Skip to main content

Mai Ito Wins Hot and Sunny Shibetsu Half Marathon in Final Tuneup for Rio Olympics Marathon

http://dd.hokkaido-np.co.jp/sports/sports/marathon/1-0296687.html
http://news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye2828867.html
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/s/article/2016072401001248.html
http://dd.hokkaido-np.co.jp/sports/sports/marathon/1-0296700.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The 30th anniversary Suffolkland Shibetsu Half Marathon  was held July 24 in Shibestu, Hokkaido.  Top-level Japanese athletes and amateur runners alike braved blazing sunshine to give it their best on the JAAF-certified course.  A total of 2136 runners including a large number of corporate league runners from Toyota and the Kansai region took part.  Special guest runners included ski jumper Sara Takanashi and the winner of the first Shibetsu Half women's race, Eriko Asai.

In the men's half marathon, Kokushikan University assistant coach James Mwangi won by a second over Yuki Oshikawa (Team Toyota Kyushu) in a course record 1:03:22.  Rio de Janeiro Olympics men's marathon team member Suehiro Ishikawa (Team Honda) withdrew from the race, his management citing changes in his plans for the last stretch of his training.  2014 Asian Games marathon bronze medalist Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) was 16th in 1:06:10.

Running her final domestic tuneup before representing Japan in the Rio Olympics marathon, Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) led in temperatures of over 28 degrees to win the women's half marathon by more than 45 seconds in 1:13:31.  "There's a good chance the weather in Rio will be as hot as it was today, so being able to push it like this was a big confidence builder," she said.  "I think this was a good time at this stage."

Ito has been training in Hokkaido since late May, her workouts including tough 50 km runs.  She has been working on stabilizing her form and doing extensive core training in order to deal with possible windy conditions along the seaside portion of the Rio course.  Her coach Tadasu Kawano gave a favorable evaluation of her performance in Shibetsu, saying, "As a training run she earned a perfect score."  Ito will travel to the U.S.A. at the end of the month for her final preparations.

30th Suffolkland Shibetsu Half Marathon
Shibetsu, Hokkaido, 7/24/16
complete results coming soon

Women's Half Marathon
1. Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:13:31
2. Sayo Nomura (Team Daiichi Seimei) - 1:14:17
3. Hiroko Miyauchi (Team Hokuren) - 1:14:28
4. Ai Inoue (Team Noritz) - 1:14:36
5. Kikuyo Tsuzaki (Team Noritz) - 1:15:47

Men's Half Marathon
1. James Mwangi (Kokushikan Univ. staff) - 1:03:22 - CR
2. Yuki Oshikawa (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 1:03:23
3. Tsubasa Hayakawa (Team Toyota) - 1:03:28
4. Taku Fujimoto (Team Toyota) - 1:03:40
5. Kento Otsu (Team Toyota Kyushu) - 1:04:14

Women's 10 km
1. Mizuki Matsuda (Team Daihatsu) - 33:48
2. Mao Ichiyama (Team Wacoal) - 34:35
3. Kanako Takemoto (Team Daihatsu) - 34:42
4. Saki Wada (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 34:42
5. Rie Kawauchi (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) - 34:56

Comments

Most-Read This Week

2026 Tokyo Marathon Elite Field

The Mar. 1 Tokyo Marathon has great fields this year, so let's get right to it. The women's field has 3 of last year's top 10, winner for the 2nd year in a row and Tokyo CR holder Sutume Asefa Kebede , 3rd-placer and 2025 Chicago winner Hawi Feysa , and 5th-placer and 2025 Berlin winner Rosemary Wanjiru , plus 2024 Valencia winner Megertu Alemu , 2025 Prague winner Bertukan Welde , 2024 Paris winner Mestawut Fikir , 2024 Osaka winner Waganesh Mekasha , former WR holder Brigid Kosgei , and a lot more. Japanese hopes pretty much go to all-time #7 Ai Hosoda , 2:20:31 in Berlin 2024 but who announced this month that she is retiring after Tokyo despite having qualified for the 2028 Olympic marathon trials with her 2:23:27 for 6th in Sydney last year. Other internationals include Canadian Malindi Elmore , American Sara Hall , a big Chinese group led by Yuyu Xia , Poland's Aleksandra Brzezińska and Australian Vanessa Wilson . The men's race has 5 of last year's top 1...

Ai Hosoda Announces Retirement

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/Photo Run, all rights reserved On Jan. 8 the Edion women's corporate team announced that Ai Hosoda , 30, will retire at the end of March this year. The Tokyo Marathon will be her last race. At Nagano Higashi H.S. Hosoda ran in the National High School Ekiden her 2nd and 3rd years. During her 3rd year at Nittai University she won both the 5000 m and 10000 m at the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, going on to win the bronze medal in the 10000 m at the World University Games in her 4th year at Nittai. After graduating she joined the Daihatsu corporate team, debuting at the 2019 Nagoya Women's Marathon in 2:29:27. 2 years later she transferred to Edion. She qualified for the Paris Olympics marathon trials at the 2022 Nagoya Women's Marathon and finished 3rd in the trials in the fall of 2023, but was later bumped down to Olympic alternate after another athlete ran a faster time. Instead of the Olympics, Hosoda ran the 2024 Ber...

Measuring Marathon Courses by Bicycle

http://news.searchina.ne.jp/disp.cgi?y=2013&d=0110&f=column_0110_034.shtml translated by Brett Larner The full marathon is a sport where you compete over 42.195 km, but how do they go about measuring that distance?  Today we're going to look a little bit at how they go about certifying the distance of a marathon. The reality is that major international marathons use a bicycle to measure the distance.  This rule is an international standard, and the same method of measurement is used everywhere.  It was put into place in 1986.  In order to ensure that the same method is used everywhere, a bicycle that meets IAAF specifications must be used for measurement. In the case of Japan's major marathons, to be certain that the distance is correct a provisional measurement is first made.  Before the course is certified using a bicycle the course is measured using a 50 m-long length of wire to determine that it is in fact 42.195 km.  When a bicycle is u...