Skip to main content

Sairi Maeda Scratches From Final Rio Olympics Selection Race With Injury

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20160204-00000096-mai-spo

translated and edited by Brett Larner

A member of last summer's Beijing World Championships women's marathon team, Sairi Maeda (24, Team Daihatsu) has withdrawn from the Mar. 13 Nagoya Women's Marathon Rio de Janeiro Olympic team selection race, with a leg injury.  With Nagoya serving as the final selection race for the women's marathon team her withdrawal means that Maeda will miss the Rio Olympics.

After setting the national university record of 2:26:46 in her 2014 debut at the Osaka International Women's Marathon Maeda ran 2:22:48 in Nagoya last year, at the time making her the all-time 8th-fastest Japanese woman.  Heading to Beijing as the star of the Japanese team she finished only 13th, missing a chance to score a place in Rio by finishing in the top 8.  Following Beijing Maeda planned to run Osaka in January but was forced to change plans after an injury.  Nagoya became her target, but according to a team spokesperson Maeda was unable to do sufficient serious training due to the lingering effects of her injury.
Labels:

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
The Japanese are obsessed with "finishing in the top 8". In every running and field event, as well as in other sports, commentators _always_ mention whether the Japanese athlete made the top 8. There's a word for it in Japanese, nyusho, meaning placing. But as far as I know, the top 8 is meaningless in the Olympics and in other sports as well. Prizes are never given for the top 8. I think it's only Japanese who care about this. Am I correct?
February 5, 2016 at 7:24 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Gold Coast Half Marathon and Marathon Preview

Australia's Gold Coast Half Marathon and Marathon are big draws for Japanese corporate leaguers these days, especially with a big contingent from this year's National Corporate Half Marathon dominating the entry lists in the half. Two-time winner Sara Hall is top-ranked in the women's half with a 1:07:15 from Houston two years ago and will mostly be racing Leanne Pompeani for the win. Beyond that there's a big group at the 1:10 level including Japan's Rinka Hida , Yukari Nagatomo and Moe Shimizu who should all be in it for 3rd. The men's half is dominated by four Japanese men who broke 1:01 at the National Corporate Half in February, meaning that if the weather is decent then the 1:01:16 CR is likely to fall to Shunsuke Shikama , Koki Kamata , Soshi Suzuki or Daisuke Doi . That's a big if, though, with >50% chance of rain and a headwind in the 2nd half that's forecast to get stronger as the race goes along. The favorite for the win and a shot at...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kondo Runs Fastest-Ever Japanese Time at TCS New York City Marathon

Coming at a key point in ekiden season, few elite-level Japanese athletes run the TCS New York City Marathon, but this year 3 were on the line, 2026 Osaka Women's Marathon 6th-placer Rie Kawauchi (Otsuka Seiyaku), last year's Osaka Marathon men's runner-up Ryota Kondo (Mitsubishi Juko), and former men's NR holder Kengo Suzuki (Nike). In t he women's race , Kawauchi, a 2:24:16 runner, lost touch with the lead group before 20 km, going through halfway in 1:14:04 en route to an 18th-place finish in 2:31:29. Surprisingly, that was still the 4th-fastest time ever by a Japanese woman in New York, and the fastest since double Olympic medalist Yuko Arimori ran 2:31:12 in 2000. In the men's race , both Kondo and Suzuki took turns surging to the front, Suzuki doing it early and paying for it with splits of 1:04:06/1:08:09, ultimately landing 23rd in 2:12:15. Kondo, whose Osaka run last year was a solid debut of 2:05:39, was in it til the end and made multiple moves ov...
1 comment
Read more

Waseda 2/2 With National University Ekiden CR

The last time Waseda University won the National University Ekiden in 2010 it pulled off something that had never been done and has never been duplicated since then, breaking the course records to win all 3 major university ekidens in a single season. After leading the top 7 teams under the CR to take last month's Izumo Ekiden , Waseda came one step closer to repeating history with a massive CR win at today's 58th National University Ekiden . 2026 Hakone Ekiden champ Aoyama Gakuin University 's leading runner Ibuki Sugiyama was the only thing that stopped Waseda from leading wire to wire, giving EVERYTHING to improbably outkick Waseda's 1st-year 1500 m sensation Ojiro Honda and hand off in the top spot, maybe the single most memorable performance of the day. But from there it was a blowout, with Waseda 1st-years Yota Mashiko and Haruki Niizuma breaking the CRs on the next 2 stages, 2nd-year Rui Suzuki doing the same on the Fifth Stage, and 4th-year Shinsaku Kudo ...
Post a Comment
Read more