There are three days left to enter Japan Running News' World Championships marathon prediction contest with a grand prize of a 2009 Japanese national team singlet. It's easy to enter: just predict the finishing place and time of the five men and five women on the Japanese marathon squads. Click here for more information and to make your entry. Entries close at 4:00 p.m. on Aug. 22. The next two days will feature primarily articles about the members of the Japanese marathon teams.
China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from Jie He at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46. At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda won the men's race in 2:20:08. Chika Yokota won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33. Yuki Yamada won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km. Naoki Inoue won the 16th r
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