Skip to main content

Osaka Marathon Elite Field

One of the world's ten biggest marathons, in its six runnings to date the Osaka Marathon has continued to avoid the addition of a world-class elite field of the same caliber as at equivalently-sized races like Tokyo, Berlin and Boston. In place of doling out cash to pros, Osaka's women's field has developed into a sort of national championship race for amateur women.

In the field this year are six, probably all six, of the amateur Japan women to have broken 2:40 in the last three years. Last year's top three, Yoshiko Sakamoto (F.O.R.), Yumiko Kinoshita (SWAC) and Hisae Yoshimatsu (Shunan City Hall) lead the way at the 2:36 +/- level, with a second trio of Marie Imada (Iwatani Sangyo), Mitsuko Ino (R2 Nishin Nihon) and Chika Tawara (RxL) all around the 2:39 level.

Last year's winner Sakamoto and 3rd placer Yoshimatsu squared off in September at Germany's Volksbank Muenster Marathon, Yoshimatsu tying Sakamoto's Osaka winning time of 2:36:02 to take 3rd over two minutes ahead of Sakamoto. Kinoshita, who spent most of the first half of the year recovering from injury, won the first running of the Matsumoto Marathon in early October as a tuneup for Osaka. The only one of the top six still in her 20s, Imada looks like the biggest threat to the front group as she continues to develop as a marathoner.

The men's race features three Eritreans, Kaleab Ghilagabr the heavy favorite to win with a 2:12:22 best in Riga two years ago. Yuma Morii (SGH Group) is the only Japanese man in the field to have broken 2:20 in the last three years, but with a 2:18:55 best there's not much chance he'll be in competition with Ghilagabr. #3-ranked Satoru Kasuya (Toyota Boshoku) ran 2:11:17 in 2011 but was later diagnosed with a brain tumor which proved nearly fatal. Still on the comeback, his recent best is only 2:20:38 in Tokyo last year. 2016 100 km world champion Hideaki Yamauchi (Japan/Hamamatsu Hotonics) and interesting independent Hideyuki Ikegami (Japan/Kyoto T&F Assoc.) are also in the field.

7th Osaka Marathon Elite Field
Osaka, 11/26/17
click here for field announcement
times listed are best in last three years except where noted

Women
Hisae Yoshimatsu (Japan/Shunan City Hall) - 2:35:46 (Hofu 2015)
Yumiko Kinoshita (Japan/SWAC) - 2:35:49 (Tokyo 2015)
Yoshiko Sakamoto (Japan/F.O.R.) - 2:36:02 (Osaka 2016)
Marie Imada (Japan/Iwatani Sangyo) - 2:38:51 (Kitakyushu 2017)
Mistuko Ino (Japan/R2 Nishi Nihon) - 2:39:07 (Tokushima 2017)
Chika Tawara (Japan/RxL) - 2:39:44 (Osaka 2015)
Haruka Yamaguchi (Japan/AC Kita) - 2:40:31 (Beppu-Oita 2017)
Azusa Nojiri (Japan/Raffine) - 2:42:16 (Osaka Int'l 2015)
Felista Wanjugu (Kenya) - 2:44:00 (Zhengzhou 2016)

Men
Kaleab Ghilagabr (Eritrea) - 2:12:22 (Riga 2015)
Yuma Morii (Japan/SGH Group) - 2:18:55 (Nobeoka 2017)
Satoru Kasuya (Japan/Toyota Boshoku) - 2:20:38 (Tokyo 2016)
Tesfamariam Gashazghi (Eritrea) - 2:20:57 (Asmara 2017)
Hideaki Yamauchi (Japan/Hamamatsu Hotonics) - 2:22:48 (Shizuoka 2016)
Kota Shinjo (Japan/NTT Nishi Nihon) - 2:22:56 (Hokkaido 2016)
Fikadu Kibreab (Eritrea) - 2:23:25 (Asmara 2017)
Tadashi Horikoshi (Japan/NTT Nishi Nihon) - 2:27:42 (London IPC 2015)
Hideyuki Ikegami (Japan/Kyoto T&F Assoc.) - 2:30:15 (Hannover 2017)

text and photo © 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Metts said…
Its good to see a large marathon that doesn't focus on the EA elites. It seems these days so many marathons are dominated by that group. Hope Osaka can keep its focus on what is does best now. The reason I love Japan and marathons is the large number of non elites that this race attracts.
October 17, 2017 at 9:57 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

On the Loss of the ARRS Database

At some point in the last few months I discovered that both versions of the ARRS database, the static one and the searchable version , are gone. Last week David Monti posted a link to the ARRS history of an event he covered in Race Results Weekly, I guess copying and pasting a link from last year without looking at it, and that reminded me to write something about the loss of the database. The Association of Road Racing Statisticians was basically a one-man show operated from the remote Northern California shores by Ken Young . When the site existed its intro read: The Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyses and publishes results and statistics regarding elite distance running at distances 3000m and longer...The data of ARRS is stored in the ARRS database, which has more than 1.3 million performances from more than 240,000 races by more than 95,000 elite and sub-elite distance runners worldwide...This website ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Multiple National Records This Weekend

Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest. U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back. Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3...
Post a Comment
Read more

Keita Satoh Running New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile

1500 m U20 NR holder Keita Satoh (Nike Swoosh TC) is running this weekend's New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile , the first time that a Japanese man has been invited in the race's 45-year history. In university Sato had to change focus away from middle distance to the half marathon-scale lengths of the Hakone Ekiden stages, but since graduating in March and relocating to Flagstaff he has refocused on the 1500 m, going from 3:43.19 in April in his first 1500 m in almost 4 years to 3:38.30 over the course of 5 races. Fifth Avenue will be his last race before heading back to Japan for one more track 1500 m and some down time. Men's entries with best 1500 m times in last 3 years: Stefan Nillessen (NED) - 3:29.23 (2025) Flavien Szot (FRA) - 3:30.74 (2025) Oliver Hoare (AUS) - 3:31.07 (2024) Jake Heyward (GBR) - 3:31.18 (2026) Titouan Le Grix (FRA) - 3:31.46 (2026) Romain Mornet (FRA) - 3:31.62 (2025) Adam Spencer (AUS) - 3:31.83 (2026) Pieter Sisk (BEL) - 3:31.85 (2025) Gary Martin (...
2 comments
Read more