japan running news

by Brett Larner

The organizers of next month's first edition of the new Osaka Marathon have officially made their entry into the already crowded fall marathon season with the release of the elite field for the Oct. 30 race.

Topping the men's field with a 2:07:29 best is 2009 Tokyo Marathon champion Salim Kipsang (Kenya).  His best competition, a surprise entry coming just less than two months after the Daegu World Championships, is 2:08:37 runner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref.) who beat Kipsang at the 2010 Tokyo Marathon.  Other overseas runners include Elijah Sang (Kenya) and Woody Harrelson lookalike Alexsey Sokolov (Russia), who also ran in the World Championships.  The small domestic field includes Japan's two other top amateur runners after Kawauchi, 2009 Copenhagen Marathon winner Toyokazu Yoshimura and infamous wig runner Nobuaki Takata.

The women's field consists primarily of veterans, led by Olympic medalist Lidia Simon (Romania), Hokkaido Marathon course record…

by Brett Larner

Alongside the Ageo City Half Marathon it was a big weekend at the 212th Nittai University Time Trials, Nov. 20-21 in Yokohama. Among the highlights:
While 19 year-old Kenyan Bitan Karoki (Team S&B) added another sub-28 time in the 10000 m to his name with a 27:46.19 win, Jobu University senior Yusuke Hasegawa ran the fastest mark of the year by a Japanese university student, 28:07.47, to take 2nd in the A-heat. In the B-heat, Sendai Ikuei High School junior Yuma Hattori set the fastest time of the year by a Japanese high school student, 28:58.08. Three Josai University men broke 29 minutes for the first time; Josai head coach Seiji Kushibe, Jobu head coach Katsuhiko Hanada and Ageo winner Suguru Osako's coach at Waseda University, Yasuyuki Watanabe, were all teammates at Waseda during their student days.Former 2:08 marathoner and national champion Team Nissin Shokuhin assistant coach Kenjiro Jitsui, 41, set a masters' 10000 m national record of 29:16.83 in th…

by Brett Larner

Update: Current forecast as of 7:00 p.m. on Mar. 6 is for light rain, moderate wind and temperatures of 6-7 degrees at the start.

The 2010 Biwako Mainichi Marathon, known as Biwako in Japan and Lake Biwa overseas, takes place this Sunday, Mar. 7. One of the oldest marathons in Japan, Biwako has taken steps in the last two years to ensure its continued prominence in the elite marathon circuit including securing Japan's first IAAF gold label despite not meeting any of the published criteria. This year's race unveils a new and purportedly faster course, a new main sponsor, and a good field with some top overseas talent.

The race will probably come down to one between the two men with the best recent times, 2009 World Championships 4th placer Yemane Tsegay of Ethiopia and 2009 Chicago Marathon 4th placer Charles Munyeki of Kenya, but should weather intervene or incentive be lacking quite a few people have a chance of stepping up and presenting a challenge in even a sl…

by Brett Larner

On Feb. 15 the Biwako Mainichi Marathon, also called the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon for the convenience of non-Japanese speakers, announced the complete field for this year's 65th anniversary edition to be held Mar. 7. Biwako, as the race is universally abbreviated within Japan, survived a scare last year with the loss of main sponsor Rohm and comes to this year with a new sponsor, K-Opticom, a new course designed to be faster, and a renewal of its questionable IAAF Gold Label, the first in the country. Three of the top eleven men at the 2009 Berlin World Championships will line up at the start.

The biggest name in the field is 2004 New York City Marathon winner Hendrick Ramaala (South Africa). Still an aggressive racer at age 38, Ramaala faces a tough challenge from the man who will wear the #1 bib, Berlin World Championships 4th place finisher Yemane Tsegay (Ethiopia). Also in contention are 2009 Chicago Marathon 4th place finisher Charles Munyeki (Keyna) and 2009…

by Brett Larner

Far from the spotlight of Haile Gebreselassie’s historic 2:03:59 world record run, Japan’s two entrants in the Berlin Marathon, Team Nissin Shokuhin runner Toshihari Suwa and Team Nissin Shokuhin coach Kenjiro Jitsui, also achieved results which were in opposing ways noteworthy.

Suwa is one of Japan’s best-ever marathoners, with a PB of 2:07:55, a 6th-place finish in the 2004 Athens Olympics marathon and a 7th-place finish in the 2007 Osaka World Championships marathon among his credentials and at 31 still young enough to have a future. At the same time, he is cursed: since his debut at the 2001 Nagano Marathon Suwa has never, not even in his 2:07 run, been the top Japanese finisher in a marathon when other Japanese were running.

Jitsui is a true veteran, having run his PB of 2:08:50 in 1996 while qualifying for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics marathon where he finished 93rd. Although he afterwards faded into the relative anonymity of the Japanese corporate running world, Jit…

http://www.iaaf.org/LRR08/news/newsid=47850.html

Includes comments by Japanese runner Toshinari Suwa of Team Nissin Shokuhin. Strangely, Suwa is mistaken. He ran against Haile Gebrselassie at the 2006 Fukuoka International Marathon, which the Ethiopian won in 2:06:52 to Suwa's 2:08:52 5th-place finish.

Suwa's teammate Kenjiro Jitsui, a veteran of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, will also be running in Berlin.