'Mungara Chases Unique Hat-Trick on Gold Coast'

https://www.iaaf.org/news/preview/2017-gold-coast-marathon-preview

Past Gold Coast Airport Marathon winners Risa Takenaka (Team Shiseido) and Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) return to Sunday's race to lead a sizable Japanese contingent in both the full and half marathons. 2015 women's winner Takenaka will be seeking to improve on her PB of 2:28:09 and to extend the Japanese women's winning streak on the Gold Coast to six years in a row. 2013 men's winner Kawauchi will be running Gold Coast for the sixth year in a row as his final tuneup for next month's London World Championships. His 70th career marathon, his goal at Gold Coast is a sub-2:10. If he clears 2:12 he will break Abebe Mekonnen's world record of 22 career sub-2:12 marathons.

Other top Japanese competition includes last year's 4th-placer Chiharu Takada (Team JR Higashi Nihon), Takenaka's husband Takuya Noguchi (Team Konica Minolta), and 2016 Hofu Yomiuri Marathon winner Ryo Hashimoto (Team GMO Athletes) who in just his second marathon ran 2:11:20 to beat Kawauchi in Hofu. Japanese runners in the half marathon include Takada's teammate Koji Gokaya (Team JR Higashi Nihon) in the men's race and Mizuki Tanimoto (Team Tenmaya) in the women's race.

The 39th Gold Coast Airport Marathon and ASICS Half Marathon will be streamed live here starting at 5:45 local time on Sunday, July 2. The half marathon is set to start at 6:00 a.m. with the wheelchair race at 7:15 and the marathon at 7:20. JRN's Brett Larner will be doing commentary on the marathon broadcast again this year.

39th Gold Coast Airport Marathon and ASICS Half Marathon

Elite Field Highlights
Gold Coast, Australia, 7/2/17
click here for detailed field listing
times listed are best marks within last three years except where noted

Men's Marathon
Kenneth Mungara (Kenya) - 2:08:32 (Milan 2015)
Jonah Chesum (Kenya) - 2:08:57 (Barcelona 2017)
Yuki Kawauchi (Japan) - 2:09:01 (Gold Coast 2016)
Tewelde Hidru (Eritrea) - 2:09:16 (Frankfurt 2015)
Matthew Kipsaat (Kenya) - 2:09:19 (Rome 2017)
Feyera Dadi (Ethiopia) - 2:09:42 (Dongying 2016)
Abraraw Tegegne (Ethiopia) - 2:09:47 (Ljubljana 2016)
Douglas Chebii (Kenya) - 2:09:48 (Seville 2017)
Chiharu Takada (Japan) - 2:10:03 (Fukuoka International 2014)
Takuya Noguchi (Japan) - 2:11:04 (Tokyo 2017)
Ryo Hashimoto (Japan) - 2:11:20 (Hofu 2016)
Yuta Takahashi (Japan) - debut - 1:02:13 half (2015)

Women's Marathon
Abebech Bekele (Ethiopia) - 2:23:33 (Dubai 2015)
Letebrhan Gebreslasea (Ethiopia) - 2:25:01 (Dongying 2017)
Mercy Kibarus (Kenya) - 2:26:52 (Seoul 2017)
Meseret Tolwak (Ethiopia) - 2:27:17 (Frankfurt 2015)
Leah Kiprono (Kenya) - 2:27:39 (Zhengzhou 2016)
Risa Takenaka (Japan) - 2:28:09 (Nagoya 2015)
Azusa Nojiri (Japan) - 2:28:54 (Yokohama Women's 2014)
Elizeba Cherono (Netherlands) - debut - 1:10:10 half (2015)

Men's Half Marathon
Koji Gokaya (Japan) - 1:04:20 (New Year Ekiden 4th Stage - 22.0 km, 2015)
Liam Adams (Australia) - 1:03:29 (Gold Coast 2015)
Hiroki Yamagishi (Japan) - 1:03:41 (Marugame 2015)
Keita Nagura (Japan) - 1:03:56 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2017)
Jeffrey Hunt (Australia) - 1:06:44 (Gold Coast 2014)

Women's Half Marathon
Sara Hall (U.S.A.) - 1:10:07 (Houston 2016)
Milly Clark (Australia) - 1:10:48 (Cardiff 2016)
Desiree Linden (U.S.A.) - 1:11:05 (NYC 2017)
Jess Tengrove (Australia) - 1:11:07 (San Diego 2015)
Cassie Fien (Australia) - 1:11:13 (Cardiff 2016)
Mizuki Tanimoto (Japan) - 1:12:39 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2017)

photo © 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges. Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

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