Skip to main content

Fujiwara and Ishikawa Face Gebrselassie and Kipsang at Sunday's Great Manchester Run

by Brett Larner

Moscow World Championships men's marathon squad member Masakazu Fujiwara and his Honda teammate Suehiro Ishikawa will make a return to the roads at Sunday's Bupa Great Manchester Run 10 km for the first time since running 2:08:51 and 2:09:10 at March's Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon.  Appearing through the support of JRN, the two Japanese athletes will face a field including former marathon world record holder and four-time defending champion Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia), London Olympics marathon bronze medalist Wilson Kipsang (Kenya) and more.  The great Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia) leads the women's field along with home-soil tops Helen Clitheroe (Great Britain) and Gemma Steel (Great Britain) and marathoners Jelena Procopcuka (Latvia) and Christelle Daunay (France).

Fujiwara, the Japanese debut marathon and collegiate marathon national record holder at 2:08:12, will be making his debut on U.K. soil, while Ishikawa will be seeking to improve on his 28:47 finish for 8th place at last year's Bupa Great Manchester Run.  Fujiwara heads to Moscow to practice on the World Championships course along with fellow national team members Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko) and Kentaro Nakamoto (Team Yasukawa Denki) following Sunday's race.

2013 Great Manchester Run Elite Field Highlights
Manchester, 5/26/13

Men
Masakazu Fujiwara (Team Honda/Japan)
Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia)
Yared Hagos (Ethiopia)
Suehiro Ishikawa (Team Honda/Japan)
Wilson Kipsang (Kenya)
Moses Kipsiro (Uganda)
Sergey Lebid (Ukraine)
Jonny Mellor (Great Britain)
Stephen Mokoka (South Africa)
James Walsh (Great Britain)

Women
Alessandra Aguilar (Spain)
Helen Clitheroe (Great Britain)
Christelle Daunay (France)
Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia)
Susan Partridge (Great Britain)
Jelena Procopcuka (Latvia)
Gemma Steel (Great Britain)

(c) 2013 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

World Marathon Majors Japanese Entries

We're back from a short summer break. A week and a half out from the first race of the season's four World Marathon Majors races, here's a look at Japanese athletes scheduled to run. Everything right now is about qualifying for the MGC Race, the official trials race for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to be held in the fall of 2027 in Nagoya. The JAAF makes no mistake about wanting to keep its top people racing domestically where it can get a share of revenue from the TV broadcast and race operations, so anyone who decides to race overseas has to do it in a WA platinum label race and hit either 2:06:30 or 2:23:30, regardless of place, course or weather if they want to make the trials. At the same time concessions are make for domestic races, like for example the late-August Hokkaido Marathon where up to 3 men and 3 women can qualify if they go 2:12:00 or 2:32:00. As a result, you get things like last year where amateur runner Yudai Fukuda made the trials by finishing 3rd Jap...

Nakajima Breaks 100 mH NR Twice, Kitaguchi Returns - August Track Roundup

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...

Asian Games Competition Schedule

The daily athletics event schedule for September's Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games . Wednesday, Sept. 23 7:30 - Women's / Men's Half Marathon Race Walk Final Thursday, Sept. 24 10:00 - Women's Heptathlon 100 mH 10:20 - Mixed 4x400 m Relay Heats 10:30 - Men's Triple Jump Heats 10:40 - Women's Heptathlon High Jump 19:05 - Men's High Jump Heats 19:13 - Women's Heptathlon Shot Put 19:33 - Women's 100 m Heats 19:44 - Women's Triple Jump Final 20:08 - Men's 100 m Heats 20:55 - Men's Discus Throw Final 21:00 - Women's Heptathlon 200 m 21:25 - Women's 10000 m Final 22:15 - Mixed 4x400 m Relay Final Friday, Sept. 25 10:00 - Women's Heptathlon Long Jump 10:30 - Men's 400 m Heats 11:25 - Women's Heptathlon Javelin Throw 19:05 - Women's Shot Put Final 19:13 - Women's 100 m Semifinal 19:33 - Men's 100 m Semifinal 20:03 - Women's Pole Vault Final 20:11 - Women's Heptathlon 800 m 20:32 - Men's 10000 m Final 20:40 - M...