Skip to main content

Katsumata Wins Final Miyazaki Women's Half Marathon

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nsp/item/144738
http://www.asahi.com/sports/spo/SEB201001070003.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The 30th and final edition of the Miyazaki Women's Road Race took place Jan. 6 in Miyazaki city. Running the event's half marathon for the first time, Misaki Katsumata (Team Daiichi Seimei) won in a time of 1:10:27. 27 seconds behind in 2nd place was Yoko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera), with Mika Okunaga (Team Kyudenko) another 30 second back in 3rd. 2009 Berlin World Championships marathoner Yoshiko Fujinaga (Team Shiseido) was 4th in 1:11:33. Women's 1500 m national champion Mika Yoshikawa (Team Panasonic) won the 5 km in 16:15.

The Miyazaki Road Race began in 1981 and has seen world records set on its fast course. Past winners of the race have included many famous runners such as Athens Olympics marathon gold medalist Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex), Sydney Olympics silver medalist Lidia Simon (Romania), Elana Meyer (RSA), Akemi Masuda, Masako Chiba, Yuko Kawakami, and more. However, in recent years due to the recession the race's organizers have had difficulty in inviting top talent and keeping up with prize money offered at other races. Last summer they announced that 2010 would be the event's final running.

2010 Miyazaki Women's Road Race - Top Finishers
Half Marathon
1. Misaki Katsumata (Team Daiichi Seimei) - 1:10:27
2. Yoko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera) - 1:10:54
3. Mika Okunaga (Team Kyudenko) - 1:11:24
4. Yoshiko Fujinaga (Team Shiseido) - 1:11:33
5. Aki Odagiri (Meijo Univ.) - 1:11:43
6. Mayumi Fujita (Team Juhachi Ginko) - 1:12:03
7. Yuko Machida (Team Nihon ChemiCon) - 1:12:08
8. Saori Nejo (Team Hokuren) - 1:12:18
9. Kayoko Obata (Team Acom) - 1:12:20
10. Sayo Nomura (Meijo Univ.) - 1:12:25

5 km
1. Mika Yoshikawa (Team Panasonic) - 16:15
2. Hitomi Shimofuji (Meijo Univ.) - 16:16
3. Yuka Hakoyama (Team Wacoal) - 16:17
4. Hitomi Nakamura (Team Panasonic) - 16:17
5. Seika Nishikawa (Meijo Univ.) - 16:17

Comments

Most-Read This Week

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...

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...