Bat-Ochir, Mbote, Imai and Maeda to Face Off at Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon

http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=spo&k=2014011500595

translated and edited by Brett Larner

On Jan. 15 the organizers of the 63rd Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon on Feb. 2 announced the names of this year's elite field. On the domestic men's list are the fastest Japanese marathoner of 2013, Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko), 2013 New York City Marathon 6th-place finisher Masato Imai (Team Toyota Kyushu) and Kenichi Shiraishi (Team Asahi Kasei), winner of last weekend's Oita City Half Marathon. Their top foreign competition comes from 2013 Hofu Yomiuri Marathon winner and 2012 Beppu-Oita runner-up Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia) and 2:07:37 Kenyan Jason Mbote.

63rd Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon Elite Field
Oita, 2/2/14
click here for complete field listing

Men
Daniel Njenga (Kenya/Team Yakult) - 2:06:16 (Chicago 2002)
Jason Mbote (Kenya) - 2:07:37 (Seoul 2008)
Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko) - 2:08:00 (Tokyo 2013)
Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia) - 2:09:00 (Hofu 2013)
Yuko Matsumiya (Team Hitachi Butsuryu) - 2:09:18 (Lake Biwa 2005)
Tomoyuki Sato (Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:09:43 (Tokyo Int'l 2004)
Fekadu Lema (Ethiopia) - 2:09:50 (Hamburg 2012) - withdrawn, Jan. 30
Masashi Hayashi (Team Yakult) - 2:09:55 (Lake Biwa 2012)
Bunta Kuroki (Team Yasukawa Denki) - 2:10:08 (Fukuoka Int'l 2012) - withdrawn, Jan. 30
Gezahegn Abera (Ethiopia) - 2:10:17 (Barcelona 2013)
Masato Imai (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 2:10:29 (Tokyo 2013)
Seiji Kobayashi (Mitsubishi Juko RC) - 2:10:38 (Beppu-Oita 2009)
Soji Ikeda (Team Yakult) - 2:10:59 (Tokyo 2013)
Takaaki Koda (Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:11:08 (Tokyo 2011)
Taiga Ito (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 2:11:15 (Tokyo 2013)
Yuki Moriwaki (Team JFE Steel) - 2:11:52 (Beppu-Oita 2012)
Kazuya Ishida (Team Nishitetsu) - 2:11:57 (Nobeoka 2012)
Tatsunari Hirayama (Team Yasukawa Denki) - 2:12:38 (Nobeoka 2013)
Kazuaki Shimizu (Team Yakult) - 2:12:49 (Nobeoka 2013)
Norihide Fujimori (Team Chugoku Denryoku) - 2:13:11 (Tokyo 2013)
Masayuki Obata (Team Yasukawa Denki) - 2:13:17 (Lake Biwa 2013)
Yu Chiba (Team Honda) - 2:13:19 (Beppu-Oita 2013)
Abraham Kiplimo (Uganda) - 2:13:32 (Rotterdam 2013)
Naoya Hashimoto (Team Chudenko) - 2:13:50 (Beppu-Oita 2010)

Keisuke Nakatani (Team JR Higashi Nihon) - 2:14:16 (Tokyo 2011)

Najim El Qady (Morocco) - 2:14:29 (Seoul 2009)
Kiyokatsu Hasegawa (Team JR Higashi Nihon) - 2:15:15 (Tokyo 2010)

Naoki Inoue (Team Komori Corp.) - 2:15:38 (Nobeoka 2012)

Debut Men
Mamoru Hirano (Team Yasukawa Denki) - 1:01:49 (Marugame 2012)
Ryo Kiname (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) - 1:02:22 (Marugame 2012)
Kenichi Shiraishi (Team Asahi Kasei) - 1:02:23 (Nat'l Corp. Championships 2007)
Hiroyuki Yamamoto (Team Konica Minolta) - 1:02:43 (Marugame 2013)
Ryuji Watanabe (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 1:02:58a (Great North Run 2013)
Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei) - 27:53.19 (Niigata 2008)

Women
Mika Okunaga (Yufuin Hammock AC) - 2:27:16 (Osaka Int'l 2009)
Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) - 2:28:49 (Sapporo 2002)
Rina Abe (Canon AC Kyushu) - debut - 1:18:20 half marathon

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...

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