The Kayoko Show: Fukushi One Step Closer to Rio - Osaka International Women's Marathon and Osaka Half Marathon Results

by Brett Larner

At last.

Eight years after Osaka knocked her to the ground, age 33, her last chance for the Olympics before her, Kayoko Fukushi (Team Wacoal) finally threw aside the half-assed smirk, the waving, the smile, the shell of cool aloofness that has surrounded her in just about every race in memory, bearing down in a race that mattered, through halfway in 1:10:28 in a race where she had to run sub-2:22:30, wearing down the lead pack, alone after 30 km, no Eastern Europeans to steal the win and break her heart again, a gaunt, gritting, from the heart expression never before seen on her face as she came onto the track, gunning it when her coach lied to her and told her she was 5 seconds behind target, crossing the line in 2:22:17 and turning to check the clock before pumping her first in the air and shouting, "I DID IT!" Longtime TV announcer and L.A. Olympian Akemi Masuda weeping on the air. And crying too, Kayoko Fukushi, crying on the track. Never seen before. Never again. Clearing the 2:22:30 JAAF Olympic qualifying standard with the win to all but seal her place in Rio, barring something even more spectacular in Nagoya the oldest-ever female Japanese Olympic marathoner in her fourth-straight Olympics, a 2-minute PB and the best Japanese women's time since 2007.

Carnage among those who tried to go with her. 2014 World Half Marathon Championships bronze medalist Sally Chepyego (Kenya/Team Kyudenko) lying face down on the road past 30 km and taken away in an ambulance. 2015 Gold Coast Airport Marathon winner Risa Takenaka (Team Shiseido) dropping to 2:29:14 after going through halfway ahead of Fukushi in 1:10:27. 2012 London Olympian Risa Shigetomo (Team Tenmaya) and debuting Misaki Kato (Team Kyudenko) going over 2:30 after running up front through the first half. A six-minute+ margin of victory for Fukushi, strong, majestic, confident, what all of Japan has hoped to see for a decade.

Fukushi's future Rio Olympic teammate Mai Ito (Otsuka Seiyaku) scored the win in the accompanying half marathon, beating 2015 Rotterdam Marathon winner Asami Kato (Team Panasonic) and marathon national record holder Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex) in 1:10:27, exactly tying Takenaka's first half split in the marathon. Ryoichi Matsuo (Team Asahi Kasei) did the same with the win in the men's half in 1:04:13, but Fukushi picking up the mantle at long, long last was what the day will mean in Japan for many years to come.

Osaka International Women's Marathon
Osaka, 1/31/16
click here for complete results

1. Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) - 2:22:17 - PB - all-time Japanese #7
2. Misato Horie (Noritz) - 2:28:20
3. Risa Takenaka (Shiseido) - 2:29:14
4. Diana Lovacevske (Lithuania) - 2:30:09
5. Risa Shigetomo (Tenmaya) - 2:30:40
6. Misaki Kato (Kyudenko) - 2:31:04 - debut
7. Aya Higashimoto (Juhachi Ginko) - 2:31:28
8. Hiroki Miyauchi (Hokuren) - 2:32:40
9. Hitomi Nakamura (Panasonic) - 2:33:23
10. Yuka Takemoto (Canon AC Kyushu) - 2:33:29
-----
DNF - Sally Chepyego (Kenya/Kyudenko)
DNF - Beatrice Jepkemboi Toroitich (Kenya)
DNF - Karolina Nadolska (Poland)

Osaka Half Marathon
Osaka, 1/31/16
click here for complete results

Men
1. Ryoichi Matsuo (Asahi Kasei) - 1:04:13
2. Kazuki Muramoto (Hyogo Kenritsu Univ.) - 1:04:13
3. Yasuyuki Nakamura (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 1:04:13
4. Shusei Ohashi (JR Higashi Nihon) - 1:04:17
5. Hiroaki Sano (Honda) - 1:04:18
6. Kiyokatsu Hasegawa (JR Higashi Nihon) - 1:04:22
7. Tadashi Suzuki (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 1:04:24
8. Shuji Takada (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 1:04:34
9. Sho Matsumoto (Nikkei Business) - 1:04:43
10. Daichi Nasu (Sumitomo Denko) - 1:04:53

Women
1. Mai Ito (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:10:27
2. Asami Kato (Panasonic) - 1:10:30
3. Keiko Nogami (Juhachi Ginko) - 1:11:52
4. Madoka Nakano (Noritz) - 1:12:37
5. Kikuyo Tsuzaki (Noritz) - 1:13:02
6. Mizuki Noguchi (Sysmex) - 1:13:28
7. Megumi Hirai (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:13:33
8. Chisaki Takegami (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:13:46
9. Ami Utsunomiya (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:13:59
10. Megumi Amako (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:14:03

© 2016 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...

Restaurant Owner Selected as Olympic Torchbearer Dies in Fire After Becoming Despondent Over Impact of Coronavirus Crisis (updated)

On the evening of Apr. 30, the 54-year-old male owner of a restaurant in Tokyo's Nerima ward specializing in tonkatsu deep fried pork cutlets died from full-body burns in a fire at the restaurant. The man had been one of the people chosen as a torchbearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics torch relay. With the coronavirus crisis causing both the postponement of the Olympics and a loss of business at the restaurant, the man had recently started talking pessimistically about the future to those around him. With evidence of the man's body having been doused in tonkatsu cooking oil, metropolitan police from the Hikarigaoka Police Station are carefully examining the cause of the fire. At around 10:00 p.m. on the 30th, the fire broke out in the tonkatsu restaurant on the first floor of a three-story building. A neighborhood resident who noticed smoke called the fire department. Firefighters found the floor and part of a wall burning, with the man lying on the floor in the customer seat...

Kawauchi Wins Inaugural Kawauchi Half Marathon

http://www.minyu-net.com/sports/running/FM20160501-070419.php translated by Brett Larner 川内優輝ロード pic.twitter.com/rEJk7CQPFV — みとっぽ (黒) (@mitoppo_tmyk) April 30, 2016 Yuki Kawauchi Road in Kawauchi, Fukushima Held to inspire former residents to return to the area after the nearby TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident five years ago, the village of Kawauchi held the first " Kawauchi no Sato Kaeru Half Marathon - From Reconstruction to Creation " on April 30. The course started and finished at the village heliport. 1188 runners from across the country gathered to celebrate the village's revival as they ran through its springtime streets. The event's organizing committee was made up of local government and board of education members with support from the Fukushima Minyu Newspaper and other sponsors. The race's purpose was to transmit the vitality and charm of the reconstructing Kawauchi village to the rest of the nation in hopes of helpin...

japan running news

Search This Blog