japan running news

After an almost two-year qualification period that made it the most difficult marathon in history to get into, Japan's Marathon Grand Championship 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon trials went off perfectly Sunday in warm and sunny conditions. Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu), 4th in Berlin last year, and 2018 Fukuoka winner Yuma Hattori (Toyota) went 1-2 in a 3-way sprint finish against national record holder Suguru Osako (Nike Oregon Project) to score places on the Olympic team, with 2017 Hokkaido Marathon winner Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) taking the women's race and 2018 Hokkaido winner Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) holding off Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) to join Maeda in the Tokyo lineup.

It was a sign of the level of commitment that this generation brought, of what next summer's Olympics are going to be like, that both the women's and men's races went out at national record pace, but the two couldn't have been more different. In the women's race, 9 of the 10 starters went out fas…

Honami Maedaage: 23
sponsor: Tenmaya
graduated from: Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S.

best time inside MGC window:
2:23:48, 2nd, 2018 Osaka International Women’s Marathon

PB: 2:23:48, 2nd, 2018 Osaka International Women’s Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 15:38.16 (2018) 10000 m: 32:13.87 (2018) half marathon: 1:09:12 (2018)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
12th, 2019 Tokyo Marathon, 2:31:42
7th, 2018 Berlin Marathon, 2:25:23
2nd, 2018 Osaka International Women’s Marathon, 2:23:48 – PB
1st, 2017 Hokkaido Marathon, 2:28:48

other major results:
3rd, 2019 Hakodate Half Marathon, 1:10:23
3rd, 2019 National Women’s Ekiden Ninth Stage (10.0 km), 31:49
1st, 2018 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:09:12 – PB
5th, 2018 National Corporate Women’s Ekiden Third Stage (10.9 km), 35:15
35th, 2018 Valencia World Half Marathon Championships, 1:12:09
7th, 2017 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:10:22
12th, 2017 Osaka International Women’s Marathon, 2:32:19
2nd, 2016 Sendai International Half Marathon,…

Rei Oharaage: 29
sponsor: Tenmaya
graduated from: Kojokan H.S.

best time inside MGC window:
2:25:46, 2nd, 2019 Osaka International Women’s Marathon

PB: 2:23:20, 3rd, 2016 Nagoya Women’s Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 15:39.47 (2016) 10000 m: 31:48.31 (2015) half marathon: 1:09:17 (2015)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
2nd, 2019 Osaka International Women’s Marathon, 2:25:46
10th, 2018 Berlin Marathon, 2:27:29
8th, 2018 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:27:44

other major results:
2nd, 2019 Sendai International Half Marathon, 1:10:25
4th, 2018 National Corporate Women’s Ekiden Sixth Stage (6.795 km), 21:54
3rd, 2018 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:10:37
5th, 2017 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:09:26
1st, 2017 Osaka Half Marathon, 1:10:02
1st, 2016 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:10:04
3rd, 2016 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2:23:20 – PB
2nd, 2015 Sanyo Ladies Half Marathon, 1:09:17 – PB
22nd, 2015 Beijing World Championships 10000 m, 32:47.74
3rd, 2015 National Championships 10000 m, 32:…

Bound for the 2020 Olympic marathon trials MGC Race to be held Sept. 15, Tenmaya teammates Rei Ohara, 28, and Honami Maeda, 23, left July 22 for altitude training in the U.S.A. The pair will be based in Albuquerque, New Mexico at 1600 m elevation until early September, doing the brunt of their preparations for the MGC Race there.

Maeda won the 2017 Hokkaido Marathon to become the first woman to qualify for the MGC Race. After that she ran an excellent 2:23:48 at the 2018 Osaka International Women's Marathon and competed at the World Half Marathon Championships. The main event on Sept. 15 will be one without pacers and a field of only 12. "I've never run in a race with so few people before," she said. "I want to run my own race. The last 5 km will be the key."



Ohara ran 2:23:20 at the 2016 Nagoya Women's Marathon, missing a place on the Rio Olympic team by 1 second as the second Japanese finisher. "The next few weeks will be an important time,"…

2018 Jakarta Asian Games marathon silver medalist Keiko Nogami (Juhachi Ginko) turned in one of the best performances of her career Sunday, taking almost two minutes off her half marathon best to win the Sendai International Half Marathon in 1:09:27. One of just fifteen women to have qualified for Japan's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials, Nogami quickly dropped the more accomplished Rei Ohara (Tenmaya), also an MGC qualifier, to run the last 3/4 of the race alone en route to the fastest winning time in Sendai since 2009. Ohara was next in 1:10:25, with 10000 m collegiate record holder Hikari Yoshimoto (Daihatsu) 3rd in a PB of 1:12:39.

Locally-based Kenyan Alexander Mutiso (ND Software) won the men's race with the same kind of margin as Nogami, running 1:01:10 for the win, Sendai's fastest time since 2010. Back on the roads for the first time since his crash-and-burn shot at a 2:04 at March's Tokyo Marathon, Yuki Sato (Nissin Shokuhin) was 2nd in 1:02:30 ahead of…

Relative darkhorse Fatuma Sado (Ethiopia) outlasted some of Japan's top Olympic hopefuls and her Kenyan competition to win the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2:25:39.

Stellar pacing right on the A-group target of 17:00 per 5 km quickly shook the pack down to the main contenders, Ethiopians Sado, Abebech Afework and Sutume Asefa Kebede, Kenyans Bornes Chepkirui and Eunice Jeptoo and Japan's Rei Ohara (Tenmaya), Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal), and Natsuki Omori (Daihatsu). Ohara had already qualified for September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials, but for Fukushi, running her first marathon since the Rio Olympics, and the debuting Omori, they needed to either clear 2:24 or be in the first three Japanese women after Ohara and under 2:28.

Just past 12 km disaster struck Fukushi. Tripping in the middle of the pack and falling, she tore both knees and hands before hitting her head on the pavement. Fukushi bounced up and quickly regained contact with the pack, but b…

We're getting into the last few months of qualification for September's MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials, and for Japanese women's Sunday's Osaka International Women's Marathon represents one of the last chances to make it. One of only eight to have qualified so far, Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) is one of three Japanese women in the field to have broken 2:24, along with 2016 Osaka winner Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) and 2014 Yokohama winner Tomomi Tanaka (Daiichi Seimei). But none of that trio has run that kind of time since early 2016, and for both Fukushi and Tanaka this will be the first marathon since they represented Japan in the marathon in Rio.

That seems to be the overall impression of the domestic field in Osaka this year, it being mostly made up of people at their best two or three years ago but hoping to get it back together well enough to qualify for the trials. They'll have to be under 2:28:00 if among the top three Japanese women excluding Ohara, and unde…

The 30th Kitakyushu Women's Invitational Ekiden took place Jan. 20 with a 32.7 km course divided into 5 stages for the open division and 6 for the high school division and a start and finish in front of Kitakyushu City Hall. Tenmaya took the top spot in the open division for the first time in 6 years in 1:46:32, while 2018 National High School Ekiden champion Kamimura Gakuen H.S. won the high school division in 1:47:41, its first win in 16 years.

Since the start of the year Tenmaya's star runner Rei Ohara has been suffering back pain and came to Kitakyushu undertrained as a result. That didn't stop her from running the fastest time on the anchor stage, covering the 11.4 km leg in 36:33. "Once I got started it was a lot easier to move than I'd expected," she said post-race. "Our first four runners ran really well, and thanks to them I was able to be the one to break the tape at the finish line."

A relieved Tenmaya head coach Yutaka Taketomi commente…

The 37th Sanyo Ladies Road Race took place Dec. 23 in Okayama on a course starting and finishing at City Lights Stadium. In the half marathon division, MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials qualifier Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) won her first Sanyo title in 1:09:12, the fastest time by a Japanese woman in over 5 years. Dropping the lead pack just a kilometer into the race, Maeda ran solo the entire way to become the only Japanese woman under 1:10 this year.

Australian Ellie Pashley was 2nd in 1:09:20, with Maeda's teammate and fellow MGC qualifier Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) 3rd in 1:10:37. National record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) was 6th in 1:11:32. Both Ohara and Fukushi are scheduled to run January's Osaka International Women's Marathon.

In the 10 km division, Kenyan Grace Kimanzi (Starts) equalled the 31:54 course record set in 2007 by future Olympic marathon gold medalist Tiki Gelana of Ethiopia. Tenmaya runners Sara Miyake and Mai Nishiwaki were a distant 2nd and 3rd.

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