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Kenyans Elisha Rotich and Jackline Chelal made it a Kenyan double at the Kobe Marathon , Rotich outrunning American Ethan Shuley by 28 seconds for the win in 2:11:02 and Chelal with an almost 2-minute lead in 2:28:25. The men's race started off with a lead group of 11, going through 10 km in 30:10 and halfway in 1:03:38. Wearing a mass-participation bib and starting 6 seconds back from the elites, Shuley, whose previous best was a 2:18:13 in Nagano this past April and who has only 2 other races on his World Athletics profile in the last 10 years, both indoor 3000 m, improbably led through 25 km in 1:15:19, 2:07:07 pace, before losing touch. Ethiopian Abay Alemu surged into the lead, only to get run down by Rotich just after 30 km and ultimately dropping out. Rotich slowed after moving into the top spot but held his margin over Shuley to win 2:11:02 to 2:11:30. Hiromasa Kumahashi (Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) was 3rd in 2:11:45, closing on Shuley fast but running out of ground before ...

The Kobe Marathon happens Nov. 16 with a tweaked course that cuts out the unpopular bridge out to the finish, a change organizers are touting as making it a way faster course. There are some pretty good quality African athletes in the field, with top 2 men Abay Alemu and Elisha Rotich both in the 2:06:50 range in races last year, Alemu with a 2:06:50 for 2nd in Wuxi and Rotich 2:06:54 for 3rd in Paris, and Jackline Chelal dominating the women's field with a 2:20:29 win in Seville in 2023. Kobe is a shortcut for qualification for the MGC Race L.A. Olympic marathon trials, with one spot available to the top Japanese man if under 2:09:00 and the top Japanese woman if under 2:27:00. Only one athlete who looks capable of doing that has taken the bait, Masato Arao doubling back from a 2:07:42 for 6th at August's Sydney Marathon, a breakthrough run that wasn't enough for the JAAF to deign to let him into the Olympic trials. Yuma Morii , Hiromasa Kumahashi and Akihiro Kaneko ...

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/PhotoRun, all rights reserved Last weekend's Sydney Marathon featured one breakthrough performance that was kind of low in the mix. Running his first marathon outside Japan, 25-year-old Masato Arao negative split a 2:07:42 PB, moving up fast over the last 10 km to pass Eliud Kipchoge and finish 6th. With the Sydney course estimated to be about 2 minutes slow with tough hills in the early going, that meant Arao's run was about equal in quality to all-time Japanese #5, the only better marathon by a Japanese man outside Japan being Yohei Ikeda 's 2:05:12 for 6th in Berlin last fall. It was a pretty amazing breakthrough for someone who never made his college team's starting varsity lineup and a year ago was working full-time in his hometown and running for fun. Born and raised way up north in Yamagata, Arao showed a bit of promise at Sakata Minami H.S. , running the First Stage at the National High School Ekiden his first year in 2016 and maki...

  The Kobe Marathon took place Nov. 19 in central Kobe, memorializing the Great Hanshin Earthquake with the theme "Gratitude and Friendship" and the slogan "'Thanks' to This City." Almost 20,000 runners passed through the city streets. At their front, Kenyan Barnaba Kipkoech won in 2:11:19, with Misato Horie (Sysmex) taking the women's race in 2:33:04. During the opening ceremony in front of Kobe City Hall there was a moment of silence for the victims of the earthquake and for those in areas affected nationwide. As the song "To Bring You Joy" played, runners wearing gloves designed to look like sunflowers, a symbol of the reconstruction, raised their arms above their heads to transform the Flower Road into a sea of yellow. After the starting gun fired runners headed west, passing by the Tetsujin #28 monument near Shin-Nagata Station and Akashi Kaikyo Bridge before turning around near Nishimaiko Station. En route to the finish they climbed t...

With championship ekiden season right around the corner there aren’t many weekends this time of year that aren’t busy ones in Japan. This one is another one. Saturday is the 85th Tango University Ekiden in Kyoto, the 8-stage, 74.4 km season-ender for Kansai Region university teams. This year a few of them had the chance to run the Hakone Ekiden qualifier in October to try to achieve the hopeless task of beating even one Kanto Region team for a spot at the 100th Hakone in January, but with none achieving that goal they’re back for their own regional championship. It’s an interesting situation as some teams like Ritsumeikan University and Kantaiheiyo University just made the challenging Hakone qualifier - National University Ekiden double, and others like Kwansei Gakuin University opted to focus everything this season on a Tango win. And this time there’s actually a Kanto Region interloper in the form of powerhouse Aoyama Gakuin University , making a special one-time appearance at Ta...

The return of the legendary Ageo City Half Marathon was the biggest news this weekend, but high-level races were happening on the road and track across the country. On the roads, this season's top non-Kanto Region program Kwansei Gakuin University toppled four-time winner Ritsumeikan University to take the top spot at the 84th Tango University Ekiden Saturday in Kyoto. The season ender for Kansai Region schools, Tango saw 22 teams racing 84.5 km in 8 stages. Ritsumeikan led early with a stage win by first runner Yuta Nagasawa before being overtaken by Kansai University on the second leg. Kwansei Gakuin hovered in the top 3 until the 12.3 km Fifth Stage, where 4th-year Sota Ueda wrapped his college career by breaking his own stage record with a new mark of 35:18 to put KGU into the lead. That's where they stayed for the rest of the race, winning in 4:16:01. The battle for 2nd was intense over the 11.7 km anchor stage. Kyoto Sangyo University overtook Kansai for 2nd, but...

The world's deepest half marathon returns Sunday in Ageo, Saitama for the first time since 2019 as Hakone Ekiden-bound universities line up at the Ageo City Half Marathon . Coaches of the teams set to run Hakone use Ageo to narrow down their rosters of contenders for their 16-member Hakone entry list, and the result of that is hundreds of people turning in times that would win most other races. Since 2012 the top two Japanese collegiate finishers have also earned invitations to the United Airlines NYC Half. People like former national record holder Yuta Shitara and the top placer in the marathon at this summer's Oregon World Championships Yusuke Nishiyama have gone from Ageo to NYC and on to bigger things, and with big names like 2019 winner Joseph Razini Lemeteki (Takushoku Univ.), 1:00:40 half marathoner Chikara Yamano (Komazawa Univ.) and former 5000 m H.S. NR holder Kosuke Ishida (Toyo Univ.) on the entry list this time the front end of the race should be fast and com...

On May 31 it was learned that a committee has been set up by the Hyogo prefectural government, Kobe city government and other involved parties to review the prefecture's earlier decision to withdraw from its organizational role in the Kobe Marathon after the 2022 edition of the race and to discuss how to go about staging the race in the future. The Kobe Marathon is expected to continue in its current form through its 2023 race, and that an arrangement will be found that will enable it to survive from 2024 on. The Kobe Marathon has been organized in collaboration between the city and prefectural governments since 2011, a popular race that attracts 80,000 applicants for the 20,000 places in its field. But in December last year the prefectural government announced that as a result of changes in its administrative and financial management policies it will step back from its organizational role beginning in 2023 and support the event only in a sponsorship capacity. After further disc...

Canceled for the last two years amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the organizing committee of the Kobe Marathon announced on Mar. 30 that the race will return for its tenth running on Nov. 20 with a field of 20,000 entrants. Entries open in mid-June, with 1500 spots reserved for people who failed to get into the entry lottery for the last five consecutive editions. The race will be run on its traditional course starting in front of Kobe City Hall, turning around on the west side of Akashi Kaikyo Bridge and finishing at Port Island. As measures to reduce crowding, starting corrals will be increased from 13 to 20 and more drink stations will be added. As per JAAF guidelines, spectators will be discouraged from cheering for the runners along the course, but viewing stations will be set up in parks located on the course. Michiaki Yoshii , chair of the organizing committee and head of the Hyogo Prefecture Athletics Association, said, "We hope that this will be the first step in b...

A draft revision of the Hyogo Prefectural Government's 2022-23 administrative and financial plan released on Dec. 16 includes elimination of the prefecture's position as a co-organizer of the Kobe Marathon . Following Kobe's 10th running, scheduled for November, 2022, the prefectural government will step back from an organizational role and will instead support part of the race's expenses as an event sponsor.  The Kobe Marathon began in November, 2011 as a celebration of the city's recovery from the major earthquake that struck it in 1995. A highly popular event, it attracts 80,000 applications for the 20,000 entries available. Operational costs are roughly 700 million yen (~$6.2 million USD)  each edition. The prefectural and city governments contributed around 90 million yen apiece (~$800,000 USD) , with the remainder covered by corporate sponsors and entry fees. The prefecture and city have also both had representatives on the race's organizing committee. In...

The organizing committee of the Kobe Marathon , in normal years a World Athletics silver label event, have announced that this year's 10th running on Nov. 21 has been canceled. It is the second year in a row that Kobe has been canceled. Organizers had planned to stage the race with a field 20,000 participants but have decided to postpone the 10th edition one year to November, 2022. Organizers cited the lack of a foreseeable end to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting difficulty of securing adequate medical staff and volunteers. source article: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/f377f0d10b792a2e3408c8332c5c87dcead52602 translated by Brett Larner

In normal years a World Athletics silver label race with a field of 20,000, the Kobe Marathon has announced that it plans to go ahead with its tenth running on Nov. 21, 2021 with a full-sized field. In contrast to the Tokyo Marathon, which recently announced that it will hold its next running in October and will accept entries from abroad, Kobe will limit its event to residents of Japan and will not accept either mass-participation or elite athletes from abroad, citing the risk from the ongoing coronavirus crisis. It's too early to say whether this announcement has implications for whether the Fukuoka International Marathon two weeks later will be open to international entries for its final running . Fukuoka International typically accepts entries in September, and if they follow last year's process then if Japan's borders are not open at that time then they will not take international entries. The Kobe Marathon's entries open in June. Read Kobe's full announcemen...

A study released Sept. 27 by Katsuhiro Miyamoto , professor emeritus of theoretical economics at Kansai University, estimated that the cancelation or postponement of 460 marathons and road races in Japan from the fall of 2020 through the spring of 2021 due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis would result in an estimated economic loss of 710 billion yen [ $6.74 billion USD ]. For races with more than 2000 participants, apart from direct losses such as entry fees and accommodation costs, the study's calculation included linked losses such as reduced purchases of supplies and materials, and secondary losses such as reduced spending by vendors due to decreased income. After performing the calculation for a number of representative races, numbers for other races were estimated based on their field sizes. The loss due to the cancelation of November's Osaka Marathon was estimated at 18 billion yen [ $171 million USD ]. Its 2019 race attracted 33,000 participants from across the co...

a press release from the Kobe Marathon organizing committee Notification of Cancellation of Kobe Marathon 2020 We are very sorry to inform you that the Kobe Marathon 2020 has been canceled, our board meeting has decided finally. We have been preparing for the event to be held on November 15 this year, but due to the following reasons regarding the coronavirus, we have no choice but to cancel the race this year. We would sincerely like to apologize to all people who were looking forward to participating in the Kobe Marathon 2020. * Main reasons for cancellation of the Kobe Marathon 2020: 1) Some denials of participation by medical staff due to coronavirus. 2) Difficulty of maintaining social distancing by runners during the race. 3) To avoid the 2nd and 3rd wave of spread of infection due to overcrowding during the race. 4) A sharp decrease in the number of entries from overseas. 5) Decrease in overall number of volunteers due to coronavirus. 6) Most of the road races sc...

Amateur Japanese club runner Haruka Yamaguchi  (AC Kita) and Ugandan Geoffrey Kusuro had dominant wins at the 9th running of the Kobe Marathon Sunday, both running PBs and winning by almost 4 minutes in course record time. Yamaguchi, who ran a PB 2:33:06 in Sydney in September and dropped a surprise 31:58 at last weekend's East Japan Women's Ekiden , slipped away early, never challenged by the pack of invited African elites or by friend and rival club runner Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto). Going through halfway faster than her half marathon PB in 1:13:08. She slowed slightly in the second half, especially on the large bridge out to the island finish line, but her win was never in doubt as she broke the tape in 2:27:39. Previously, the fastest pure amateur Japanese women's marathon performance was Chihiro Tanaka 's 2:29:30 in Nagoya in 2002. Breaking that by almost two minutes, Yamaguchi staked her claim as Japan's best-ever amateur. 2nd through 5th wer...

Two of Japan's main fall amateur marathons are stepping up their game this year with their best-ever elite fields. Looking to upgrade its IAAF label from bronze to silver, the Nov. 17 Kobe Marathon has an elite field with three women under 2:30 and three men under 2:11 in the last three years. Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) and Betty Jepleting (Kenya) lead the women, with Eliud Barngetuny (Kenya) and Weldu Negash Gebretsadik (Norway) fronting the men. The men's race will almost definitely see an international winner, with veteran Chiharu Takada (JR Higashi Nihon) the top Japanese man at 2:11:25 on the Gold Coast two years ago, but the women's race has a good chance of seeing a Japanese winner. Along with Yoshida, it has sub-2:30 woman Yurie Doi (Tos Planning) and amateur duo Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) and Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto), both with low-2:33 PBs earlier this fall and keen to join the sub-2:30 club. With a field of 30,000 the Osaka Marathon is one of...

It's yet another busy mid-ekiden season weekend, but there's no question what its biggest race is. In a country packed with all of the world's deepest half marathons the Ageo City Half Marathon is the deepest of them all, universities targeting the legendary Hakone Ekiden transforming what would otherwise be an ordinary country town road race into something really special as each team's runner try to convince their coaches they belong on the Hakone A-squad. Since 2011 the New York Road Runners have thrown fuel on the fire by inviting the top two Japanese collegiate finishers to March's United Airlines NYC Half in a program conceived and coordinated by JRN. The first runner to earn an invite was Toyo University second-year Yuta Shitara , who went over and ran what was then the fastest time ever by a Japanese man on U.S. soil, 1:01:48, in his international road racing debut. Now the half marathon national record holder and a corporate leaguer for the Honda team, ...

Next weekend's Kobe Marathon is the latest Japanese race to acquire an IAAF road race label, something we'll probably be seeing a lot more of both in Japan and abroad with the IAAF's shift to a world ranking-based system that rewards performance in labeled races. The field this year perfectly follows the same boutique pattern as most other Japanese races' tiny international fields, one athlete each from the widest range of nationalities possible within a field of six to eight, plus some home soil people. With the IAAF dropping the nationality variety requirement starting in 2019 it'll be interesting to see how that impacts races like Kobe, Fukuoka International and Saitama International . Last year's men's winner Khalil Lamciyeh of Morocco returns as the third-fastest man in the field behind newly-minted nationality transfer Weldu Negash of Norway and Kenyan Cosmas Kyeva . Saidi Juma Makula of Tanzania and Australian Liam Adams could be in range of...

The organizers of the Kobe Marathon announced on Feb. 13 that the race has been awarded IAAF Bronze Label status ahead of its 8th edition this November. The distinction is a mark of international recognition of the organizers' efforts to put on a world-class event that at last year's 7th running featured an international-quality elite field and was supported by 7500 volunteers. According to organizers and the JAAF, Kobe is the tenth event in Japan to acquire a label. It is the first mass-participation marathon without strict entry standards in Western Japan to earn the honor. The IAAF awards three labels, Gold, Silver and Bronze, to marathons, half marathons and other road races. Requirements for label status include a specified number of international athletes in the elite field, strict anti-doping testing, adequate aid stations, and prompt publication of results and other information in English. Organizers cited the Gold Label London Marathon (U.K.), the Silver Label Dae...

The Kobe Marathon held its 7th running on Nov. 19.  19,709 runners took part in this year's race, with 600,000 people cheering them on along the course between the start at Kobe City Hall and the finish in the Kobe Harbor area which this year celebrates its 150th anniversary. American Maegan Krifchin , 29, won the women's race in a course record time of 2:33:14. Khalil Lemciyeh of Morocco also broke the men's course record, winning in 2:12:49. The Kobe Marathon is organized by the Hyogo Prefectural Government and the City of Kobe. 7,500 volunteers helped runners over the course of the three days of race weekend. This year the turnaround point moved 1.25 km to the west, taking runners under Akashi Kaikyo Bridge for the first time. The final section of the course on Port Island was shortened to make up the distance. At noon at the finish area temperatures were 12 degrees with 65% humidity. 18,949 people finished the race. At the starting ceremony in front of City Ha...