Skip to main content

Kashiwabara and Nishihara Headline Final Kyoto City Half Marathon

http://www.kyoto-np.co.jp/article.php?mid=P2009022500210&genre=L1&area=K00

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The final edition of the Kyoto City Half Marathon takes place Mar. 8, with an invited field of six athletes leading the way. Having become a national sensation with his stunning run in January's Hakone Ekiden, Ryuji Kashiwabara (Toyo Univ.) tops the list of four invited men, while National University Women's Ekiden anchor stage winner Kasumi Nishihara (Bukkyo Univ.) will run the women's race.

Kashiwabara set a new record on the Hakone Ekiden's legendary 5th stage while only a 1st-year, leading Toyo on to its first-ever Hakone win. All eyes will be focused upon him as he makes his half marathon debut. 2008 World Half Marathon national team member Kazuo Ietani (Team Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) is also in the field, as are Ietani's teammate Jun Shinoto, who set a new stage record on Hakone's 9th leg in 2008 before graduating from Chuo Gakuin University, and 3000 m steeplechase specialist Masatoshi Kikuchi (Team Fujitsu).

Nishihara made her half marathon debut in Kyoto last year, finishing 11th in 1:14:15. With subsequent achievements including a silver medal in last summer's Junior Asian Games 5000 m under her belt she will be looking for a significant improvement in her PB. Her main competition will be Team Panasonic's Kasumi Oyagi, who holds a PB of 1:13:25.

The 16th Kyoto City Half Marathon begins at 8:45 a.m. in front of Kyoto's Heianjingu shrine. With main sponsor Rohm having withdrawn its support due to the current recession, this year's edition of the race is its final running. Past winners have included marathon greats such as Khalid Khannouchi (Morocco/U.S.A.), Moses Tanui (Kenya) and Dionisio Ceron (Mexico) on the men's side and Elana Meyer (South Africa), Catherine Ndereba (Kenya), Fatuma Roba (Ethiopia) and Katrine Dorre (Germany). Kanoya Sports University's Koichiro Nagata set the national university half marathon record of 1:01:09 in winning Kyoto in 2001.

Click here for a complete listing of the Kyoto City Half Marathon elite field.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...
1 comment
Read more

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more