Skip to main content

Yokohama Marathon Course Found to Be Short

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20150407/k10010040411000.html

translated by Brett Larner

It has come to light that the new mass participation Yokohama Marathon held for the first time last month in Yokohama did not receive certification from the JAAF because its course did not cover the complete full marathon distance.  Held on March 15th, the first running of the Yokohama Marathon featured 23,000 runners making it the third-largest in the country behind Tokyo and Osaka.  The scenic course passed many of Yokohama's most famous landmarks such as Chinatown and Yamashita Park, but it has become apparent that its length was less than the full marathon's standard 42.195 km.

According to the organizing committee, on the day of the race they received notification from the JAAF that the official course measurement they had requested indicated that the course was shorter than the full marathon distance by at least several tens of meters, and that the event would be denied certification as a result.  The organizers said the problem arose because they could not divert traffic on the Metropolitan Highway section of the course prior to race day, meaning that that part of the course could not be measured exactly in advance.  An organizing committee spokesperson commented, "We had calculated the distance of the Metropolitan Highway section from maps, but this turned out to be insufficient.  We will make the necessary adjustments to the course in time for next year."

Comments

Anonymous said…
So I'm still to have completed my first marathon? Bugger. And I was so proud of my sub four hour time.
Brett Larner said…
I read elsewhere that it was 186 m short.
Anonymous said…
An official announcement is at http://www.yokohamamarathon.jp/2015/news/20150407.html
The 10 km was 94.1 m short
TokyoRacer said…
Hey, this is Japan. Things like this are not supposed to happen. (Outside of the nuclear industry.)
Anonymous said…
I don't understand why they are so adamant about including the highway section. That whole section is tilted, harsh on the legs, and blocked off to spectators. I am hoping they will eliminate that section and use regular roads in the future.

Most-Read This Week

Koku Gakuin Goes For the Triple Crown - 2025 Hakone Ekiden Preview

The biggest road race of the year is days away, with the Hakone Ekiden entering its second century on Jan. 2 and 3. 20 university teams and one select team race 217.1 km in 10 legs from central Tokyo to the mountains near Mt. Fuji and back, with Nippon TV broadcasting the whole thing live and nationwide to an audience in the tens of millions. TVer is streaming Day One here starting at 7:50 a.m. local time on Jan. 2, and Day Two here at 7:50 a.m. again. If you've got a VPN you should be good to go. JRN will be on-site at the Day One finish line and Day Two start line and will be doing some coverage on @JRNLive . At October's Izumo Ekiden and November's National University Ekiden Koku Gakuin University , Komazawa University and Aoyama Gakuin University went 1-2-3, and the main question at Hakone is whether it'll be the same order again. Komazawa is the heavyweight legacy school of the three, with 8 wins and 18 top 3 finishes at Hakone in the last 25 years under ex...

Defending Champ Aoyama Gakuin Takes Hakone Ekiden Day One By a Kilometer

Chuo University came out hard on Day One of the 2025 Hakone Ekiden , leading from the gun until partway through Hakone's great equalizer, the uphill Fifth Stage. Gunning for his older brother Yamato Yoshii 's 1:00:40 CR for the 21.3 km opening leg, Chuo's Shunsuke Yoshii went it alone, coming up short of the the record at 1:01:07, 1:00:33 half marathon pace, but almost a minute and a half ahead of nearest competitor Yudai Kiyama from Komazawa University . Itta Tameike ran what would normally be a great time on the 23.1 km Second Stage, 1:06:39, but behind him collegiate 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University , Soka University 's top man Hibiki Yoshida and last year's Second Stage winner Asahi Kuroda of defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University all broke the 1:05:49 course record to cut Chuo's lead down to 40 seconds. In Hakone's first 100 years only two runners had ever broken 66 minutes on the Secon...

Aoyama Gakuin Breaks Hakone Ekiden CR for Second Year in a Row

2024 Hakone Ekiden course record breaker Aoyama Gakuin University was 3:16 up on 2023 winner Komazawa University at the end of Day One of the Hakone 2025, an even bigger margin than last year when it was 2:38 ahead of Komazawa and went on to win the 217.1 km overall race in a course record 10:41:25, beating Komazawa by almost 7 minutes. There was almost no chance Komazawa could close the gap today on the return trip of Hakone Day Two. But that doesn't mean they didn't try. Komazawa 3rd year Aoi Ito was just off the CR on the ~800 m downhill 6th leg in 57:38, but even with a run that good he lost ground when AGU's Akimu Nomura proved a hypothetical, breaking the 57-minute barrier for the 20.8 km leg with a 30-second CR of 56:47. Post-race Nomura said that he had spent the whole year training to run 56, and he executed perfectly. And put AGU 4:07 ahead, hopeless, except for a ray of hope. Injured for most of 2024 and running his first race since March on only 6 weeks of...