018 Hokkaido Marathon winner Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) have already qualified for September's MGC Race trials event, but anyone else in the 2:10 to 2:11 range will have a shot. With a 2:09:36 in Tokyo last year Kohei Ogino (Fujitsu) only needs to run 2:12:24 to qualify, making him the probable favorite to qualify, but the field also features the debut…

Last year's winners Betsy Saina and Edward Waweru, both of Kenya, return to the Feb. 3 Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon, but in both cases they have tough competition. Ranked #1 in the women's race is Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) with a 1:09:14, 3 seconds better than Saina's winning time last year. 3 seconds slower is Sinead Diver (Australia) with a 1:09:20 on home ground last year. Sara Hall (U.S.A.) isn't far behind, and with track star Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) making her debut off a brilliant run at last weekend's National Women's Ekiden it should be a solid pack up front.

In the men's race, 2017 marathon world champion Geoffrey Kirui (Kenya) leads the way, his best recent time a 1:00:04 in New Delhi two years ago. Only 2 seconds behind is Shadrack Kiplagat (Kenya), with Evans Cheruiyot (Kenya) and the Japan-based Waweru just over 20 seconds back. Waweru's condition is a question mark after an injury at the New Year Ekiden. Kenta Murayama (Asah…

an Abbott World Marathon Majors press release

The Abbott World Marathon Majors Series XI Champions were officially crowned in London following the conclusion of the 2018 Virgin Money London Marathon. Tim Hadzima, General Manager of the Abbott World Marathon Majors said: “It has been another sensational series for Abbott World Marathon Majors. We started in London with a women’s world record from Mary Keitany in 2017 and continued with some astonishing races in each of our six cities.”

Eliud Kipchoge won his third consecutive AbbottWMM title after winning the 2017 BMW Berlin Marathon and the 2018 Virgin Money London Marathon to give him 50 points. Second behind Kipchoge was his fellow Kenyan Geoffrey Kirui with 41 points. Kirui won 25 points with victory at the 2017 IAAF World Championships Marathon and added 16 more with second in the 2018 Boston Marathon.

In third was Japan’s Yuki Kawauchi with 25 points after his victory in the 2018 Boston Marathon. Kawauchi was tied in joint third …

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…

Coming from behind after a mid-race fall, team captain Yuki Kawauchi took the top Japanese men's spot in the London World Championships marathon, running down teammate Kentaro Nakamoto in the final kilometer to finish 9th in 2:12:19.

In the early stages of the race the experienced Nakamoto and Kawauchi held back mid-pack while younger teammate Hiroto Inoue stayed near the front. Midway through the second lap Kawauchi took a drink bottle at one of the aid stations and, while drinking, hit his left thigh on a sign protruding from the next table, the signs inexplicably changing at exactly that point from overhead to waist-hieght obstacles on the course. The impact was hard enough to cut Kawauchi's leg but not enough to slow him down.

When the big move came early in the third lap Nakamoto led the charge in pursuit, the three Japanese men running single file, but Inoue quickly losing touch. Near the top of the short S-curve uphill near 23 km Kawauchi abruptly stumbled and fell, an…

by Brett Larner

大迫選手、ボストンマラソンで2:10:28で３位。ボストンで日本人歴代3記録。Osako 2:10:28 debut for 3rd at #BostonMarathonpic.twitter.com/eP9AKOlteI — Japan Running News (@JRNHeadlines) April 17, 2017
Asian junior half marathon record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) made a successful transition to the marathon at the Boston Marathon, finishing 3rd in 2:10:28 in his debut over the distance.  Always hanging near the rear of the lead pack, Osako appeared relaxed and never stressed when the pace changed, taking his time in catching back up whenever one of the frontline men threw in a surge.  Osako lost touch during the final battle between eventual winner Geoffrey Kirui (Kenya) and NOP teammate Galen Rupp but pushed on to keep 3rd, Kirui breaking the tape in 2:09:37 and Rupp 2nd in 2:09:58.

Osako's 2:10:28 was the third-fastest ever by a Japanese man on the Boston course and made him just the second to break 2:11 in Boston after fellow Waseda University graduate Toshihiko Seko's 2:09:37 win…