Imai and Nakamoto Untouchable as Fukuoka Wins Grand Tour Kyushu

by Brett Larner

With a commanding lead after six days of racing, the Fukuoka Prefecture team came into the final two days of the eight-day, fifty-stage, 732.3 km Grand Tour Kyushu 2012 with little doubt of the outcome but no lack of effort. Preceded by three Fukuoka stage wins on the seventh day's first seven stages, anchor Kentaro Nakamoto, 6th place in the London Olympics men's marathon, won the second of his two 2012 Tour runs, blasting a 52:47 course record for the 17.9 km Eighth Stage. Nagasaki Prefecture anchor Yuki Mori was also under the old record, but Nakamoto's run was so dominating that he was a full 29 seconds faster than Mori. Nagasaki, 3rd overall on total time, won two stages to finish the day just over a minute behind leader Fukuoka and almost 9 minutes ahead of overall 2nd-place Miyazaki Prefecture, whose lone stage win of the day came courtesy of veteran marathoner Tomoyuki Sato on the 18.0 km Fourth Stage.

Miyazaki started the final day of the Tour hard, opening runner Satoru Sasaki taking the 17.3 km First Stage record in 51:21. From there on out it was an all-Fukuoka show, with the leading team's men taking all five remaining stages. Anchor Masato Imai was unchallenged but still took the stage, his third win in three starts, one a course record, within the tour's eight days. Following his win at last month's Fukuoka Prefecture 10 Mile Championships, where he ran the all-time 2nd-fastest time behind only former teammate Samuel Wanjiru's course record, Imai looks to be in the best shape of his life ahead of an undoubtedly likely appearance at December's Fukuoka International Marathon.

Imai's anchor stage win brought Fukuoka home with the win for the stage, the day, and the tour, its first overall title since 2009. Miyazaki's Ryuji Ono was next across the line, giving the two-time defending champions the overall runner-up spot 32 minutes behind Fukuoka. Nagasaki, which at times looked in range of retaking 2nd from Miyazaki, was 3rd nearly 20 minutes back. Nine teams altogether started and finished the Tour, last-place Okinawa Prefecture more than 3 1/2 hours behind Fukuoka for the full eight-day event.

Grand Tour Kyushu 2012
Kyushu, Oct. 28-Nov. 4
50 stages, 732.3 km, 9 teams
click here for complete results

Day Seven
8 stages, 127.3 km

Team Standings
1. Fukuoka Pref. - 32:52:34 (6:28:51, 1st)
2. Miyazaki Pref. - 33:20:30 (6:38:36, 3rd)
3. Nagasaki Pref. - 33:31:07 (6:30:00, 2nd)

Stage Bests
First Stage (17.6 km): Shinji Ando (Saga Pref.) - 53:54
Second Stage (12.7 km): Sho Matsueda (Nagasaki Pref.) - 37:56
Third Stage (13.0 km): Junichi Tsubouchi (Fukuoka Pref.) - 40:58
Fourth Stage (18.0 km): Tomoyuki Sato (Miyazaki Pref.) - 53:57
Fifth Stage (15.5 km): Kei Goto (Fukuoka Pref.) - 48:08
Sixth Stage (14.9 km): Koji Kaneko (Fukuoka Pref.) - 45:41
Seventh Stage (17.7 km): Satoshi Yoshii (Nagasaki Pref.) - 53:21
Eighth Stage (17.9 km): Kentaro Nakamoto (Fukuoka Pref.) - 52:47 - CR

Day Eight
6 stages, 83.8 km

Final Team Standings
1. Fukuoka Pref. - 37:03:23 (4:10:49, 1st)
2. Miyazaki Pref. - 37:35:32 (4:15:02, 2nd)
3. Nagasaki Pref. - 37:54:55 (4:23:48, 3rd)
4. Saga Pref. - 39:07.25
5. Oita Pref. - 39:11:00
6. Yamaguchi Pref. - 39:14:00
7. Kagoshima Pref. - 39:16:38
8. Kumamoto Pref. - 39:16:40
9. Okinawa Pref. - 40:40:37

Stage Bests
First Stage: (17.3 km) Satoru Sasaki (Miyazaki Pref.) - 51:21 - CR
Second Stage (15.8 km): Ryuji Watanabe (Fukuoka Pref.) - 47:49
Third Stage (14.6 km): Hiroki Kubota (Fukuoka Pref.) - 43:20
Fourth Stage (10.8 km): Shinji Tateishi (Fukuoka Pref.) - 34:32
Fifth Stage (10.8 km): Kyohei Nishi (Fukuoka Pref.) - 30:21
Sixth Stage (14.5 km): Masato Imai (Fukuoka Pref.) - 41:30

(c) 2012 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

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