Skip to main content

Ohara and Wanjiru Negative Split Way to Wins at 35th Anniversary Sanyo Ladies Road Race

by Brett Larner


Japan's Rei Ohara (Team Tenmaya) and Kenyan Rosemary Wanjiru (Team Starts) went it alone to win the 35th anniversary Sanyo Ladies' Road Race half marathon and 10 km divisions with strong negative split runs.

After a slow 17:00 first 5 km in the half Ohara got to work, covering the next 5 km in 16:24 and opening a 16-second lead over a pack of nine led by Rio Olympics marathoner Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku).  From there she never faltered, her pace holding steady all the way to a 1:10:03 win.  38 seconds behind, Misaki Kato (Team Kyudenko) took 2nd in 1:10:42 with relative newcomer Ayaka Fujimoto (Team Kyocera) 3rd in 1:11:20.  Ito faded to 5th in 1:11:39 just ahead of London Olympics marathoner Risa Shigetomo (Team Tenmaya).  Invited Australians Eloise Wellings and Cassie Fien were both DNFs, Fien dropping out before 5 km and Wellings before 10 km.


In the 10 km Wanjiru was out front from the beginning, hitting 5km in 16:11 with a 12-second lead over teammate Grace Kimanzi (Team Starts).  Turning it on in the second half she covered the return trip in 15:53 to score her second-straight Sanyo win in 32:04, one second slower than last year.  Kimanzi, the 2013-14 Sanyo winner, also negative splitted, taking 2nd in 32:21.  Kato's teammate Mariam Waithera (Team Kyudenko) was 3rd in 33:09, just holding off top Japanese woman Kanayo Miyata (Team Yutaka Giken).

35th Anniversary Sanyo Ladies Road Race
Okayama, 12/23/16

Yuko Arimori Cup Half Marathon
1. Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) - 1:10:04
2. Misaki Kato (Kyudenko) - 1:10:42
3. Ayaka Fujimoto (Kyocera) - 1:11:20
4. Ayano Ikemitsu (Kagoshima Ginko) - 1:11:36
5. Mai Ito (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 1:11:39
6. Risa Shigetomo (Tenmaya) - 1:11:47
7. Yukari Ishizawa (Edion) - 1:11:54
8. Sayo Nomura (Daiichi Seimei) - 1:12:10
9. Misato Horie (Noritz) - 1:12:30
10. Ai Utsunomiya (Miyazaki Ginko) - 1:13:01
-----
DNF - Cassie Fien (Australia)
DNF - Eloise Wellings (Australia)

Kinue Hitomi Cup 10 km
1. Rosemary Monica Wanjiru (Starts)- 32:04
2. Grace Mbuthi Kimanzi (Starts) - 32:21
3. Mariam Waithera Mururi (Kyudenko) - 33:09
4. Kanayo Miyata (Yutaka Giken) - 33:11
5. Yuka Miyazaki (Kyudenko) - 33:27
6. Mai Nishiwaki (Tenmaya) - 33:35
7. Ann Karindi (Toyota Boshoku) - 33:37
8. Fumika Sasaki (Daiichi Seimei) - 33:37
9. Mayuka Toda (Kyocera) - 33:40
10. Rina Yamashita (Kyudenko) - 33:48

© 2016 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
8 comments
Read more

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...
1 comment
Read more

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...
2 comments
Read more