Skip to main content

Hokuren Distance Challenge Wraps Up In Abashiri

by Brett Larner

click here for complete results

The 2012 edition of the early-summer staple of the Japanese track circuit, the Hokuren Distance Challenge, wrapped up July 7 with a big night in Abashiri, Hokkaido.  Having missed out on the London Olympics team, women's 1500 m national record holder Yuriko Kobayashi (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) made her formal 10000 m debut in 32:21.03, finishing 2nd in the A-heat behind one of the year's leading Japanese women, Ai Igarashi (Team Sysmex), who took the win in 32:17.58.  Eight women altogether broke 32:30, most for the first time.  6th place finisher Akiko Matsuyama (Team Panasonic) recorded an enormous PB of 32:27.23 ahead of her international road debut at the Great North 10 km.  Marathoners Yukiko Akaba (Team Hokuren) and Yoko Shibui (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) were far down the field, 20th and 24th in 33:08.59 and 33:27.03 respectively.

The men's 10000 m A-heat was a showdown between newly Japan-based African talent, with first-year corporate and university ringers taking four of the top five spots.  Spectacularly-named Ethiopian Miliyon Zewdie (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) was the fastest of them, landing the top spot in 27:54.52.  A healthy distance back, 2010's top Japanese 10000 m and half-marathon man Tomoya Onishi (Team Asahi Kasei) taking the coveted top Japanese position for 6th in 28:10.81 just ahead of past 1500 m and 5000 m national champion Yuichiro Ueno (Team S&B), continuing his comeback from a year and a half of injury troubles.

Ueno's fellow Saku Chosei H.S. graduate Suguru Osako (Waseda Univ.), like Kobayashi having missed out on making the London team after a paper-thin 10000 m loss to another Saku Chosei grad, Yuki Sato (Team Nissin Shokuhin), took the men's 5000 m A-heat in a solid 13:33.84, leading a collegiate charge that saw no less than eight university men break 14 in the heat, most in PB marks.  Komazawa University led the way with three A-heat finishers under 14.  Waseda's Yuki Maeda went sub-14 in the B-heat, giving it a total of three between the two heats.

The other fast race of the evening came in the women's 3000 m A-heat, where former high school Kenyan standout Beatrice Wainaina Murgi (Team Toyota Jidoshokki) continued a solid debut pro season with a win in 9:03.76, more than four seconds clear of top Japanese woman Risa Kikuchi (Team Hitachi) and Kenyan rival Rose Maranga (Team Toto).

(c) 2012 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Rui Aoki and Shunsuke Kuwata Making U.S. Debut at United Airlines NYC Half

When the National University Half Marathon was canceled in 2011 after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan 2 days before the race, JRN talked to the New York Road Runners about bringing 2 collegiate runners to the United Airlines NYC Half Marathon the next weekend as a show of support. It wasn't possible to pull it together in the immediate aftermath of the disasters, but a year later we brought 2 young 2nd-years from Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Toyo University , Kento Otsu and Yuta Shitara , who had been the top 2 Japanese collegiate finishers at the Ageo City Half Marathon in November before Hakone. Shitara ran 1:01:48, at the time the fastest-ever by a Japanese man on U.S. soil, with Otsu running a solid 1:03:15. Thanks to that great start the Ageo-NYC partnership became a regular thing, and except for the pandemic it's continued every year since, expanding this year to June's New York Mini 10 km when 2 runners from Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden runne...
2 comments
Read more

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 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...
53 comments
Read more