Skip to main content

Weekend Road Racing Preview

Sunday's Saitama International Marathon leads a busy weekend of women's racing across the country. 4th in August's London World Championships marathon, last year's winner Flomena Cheyech Daniel (Kenya) returns to lead the tiny elite field of six internationals and two domestic women. Cheyech's strongest competition is Japan's Reia Iwade (Dome), the former under-20 marathon record holder who abruptly quit the Noritz corporate team earlier this year to go the solo route. Whether her new situation finds her ready to go remains to be seen. Close behind and maybe a more likely bet to stay with Daniel is Shitaye Habtegebrel (Ethiopia). Iwade, Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) and any other Japanese women in the general elite field will have the chance to qualify for Japan's 2020 Olympic Trials race if they go under 2:29:00.

Starting 30 minutes after the elite women, Saitama also features a coed mass participation field. Local poster boy Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) will run just a week after racing France's Nice-Cannes Marathon, just the second time in his career that he has run marathons on back-to-back weekends. With the 30 minute stagger putting the elite women out of range Kawauchi hopes to do better than his disappointing 2:15:02 in Nice. Anything better than 2:18:50 will add another course record to his resume. Watch the NTV broadcast of Saitama at 9:00 a.m. local time Sunday.

To the east in Fukushima, the East Japan Women's Ekiden is one of two major women's ekidens happening Sunday. A prelude to January's National Women's Ekiden, it features teams from the eighteen prefectures making up eastern Japan. Each team consists of the top junior high school, high school, university and corporate runners from that prefecture, with all the teams racing for regional supremacy. The Shizuoka team has pulled in the biggest pre-race headlines, its roster prominently featuring London World Championships marathoners Yuka Ando and Mao Kiyota, both of the Suzuki Hamamatsu AC team. East Japan will be broadcast live on Fuji TV starting at noon on Sunday, 10 minutes after the Saitama International Marathon broadcast ends.

Simultaneous with East Japan, the Fukui Super Ladies Ekiden pits top corporate, university and club teams against each other in a rare match-up. Newly-crowned national champion Meijo University is the heavy favorite, their toughest collegiate competition coming from Osaka Gakuin University, 4th at last month's Nationals, with last year's National Corporate Women's Ekiden 4th-placer Kyudenko leading the pros. Fukui TV's local broadcast goes out at noon Sunday.

Other high school, university and corporate league women will race 3000 m and 5000 m on the track Saturday at the Nittai University Time Trials meet. Men including 14 Japan-based Kenyans and former Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University aces Tadashi Isshiki (GMO) and Ikuto Yufu (Fujitsu) will line up in the 10000 m A-heat, with other men including William Malel (Honda) and Ronald Kwemoi (Komori Corp.) due to run one of Sunday's 40 heats of 5000 m. Also Sunday, runners from the Tokai University, Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University men's ekiden teams lead the field for the mass-participation Setagaya 246 Half Marathon in Tokyo. Continuing the qualification round for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships, the Kansai Region holds the 60th edition of its Corporate Men's Ekiden Championships. Likewise for the Chugoku Region.

© 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...
Post a Comment
Read more

Restaurant Owner Selected as Olympic Torchbearer Dies in Fire After Becoming Despondent Over Impact of Coronavirus Crisis (updated)

On the evening of Apr. 30, the 54-year-old male owner of a restaurant in Tokyo's Nerima ward specializing in tonkatsu deep fried pork cutlets died from full-body burns in a fire at the restaurant. The man had been one of the people chosen as a torchbearer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics torch relay. With the coronavirus crisis causing both the postponement of the Olympics and a loss of business at the restaurant, the man had recently started talking pessimistically about the future to those around him. With evidence of the man's body having been doused in tonkatsu cooking oil, metropolitan police from the Hikarigaoka Police Station are carefully examining the cause of the fire. At around 10:00 p.m. on the 30th, the fire broke out in the tonkatsu restaurant on the first floor of a three-story building. A neighborhood resident who noticed smoke called the fire department. Firefighters found the floor and part of a wall burning, with the man lying on the floor in the customer seat...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kawauchi Wins Inaugural Kawauchi Half Marathon

http://www.minyu-net.com/sports/running/FM20160501-070419.php translated by Brett Larner 川内優輝ロード pic.twitter.com/rEJk7CQPFV — みとっぽ (黒) (@mitoppo_tmyk) April 30, 2016 Yuki Kawauchi Road in Kawauchi, Fukushima Held to inspire former residents to return to the area after the nearby TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident five years ago, the village of Kawauchi held the first " Kawauchi no Sato Kaeru Half Marathon - From Reconstruction to Creation " on April 30.  The course started and finished at the village heliport.  1188 runners from across the country gathered to celebrate the village's revival as they ran through its springtime streets. The event's organizing committee was made up of local government and board of education members with support from the Fukushima Minyu Newspaper and other sponsors.  The race's purpose was to transmit the vitality and charm of the reconstructing Kawauchi village to the rest of the nation in hopes of helpin...
Post a Comment
Read more