Skip to main content

Maina and Okada Win Sendai Half

by Brett Larner

2012 Sendai International Half Marathon winner Johana Maina (Kenya/Team Fujitsu) returned to the top at this year's race, outrunning last year's winner Mekubo Mogusu (Kenya/Team Nissin Shokuhin) and all Japanese competition for a second Sendai title.  Mogusu took the race out hard, leading Maina through 5 km before losing touch.  From there it was a one-man show as Maina soloed his way to the win in 1:01:43.  2013 Nobeoka Nishi Nihon Marathon winner Hiroaki Sano (Team Honda), the lone Japanese man to go in pursuit of the two Kenyans, ran down Mogusu for 2nd in 1:02:40, a PB by nearly 45 seconds.

Mogusu barely held on to 3rd in 1:03:19, with Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) in close pursuit on the final lap of the track.  Kawauchi, running just a week after his 2:09:36 season best at the Hamburg Marathon, did his best to catch Mogusu but came up just short in 1:03:23 for 4th, the fastest of his eight half marathons so far this year. Newly Japan-based Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/Team NTN), Kawauchi's main foreign competition for gold at this fall's Asian Games marathon, was nine seconds behind Kawauchi in 1:03:32, an apparent new Mongolian national record.

2013's fastest Japanese marathoner Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko) ran a lukewarm 1:04:19 for 8th, with his 2012 equivalent Arata Fujiwara (Miki House) far back in the pack in 1:05:42 in his first race experimenting with high-mileage training. Mogusu, Kawauchi, Bat-Ochir and Fujiwara will all line up again next weekend at the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon where they will face top trio Zersenay Tadese (Eritrea), Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) and Bedan Karoki (Kenya/DeNA RC).

In the women's race, the young Yui Okada (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) made a successful debut at the half-marathon, taking the win in 1:11:27.  Okada ran a solidly even race, head-to-head with Sachi Tanaka (Sports Yamagata 21 AC) on low-1:11 pace at 10 km before getting away for the win.  Tanaka held on for 2nd in a PB of 1:11:50 far ahead of 3rd-placer Misato Horie (Team Noritz). Having just turned 20, Okada looks to have plenty of room to improve in coming seasons.

24th Sendai International Half Marathon
Sendai, Miyagi, 5/11/14
click here for complete results

Men
1. Johana Maina (Kenya/Team Fujitsu)  1:01:43
2. Hiroaki Sano (Team Honda) - 1:02:40 - PB
3. Mekubo Mogusu (Kenya/Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 1:03:19
4. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) - 1:03:23
5. Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/Team NTN) - 1:03:32 - NR
6. Shigeki Tsuji (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:03:34
7. Shota Inoue (Team Toyota) - 1:03:52
8. Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko) - 1:04:19
9. Yudai Yamakawa (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:04:26
10. Takuya Noguchi (Team Konica Minolta) - 1:04:32

Women
1. Yui Okada (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:11:27 - debut
2. Sachi Tanaka (Sports Yamagata 21 AC) - 1:11:50 - PB
3. Misato Horie (Team Noritz) - 1:13:21
4. Miya Nishio (Team Hokuren) - 1:14:58
5. Aiko Sakata (Ritsumeikan Univ.) - 1:15:17
6. Yuri Kano (Team Shiseido) - 1:16:16
7. Mari Ozaki (Team Noritz) - 1:16:51
8. Kana Unno (Team Noritz) - 1:17:57
9. Ema Harada (Team Nihon ChemiCon) - 1:18:11
10. Eri Suzuki (Noshiro Yamamoto T&F Assoc.) - 1:18:20

(c) 2014 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Labels

Labels:

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
The Open Division women's race was won by Amanda Rice, a dentist at the Atsugi US Air Force base and a member of the Namban Rengo running club. Her time was about 1:17, quite good considering that she started in the B block and it was a hot day (23C/73F before the start at 10:00).
May 11, 2014 at 11:30 PM
TokyoRacer said…
BTW, the number of women in the race was 2,211.
Number of men was 8,673.
May 12, 2014 at 6:55 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges.  Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...
1 comment
Read more

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
12 comments
Read more

10 Meet Records and a National Record at Hyogo Relay Carnival

The grand prix distance events were absent from the program this year at the 73rd Hyogo Relay Carnival , with the top performances in the women's 5000 m and men's 10000 m Asics Challenge races going to steepler Yuzu Nishide (Daihatsu) in 15:49.48 and Japan-based Kenyan Emmanuel Kiplagat (Mitsubishi Juko) in 28:12.42. But there were a lot of new meet records, and one national record. Ryosuke Kusumi (Shiga) set a T37-class NR of 58.35 m in the para men's 400 m. Kairi Ikeno (Suma Gakuen H.S.) came less than 2 seconds short of a new high school record in the women's 2000 m , beating her own MR from last year by over 3 seconds in 5:55.36, almost 17 seconds ahead of 2nd place. The top 5 all broke or tied the men's high jump meet record, with both Yuto Seko (FAAS) and Tomohiro Shinno (Kyudenko) clearing 2.25 m and Takashi Eto (Kobe Digital Labo), Chao-Hsuan Fu (Taiwan) and Naoto Hasegawa (Niigata Albirex RC) clearing 2.20 m. Yuki Hashioka (Fujitsu) won the men...
Post a Comment
Read more