Ugachi 1:00:58 at Marugame Int'l Half Marathon

http://mainichi.jp/enta/sports/general/news/20110206k0000e050020000c.html
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/news/110206/oth11020617280011-n1.htm
http://www.47news.jp/CN/201102/CN2011020601000204.html
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/news/110206/oth11020617300012-n1.htm
http://www.shikoku-np.co.jp/sports/local/article.aspx?id=20110206000201

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Last year's National Corporate Half Marathon Championships winner Samuel Ndungu (Kenya/Team Aichi Seiko) won the 2011 Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon on Feb. 6, clocking a PB of 1:00:55. Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta), the 12th-placer at last year's World Half Marathon Championships, was 2nd in a PB of 1:00:58, the all-time 3rd-fastest Japanese mark. Course record holder Mekubo Mogusu (Kenya/Team Aidem) was 3rd after slowing dramatically in the final kilometer of the race. Times were fast overall as eight of the top ten recorded new PBs. Beijing Olympics marathoner Tsuyoshi Ogata (Team Chugoku Denryoku) was a distant 33rd.

Mogusu took the race out hard with a 2:43 first km tailed by a pack of eight. The group, alternately led by Ndungu, Ugachi, and Moroccan Rachid Kisri, led go and ran their own pace, eventually whittling down to just those three. Kisri was the first to lose touch, drifting back at 11 km. Ndungu and Ugachi then worked together to catch the flailing Mogusu, and each was rewarded with his first sub-61 clocking. Ndungu surged as he caught Mogusu, opening a slight lead which Ugachi was unable to close as the pair entered the track for the final stretch of the race. Ugachi told reporters that he plans to run the 10000 m at this summer's World Championships in Daegu, Korea. "I was 100% targeting a time today and ran just focusing on keeping a positive feeling," he said. "I have to work on my last kick a little more in order to be able to win a race like this. I'm not satisfied yet."

National record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) won the women's race in a world-leading 1:09:00, her third Marugame title and first in four years as defending champion Nikki Chapple (Australia) and 2010 world leader Elvan Abeylegesse (Turkey) were no-shows. Karolina Jarzynska (Poland) was 2nd in a PB of 1:10:36, with Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) 3rd in 1:10:50 in her half marathon debut. Five-time 1500 m national champion Mika Yoshikawa (Team Panasonic) was 4th with a nearly two-minute PB.

Fukushi, who was trying to run a steady pace throughout the race, split 15:56 for the first 5 km before fading to 16:37 from 10-15 km. She laughed afterwards, "I was done after 3 km. Felt pretty heavy today. I don't know about these longer distances. No idea at all."

Translator's note: Ugachi's time was a PB by 51 seconds over his then-PB 1:01:49 run at the World Half last year and only 33 seconds off the Japanese national record. 55 minutes of Marugame highlights will be broadcast on Fuji TV at 1:05 a.m. tonight Japan time. Click here to watch online.

2011 Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon
Men
1. Samuel Ndungu (Kenya/Team Aichi Seiko) - 1:00:55 - PB
2. Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) - 1:00:58 - PB
3. Mekubo Mogusu (Kenya/Team Aidem) - 1:01:29
4. Rachid Kisri (Morocco) - 1:01:52 - PB
5. Hiromitsu Kakuage (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:02:34 - PB
6. Ryotaro Nitta (Team Konica Minolta) - 1:02:35 - PB
7. Hiroki Kadota (Team Kanebo) - 1:02:35 - PB
8. Satoru Kasuya (Team Toyota Boshoku) - 1:02:40 - PB
9. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama T&F Assoc.) - 1:02:40 - PB
10. Ryohei Nakano (Team Yasukawa Denki) - 1:02:49

Women
1. Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) - 1:09:00
2. Karolina Jarzynska (Poland) - 1:10:36 - PB
3. Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) - 1:10:50 - debut
4. Mika Yoshikawa (Team Panasonic) - 1:11:13 - PB
5. Aki Odagiri (Meijo Univ.) - 1:11:49
6. Yoshiko Fujinaga (Team Shiseido) - 1:12:03
7. Megumi Seike (Team Sysmex) - 1:12:04
8. Misato Horie (Team Noritz) - 1:12:16 - PB
9. Kumi Ogura (Team Shikoku Denryoku) - 1:12:21 - PB
10. Silviia Skvortsova (Russia) - 1:12:39

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...

japan running news

Search This Blog