Skip to main content

Fukushi Gets 5000 m Olympic A, Osako Sub-28 at Golden Games in Nobeoka

by Brett Larner

After failing to qualify for the London Olympics in the marathon, 5000 m national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) successfully regrouped at the May 12 Golden Games in Nobeoka meet, clearing the Olympic A-standard as she narrowly finished 2nd behind Kenyan Sally Chepyego (Team Kyudenko) 15:18.01 to 15:18.46.  No other women were even close to the lead pair, with Ai Igarashi (Team Sysmex) 3rd in 15:33.80.

The bid for Olympic A qualifying times in the men's 10000 m was less successful.  Waseda University 3rd-year Suguru Osako, the Asian half-marathon junior record holder, 2011 World University Games 10000 m gold medalist and 1500 m national university 1500 m champion, emerged from a small pack chasing the time behind pacer and Osaka WC bronze medalist Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) to give it a good shot but faded over the last 2000 m.  He nevertheless succeeded in breaking 28 for the first time, 2nd in a photo-finish with Mathathi in 27:56.94 to become the second Japanese collegiate sub-28 this season.  Komazawa University junior Shinobu Kubota was 3rd in a PB of 28:07.01 as the pros in the field all faltered.

Paced by World XC silver medalist Paul Tanui (Team Kyudenko), the men's 5000 m was far from hitting even the B-standard but very entertaining.  Former 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) ran a wild and erratic race, going out on national record pace far ahead of Tanui, fading far back into the pack, and then surging at the end to retake 2nd  in a season-best 13:38.21.  10000 m year-leader Daisuke Shimizu (Team Kanebo) took the win in a PB of 13:36.69, promising in post-race interviews to hit an Olympic-standard time at next month's National Championships.

2012 Golden Games in Nobeoka
Nobeoka, Miyazaki, 5/12/12
click here for complete results

Men's 10000 m
1. Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 27:56.87
2. Suguru Osako (Waseda Univ.) - 27:56.94 - PB
3. Shinobu Kubota (Komazawa Univ.) - 28:07.01 - PB
4. Takuya Ishikawa (Team Chugoku Denryoku) - 28:09.49
5. Naoki Okamoto (Team Chugoku Denryoku) - 28:11.22
6. Takuya Fukatsu (Team Asahi Kasei) - 28:18.24
7. Ryuji Kashiwabara (Team Fujitsu) - 28:25.37
8. Sota Hoshi (Team Fujitsu) - 28:25.85
9. Shota Yamaguchi (Team Fujitsu) - 28:36.91
10. Kensuke Takezawa (Team S&B) - 28:40.43

Women's 5000 m A-Heat
1. Sally Chepyego (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) - 15:18.01
2. Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) - 15:18.46
3. Ai Igarashi (Team Sysmex) - 15:33.80
4. Tomoka Inadomi (Team Wacoal) - 15:35.46
5. Toshika Tamura (Matsuyama Univ.) - 15:39.84
6. Miyuki Uehara (Kagoshima Joshi H.S.) - 15:47.88 - PB
7. Risa Takenaka (Team Shiseido) - 15:51.32
8. Kotomi Takayama (Team Sysmex) - 15:55.61
9. Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 15:56.94
10. Yuki Mitsunobu (Team Kyocera) - 16:02.00

Men's 5000 m A-Heat
1. Daisuke Shimizu (Team Kanebo) - 13:36.69 - PB
2. Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B) - 13:38.21
3. Kazuharu Takai (Team Kyudenko) - 13:39.76
4. Yasunori Murakami (Team Fujitsu) - 13:44.30
5. Keita Baba (Team Honda) - 13:44.44
6. Ryotaro Nitta (Team Konica Minolta) - 13:44.86
7. Yu Mitsuya (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 13:45.45
8. Ryo Kiname (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) - 13:45.75
9. Ryo Matsumoto (Team Shikoku Denryoku) - 13:45.96
10. Daisuke Matsufuji (Team Kanebo) - 13:46.14

(c) 2012 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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...
8 comments
Read more

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...
1 comment
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more