Skip to main content

Kawauchi Wins Saitama 1500 m Championship Title



http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2014/06/29/kiji/K20140629008469110.html
http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2014/06/30/kiji/K20140630008473350.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

2014 Incheon Asian Games marathon team member Yuki Kawauchi (27, Saitama Pref. Gov't) ran the 1500 m at this weekend's Saitama Prefecture Track and Field Championships at Kumagaya Sports Park Field.  Running both the semifinal and final on June 29, Kawauchi placed 1st in the semis in 3:55.18 before winning the final in 3:56.48 to happily claim his first prefectural title.

Kawauchi fell short of his PB of 3:50.51, but, he said with a smile, "I'm really, really happy to win the title.  It was important to me to win, and everything went according to plan.  Marathon runners don't have to just run the marathon!"

Asked for comment on Japanese-born comedian Hiroshi Neko being named to the Cambodian team for the Asian Games marathon, Kawauchi replied, "His best is slower than my worst, so what am I supposed to say about him?  I'm going there to win the gold medal.  His goal is something different.  It would be strange if I sent him encouragement.  Once the race is over it's of course important to respect each other's efforts in the competition, but it's strange to think that a member of the Japanese national team would cheer on a member of the Cambodian national team."

Next weekend Kawauchi runs Australia's Gold Coast Airport Marathon in defense of his win there last year.  "I want to play a leading role in the greatest marathon in Australian history," he said.

Translator's note: In his last race two weeks ago Kawauchi set the 50 km national record of 2:47:27.  His younger brother Koki Kawauchi (Takasaki Keizai Univ.) finished 3rd in the Saitama 1500 m final.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...
Post a 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

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...
1 comment
Read more