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Showing posts with the label Keita Akiba

Honda Kicks Off Season With Win at 66th Towada Hachimantai Ekiden

by Brett Larner

Ekiden season got off to an early start with the 66th running of Akita's Towada Hachimantai Ekiden on Aug. 7.  The Honda corporate team, less Moscow World Championships marathoner Masakazu Fujiwara and other A-list members, outran rival Yakult for the win after a slow start.  The Yakult A team led for the first three of the day's five stages thanks in part to a superb stage record of 36:12 on the 13.4 km Second Stage by new Kenyan ace Bernard Kimani, while Honda fell as low as 4th.  On the 16.4 km Fourth Stage new Honda recruit Wataru Ueno, a graduate of Komazawa University and Sendai Ikuei H.S., had a strong corporate ekiden debut as he made up the 30-second gap to leader Yutaro Fukushi of Yakult before opening a lead of nearly two minutes.

With Fukushi having fallen to 3rd behind Komori Corporation, Yakult anchor Soji Ikeda, another Komazawa alum, did his best to run down Honda's Hayato Saito on the tough uphill Fifth Stage, but although he overtook Komo…
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Hyogo Relay Carnival Entry Lists

by Brett Larner
Entry lists are up for one of Japan's biggest spring meets, the Apr. 23-24 Hyogo Relay Carnival. With the cancellation of many of the spring's half marathons after last month's disasters, this year's meet features an exceptionally deep level of talent, particularly at the university level where the men's and women's 10000 m will serve as selection races for the half marathon team for this year's World University Games.
The men's Grand Prix 10000 m has an all-star lineup led by two sub-27 men, Japanese all-comers record holder Josephat Ndambiri (Kenya/Team Komori Corp.) and '07 World Championships 10000 m bronze medalist and 10 mile junior world record holder Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC). Lining up against them are '08 World XC Jr. champion Ibrahim Jeilan (Ethiopia/Team Honda), '11 World XC runner-up Paul Tanui (Kenya/Team Kyudenko), sub-28 men Masato Kihara (Team Kanebo), Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko), Yusei N…
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Tokyo Marathon Men's Preview - Turning to the New (updated)

by Brett Larner

Update 2/26: Hideaki Date (Team Chugoku Denryoku) is also out. Quite a shame.

Update 2/25: Along with Gebrselassie, defending champion Masakazu Fujiwara (Team Honda) is out of Tokyo after coming down with a fever. 2007 Tokyo runner-up Tomoyuki Sato (Team Asahi Kasei) is injured and will also DNS.

It's Tokyo Marathon week. This is the second of JRN's two-part preview of this year's fifth edition, to be held this Sunday, Feb. 27. Click here for part one, our women's preview, and look for additional articles and info as the week goes along. This year's race will be broadcast live on Fuji TV beginning at 9 a.m. Japan time. Overseas viewers should be able to watch online via Keyhole TV. Some viewers experienced trouble with Keyhole for last week's Yokohama International Women's Marathon but it appears to be working fine as of this writing, so make sure you have downloaded the current version of the player to increase your chances. In any case, JRN …
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Kenyan XC Champ Gideon Ngatuny to Debut at Tokyo Marathon

by Brett Larner

2010 national champions Team Nissin Shokuhin have announced that the team's star, 2008 Kenyan XC national champion Gideon Ngatuny, will run his marathon debut at the Feb. 27 Tokyo Marathon. Ngatuny, who holds a half marathon best of 59:50 and a 10000 m best of 27:01.83, has in the last two years progressively moved up in distance, with wins at the 2008 and 2009 Nagoya Half Marathon and the 2009 Sapporo International Half Marathon and a turn as a pacemaker at the 2010 London Marathon.

Ngatuny joins world record holder Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia), 2010 double Sapporo International Half Marathon and Hokkaido Marathon winner Cyrus Njui (Kenya/Team Hitachi Cable) and New Year Ekiden Fifth Stage winner Keita Akiba (Team Komori Corp.) among the athletes to have already publicly declared their participation in what looks to be the highest-level Tokyo Marathon field to date.

Gideon Ngatuny - Kenya
born 10/10/86
half marathon: 59:50 (Nagoya, 2009)
10000 m: 27:01.83 (Tendo, 2009)
…
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Toyota Wins First-Ever New Year Ekiden National Championship

by Brett Larner

100 km came down to a lean at the tape as Team Toyota won its first-ever New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championship title in a thrilling sprint finish over 2009 champion Team Fujitsu and 2010 champion Team Nissin Shokuhin. With an unusual number of teams losing key players to injury Toyota's chances looked good pre-race as it held the largest number of sub-28 10000 m, the fruition of several years under the leadership of head coach Toshinobu Sato who had previously turned Team Konica Minolta into one of the country's best. After two good opening stages Third Stage runner Yusuke Takabayashi set a new stage record of 38:02 for the 13.6 km course to put Toyota into the lead, and it remained in the top pack of four throughout the next three stages.

Toyota anchor Takeshi Kumamoto started in 3rd and, when quickly overtaken by defending Seventh Stage winner Hiroyuki Ono of defending champion Nissin Shokuhin, latched on to close the small gap to leaders …
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Ogi Wins Rock 'n' Roll Virginia Beach, Japan-Trained Africans Take Great Scottish Run

by Brett Larner

In the absence of any serious competition, Madoka Ogi (Team Juhachi Ginko) won the women's race at the Rock 'n' Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon Sept. 5. Ogi's time of 1:14:17 was unremarkable but good enough to win by a margin of nearly a minute and a half over a field which included Beijing Olympics marathon gold medalist Constantina Dita (Romania) and world trail running champion Fiona Docherty (New Zealand). Along with Seattle winner Mari Ozaki (Team Noritz), Ogi is the second Japanese woman to win a Rock 'n' Roll-brand half marathon this year. Japanese men also fared decently in Virginia Beach, taking five of the top ten spots led by 5000 m and 30 km national record holder Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica Minolta) in 1:03:57 for 4th behind Kenyan Yusuf Songoka's 1:02:46 winning performance. Click here to read the official press release on Songoka and Ogi's wins.

Across the ocean, formerly Japan-based Africans took both of the top spot…
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Makau, Notagashira Take Asics Challenge

by Brett Larner

The 2010 Hyogo Relay Carnival got underway on Apr. 24 with the sprints and Asics Challenge distance events.

In the Asics Challenge 10000 m, the weekend's men's 10000 m B-heat, Kenyan Nicholas Makau (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) easily defeated Keita Akiba (Team Komori Corp.) and Akihiko Tsumurai (Team Mazda) but was more than 45 seconds off Samuel Wanjiru's B-heat meet record from 2005. Miho Notagashira (Team Wacoal), teammate of national record holder Kayoko Fukushi, won the Asics Challenge women's 5000 m by a few strides over Shoko Mori (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) in 15:54.48.

The Hyogo Relay Carnival continues on Apr. 25 with the high school races and Grand Prix 1500 m and 10000 m A-heats.

2010 Hyogo Relay Carnival Day One - Top Finishers
click here for complete results or event header for individual event results

Asics Challenge Men's 10000 m
1. Nicholas Makau (Kenya/Team Yachiyo Kogyo) - 28:18.94
2. Keita Akiba (Team Komori Corp.) - 28:34.42
3. Akihiko Tsumurai (Team …
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Watch the New Year Ekiden Live Online - Preview

by Brett Larner

The first race of the year kicks off just hours into the first day: the Japanese corporate men's national championship New Year Ekiden. 100 km split into seven stages, the New Year Ekiden is broadcast live nationwide. Now in its 54th year, it has become the main focus of the year for professional Japanese men, with October and November's regional qualifying ekidens taking the place of a fall marathon and, this year, the drive to promote team sponsors pushing the New Year Ekiden ahead of the great Fukuoka International Marathon.

Questionable as this may be, the New Year Ekiden is where you see the peak performances happening. On the ekiden's longest leg, the 22.3 km Fourth Stage on the current course, top men such as Keita Akiba (Team Komori Corp.), Takayuki Matsumiya (Team Konica Minolta) and Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) have run times equivalent to a sub-hour half marathon, well ahead of the official national record. You rarely see the big Japanese names …
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A Mature New Atsushi Fujita, Resurrected and Loving Life - Tokyo Marathon

http://www.kahoku.co.jp/news/2009/03/20090319t64056.htm
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/090318/oth0903181808005-n1.htm

translated and edited by Brett Larner

At age 32, former men's marathon national record holder Atsushi Fujita (Team Fujitsu) will be running the Tokyo Marathon for the first time in a bid to make the national team for August's World Championships in Berlin. Long since having lost his record, he doesn't want to end up in obscurity. "My goal isn't just to be the top Japanese finisher," he says with a champion's resolve. "I'm going to make the World Championships team by taking down all the strong international guys and winning."

When Fujita was 24 he set the previous national record of 2:06:51 at the 2000 Fukuoka International Marathon, becoming and remaining the only Japanese man to run 2:06 within the country. Coming in the wake of the disastrous showing by the Japanese men's team in the Sydney Olympics he was hailed as…
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Veteran Kobayashi 'Very Happy' With PB in Betsudai

originally published in the Nikkei Newspaper on 2/2/09

translated by Brett Larner

Translator's note: This may be old news by now but I wanted to put it up to give credit where it is due in light of all the negative commentary by Rikuren officials following Beppu-Oita (coming in another article shortly). Kobayashi ran a great race. おつかれさま。

Veteran Seiji Kobayashi (32, Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) was the top Japanese finisher at Sunday's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, finishing 2nd overall behind winner Adil Annani (Morocco). Less than two months after a disappointing 20th place finish at December's Fukuoka International Marathon, Kobayashi ran 2:10:38 in difficult conditions to break his PB by 24 seconds in his eleventh marathon. "My training went really well, so I wanted to leave a good mark here. Today I'm a happy man," he said proudly.

On the way to the 25.5 km turnaround point Kobayashi thought, "The pace felt pretty fast, so I was careful to keep my st…
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'Morocco's Adil Annani Wins Beppu-Oita Marathon'

http://iaaf.org/LRR09/news/newsid=49180.html

Ken Nakamura's excellent IAAF report on the 2009 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon, linked above, covers much of what I would otherwise say. One small error in his report is that Seiji Kobayashi's PB performance gives him 'littlechance' of being selected for the Berlin World Championships, not 'a little chance.' Kobayashi ran Beppu-Oita, aka Betsudai, after finishing 20th in Fukuoka this past December in 2:20:46.

Adil Annani has apparently been coached by the great Moroccan marathoner Abdelkader El Mouaziz since 2007. At the 11 km water station Annani missed his special drink. Looking back over his shoulder he crashed straight on into the next table, falling forward onto the table. It evidently didn't take much out of him.

Another detail worth mentioning was the strong marathon debut by Yuki Kawauchi (Gakushuin Univ.), one of the top runners on this year's Hakone Ekiden6th stage and the 3rd place finisher at the 2008…
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Defending Beppu-Oita Champion Adachi to Take On Domestic Rivals Ota and Akiba in Race for World Championships Spot

http://mainichi.jp/enta/sports/general/news/20090129ddm035050096000c.html
http://mainichi.jp/enta/sports/general/news/20090128ddm035050005000c.htmlhttp://mainichi.jp/enta/sports/general/news/20090127ddm035050011000c.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The 58th Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon will be held Feb. 1 on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu. As a selection race for the 2009 Berlin World Championships marathon team, this year's Betsudai, as the race is abbreviated, has drawn a large number of domestic contenders along with several top foreign competitors. Chief among the runners vying for a spot on the the Berlin team are defending champion and Oita local Tomoya Adachi (23, Team Asahi Kasei), ekiden ace Takashi Ota (32, Team Konica Minolta) and first-time marathoner Keita Akiba (29, Team Komori Corp.).

Tomoya Adachi
Tomoya Adachi is coming home to win. Taking first last year in his debut marathon, Adachi brought new wind to the sails of Japanese marathoning. Runn…
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Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon Names Elite Field for 2009 World Championships Selection Race Edition

http://mainichi.jp/enta/sports/general/track/news/20090115k0000m050021000c.html

translated by Brett Larner

The organizing committee of the 58th Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon (sponsored in part by the Mainichi Newspapers Group and Rikuren), announced the names of this year's elite field on Jan. 14. Defending champion Tomoya Adachi (Team Asahi Kasei), who won last year's race in his marathon debut, will return to headline the field. Keita Akiba (Team Komori Corp.) will make his highly-anticipated marathon debut after a dazzling run at the New Year Ekiden. Times are expected to be fast as runners will be competing not only for the win but also for a place on the 2009 Berlin World Championships marathon team.

The domestic elite field includes 11 invited runners. Since winning last year Adachi has focused on improving his speed, setting a new 10000 m PB later in 2008. He came up a disappointing 3rd in an intense three-way sprint finish on the anchor stage of this year's New Year Ek…
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Japanese Runners to Watch in 2009

by Brett Larner

Japanese distance running in 2008 had a large share of disappointments and failures, but there were also memorable breakthroughs from Arata Fujiwara, Yukiko Akaba, Yusei Nakao and, of course, Japan-based Samuel Wanjiru. Here is a brief guide to some of the people to watch in 2009.

Women

Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren)
Akaba had a spectacular 2008, entering the Japanese women's all-time top three or four at 5000 m, 10000 m and half-marathon and making the World Half Marathon and Beijing Olympics teams, but it was all just part of her two-year plan to move up to the marathon in time for the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. She's debuting at this month's Osaka International Women's Marathon where she will have to take down former national record holder Yoko Shibui to make the Berlin team. Food poisoning may have spoiled her Olympics, but so far Akaba has shown complete focus and made no mistakes; her 2008 half-marathon time of 1:08:11 was the 2nd fastest in the…
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Team Fujitsu Wins 3-Way Sprint Finish at New Year Ekiden

by Brett Larner

Team Fujitsu anchor Ryuji Matsushita won a spectacular three-way sprint finish over Team Nissin Shokuhin's Yuzo Onishi and Team Asahi Kasei's Tomoya Adachi to bring Fujitsu home in 4:51:55 to its first New Year Ekiden win in ten years on a windy Jan. 1 morning in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture. Both Nissin Shokuhin and Asahi Kasei clocked 4:51:56, with Matsushita a step ahead and Onishi outleaning Adachi at the line.

Team Fujitsu ran in the second pack for the first three of the 100 km ekiden's seven stages. Former marathon national record holder Atsushi Fujita started the 22.3 km fourth stage in 4th place, passing all three runners ahead of him but being outkicked by one second by Team Komori Corp.'s Keita Akiba. Akiba clocked the stage-best performance in 1:03:04, with Fujita taking a creditable stage-3rd best, putting Team Fujitsu in 2nd place.

Team Fujitsu's 5th stage runner Takayuki Ota likewise clocked a stage-3rd best, running 47:42 for the uphill 1…
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