Skip to main content

Sendai International Half Marathon, Osaka Grand Prix and More

by Brett Larner

It's a big weekend in Japan with three major events across the country. The biggest is no doubt the Osaka Grand Prix Meet on May 8. Most events feature the standing Japanese national champion or national record holder along with international competition including Veronica Campbell-Brown (Jamaica, 100 m), Andrew Hinds (Barbados, 100 m), Monzavous Edwards (U.S.A., 200 m), Mounir Yemmouni (France, 1500 m), Doricah Obare (Kenya, 5000 m), Perdita Felicien (Canada, 100 mH), Bershawn Jackson (U.S.A., 400 mH), Christian Cantwell (U.S.A., SP), and Becky Breisch (U.S.A., DT). A complete entry list is available here. One notable withdrawal is the meet's biggest star, Chinese hurdler Xiang Liu.

Also on May 8 is the first of the regional spring corporate track meets, the Central Japan Corporate Track and Field Championships. This weekend's events include the men's and women's 5000 m, with the 10000 m scheduled for next weekend. Atsushi Sato (Team Chugoku Denryoku) headlines the men's race, facing Kenyans Joseph Gitau (Team JFE Steel) and Samuel Ganga (Team Mazda) as well as his young teammates Hideaki Date, Takuya Ishikawa and Naoki Okamoto. Kenyan Danielle Filomena Cheyech (Team Uniqlo) should have no trouble in the women's 5000 m, where her toughest competition comes from Team Tenmaya's Rei Obara and Kaori Urata.

Sunday, May 9 sees the Sendai International Half Marathon. The race has been billed as the highly-anticipated debut of 10 mile junior world record holder Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), but although he is listed as an entrant his name appears on neither the start list nor the list of withdrawals. If he starts, look for a threat to Samuel Wanjiru's Japanese all-comers record. If not, it is up to ailing Kenyan Mekubo Mogusu (Team Aidem) to turn in his first good performance of the year and get back under the hour mark. The Japanese contingent is led by Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN), the top Japanese man at last year's World Half Marathon and a member of November's Asian Games marathon squad.

2009 World Championships marathoner Yoshiko Fujinaga (Team Shiseido) is the top runner in the women's race in Sendai. With the withdrawal of Kenyan Julia Mumbi (Team Universal Entertainment) and the strong Megumi Seike (Team Sysmex), Fujinaga's toughest competition may come from identical twins Yoko and Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Kyocera) or Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo's Miki Ohira and Chisato Osaki.

(c) 2010 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...
Post a Comment
Read more

Restaurant Owner Selected as Olympic Torchbearer Dies in Fire After Becoming Despondent Over Impact of Coronavirus Crisis (updated)

On the evening of Apr. 30, the 54-year-old male owner of a restaurant in Tokyo's Nerima ward specializing in tonkatsu deep fried pork cutlets died from full-body burns in a fire at the restaurant. The man had been one of the people chosen as a torchbearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics torch relay. With the coronavirus crisis causing both the postponement of the Olympics and a loss of business at the restaurant, the man had recently started talking pessimistically about the future to those around him. With evidence of the man's body having been doused in tonkatsu cooking oil, metropolitan police from the Hikarigaoka Police Station are carefully examining the cause of the fire. At around 10:00 p.m. on the 30th, the fire broke out in the tonkatsu restaurant on the first floor of a three-story building. A neighborhood resident who noticed smoke called the fire department. Firefighters found the floor and part of a wall burning, with the man lying on the floor in the customer seat...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kawauchi Wins Inaugural Kawauchi Half Marathon

http://www.minyu-net.com/sports/running/FM20160501-070419.php translated by Brett Larner 川内優輝ロード pic.twitter.com/rEJk7CQPFV — みとっぽ (黒) (@mitoppo_tmyk) April 30, 2016 Yuki Kawauchi Road in Kawauchi, Fukushima Held to inspire former residents to return to the area after the nearby TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident five years ago, the village of Kawauchi held the first " Kawauchi no Sato Kaeru Half Marathon - From Reconstruction to Creation " on April 30.  The course started and finished at the village heliport.  1188 runners from across the country gathered to celebrate the village's revival as they ran through its springtime streets. The event's organizing committee was made up of local government and board of education members with support from the Fukushima Minyu Newspaper and other sponsors.  The race's purpose was to transmit the vitality and charm of the reconstructing Kawauchi village to the rest of the nation in hopes of helpin...
Post a Comment
Read more