Skip to main content

The Land of the Half Marathon

by Brett Larner

With last weekend's National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, National University Women's Half Marathon Championships and NYC Half Marathon bringing Japan's post-championship ekiden winter half marathon season to a close, yesterday I looked at the top 100 men's and women's performances by country so far this year and tweeted the results.  The totals have been making the rounds on Twitter since then, so although they will be out of date tomorrow as the European half marathon season rolls on here is the current breakdown using the results listed here.

Top 100 Men's Half Marathon Performances of 2012 by Country
Kenya: 39
Japan: 31
Ethiopia: 15
Morocco: 4
U.S.A.: 4
Brazil: 2
England: 2
other: 3

Top 100 Women's Half Marathon Performances of 2012 by Country
Japan: 40
Kenya: 23
Ethiopia: 10
U.S.A.: 4
Morocco: 3
Netherlands: 3
Poland: 2
Scotland: 2
other: 13

Combined Men's & Women's Top 100 Half Marathon Performances of 2012 by Country
Japan: 71
Kenya: 62
Ethiopia: 25
U.S.A.: 8
Morocco: 7
England: 3
Netherlands: 3
Australia: 2
Brazil: 2
Poland: 2
Scotland: 2
other: 13

(c) 2012 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Arai said…
Very impressive (although Japan probably wouldn't do as well in a comparison of the top 50 performances).
March 24, 2012 at 5:13 PM
Eryn said…
Quit impressive, although Japan would do much better on the top 1000 performances...
March 24, 2012 at 11:58 PM
Brett Larner said…
For the people sending me 2011 numbers, you are not taking into account that the disasters last year resulted in the cancellation of most of the late winter/spring Japanese half marathon season, including but not limited to the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, the National University Half Marathon Championships, the National University Women's Half Marathon Championships and the Sendai International Half Marathon. Needless to say, this impacted the numbers for 2011.
March 26, 2012 at 7:46 AM
franck said…
I am sorry,
i like japan athletics, but
2010 results (men)
kenya 70
ethiopia 19
morocco 3
eritrea 2
japan 1
(women)
kenya 32
ethiopia 26
japan 16
March 26, 2012 at 7:58 AM
Anonymous said…
2011 was certainly not a regular year, yet the numbers for 2010 and 2011 are pretty similar, aren't they?
March 27, 2012 at 2:36 AM
Brett Larner said…
Well, as I said, these numbers will go out of date quickly, but it would be more meaningful if you were comparing the first ~three months of 2010 and 2011 rather than the entire year to the first three months of 2012. I think 2010 was slightly better than 2011, as you'd expect, but either way the numbers this year, especially for the men, are dramatically better than in than the past. I don't think Japan has ever had near this number of people sub-62, and the year is still young.
March 28, 2012 at 8:39 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
82 comments
Read more

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .
77 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
54 comments
Read more