japan running news

by Brett Larner

Strong winds and off-and-on rain throughout the area made for two of the slowest winning times in the Nagano Marathon's 18-year history as Kenya's Jairus Chanchima and Ethiopia's Shasho Insermu won Sunday's race in 2:15:31 and 2:34:19.

A slow start in the men's race kept a large lead group together for the first 25 km before Chanchima went to work.  Returning to Nagano after dropping out mid-race last year, Chanchima put on a solo surge from 25 to 30 km that put him 38 seconds ahead of the rest of the lead group.  From there Chanchima tucked in and cruised on unthreatened, Japan-based Mongolian national record holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Team NTN) closing the gap slightly but never coming in range of the win.  Chanchima's winning time of 2:15:31 was the slowest in Nagano Marathon history, over a minute behind Yuki Kawauchi's 2013 winning time of 2:14:27 in heavy snow.  Bat-Ochir was 25 seconds back in 2:15:56 for 2nd, with Taiga Ito (Suzuki Ham…

by Brett Larner

With its long history of hosting Russians now interrupted by the IAAF's doping scandal suspension of all Russian athletes, Japan's Nagano Marathon proudly welcomes two other athletes with recent drug suspensions to lead the women's field at next weekend's 18th edition.  Gladys Tejeda (Peru) tops the list with the loss of her gold medal in last summer's Pan-Am Games marathon after testing positive for the masking agent furosemide.  Close behind is Kaori Yoshida (Runners Pulse), who holds the honor of being the only Japanese athlete to have been publicly suspended for EPO after testing positive at the 2012 Honolulu Marathon.

With both having run 2:28 bests last year they are almost 4 minutes ahead of the fastest athlete in the field never to have served a drug suspension, Kenya's Hellen Mugo.  Neither is currently under suspension, an indication that Nagano and its elite coordinator share the familiar focus here on details at the expense of the bi…