by Brett Larner
The Nagoya Women's Marathon continues on in its new format as the world's largest women-only marathon, having added a mass-participation field to its longstanding small elite race to stay relevant in the booming Japanese amateur marathon market. This year sports one of the better elite fields in Nagoya history, with five sub-2:24 women, a solid sub-2:30 second pack, and a small group of noteworthy first-timers.
The #1 seed is Russian Mariya Konovalova with a best of 2:22:46 Chicago 2013, and it looks pretty clear that she and Kenyan trio Helena Kirop, Agnes Kiprop and Agnes Barsosio are there to pull Moscow World Championships 4th-placer Ryoko Kizaki (Team Daihatsu) along to something better than her 2:23:34 winning time from last year. There's a gap back to the next group at the 2:25-2:27 level, where Jelena Prokopcuka (Latvia), the eyebrow-raising Zivile Balciunaite (Lithuania), Miranda Boonstra (Netherlands) and Ashete Dido (Ethiopia) are ideally posit…
The Nagoya Women's Marathon continues on in its new format as the world's largest women-only marathon, having added a mass-participation field to its longstanding small elite race to stay relevant in the booming Japanese amateur marathon market. This year sports one of the better elite fields in Nagoya history, with five sub-2:24 women, a solid sub-2:30 second pack, and a small group of noteworthy first-timers.
The #1 seed is Russian Mariya Konovalova with a best of 2:22:46 Chicago 2013, and it looks pretty clear that she and Kenyan trio Helena Kirop, Agnes Kiprop and Agnes Barsosio are there to pull Moscow World Championships 4th-placer Ryoko Kizaki (Team Daihatsu) along to something better than her 2:23:34 winning time from last year. There's a gap back to the next group at the 2:25-2:27 level, where Jelena Prokopcuka (Latvia), the eyebrow-raising Zivile Balciunaite (Lithuania), Miranda Boonstra (Netherlands) and Ashete Dido (Ethiopia) are ideally posit…