Skip to main content

Know Your Japanese Runners in Boston


The withdrawal of Kentaro Nakamoto (Yasukawa Denki), Japan's best championship marathoner of the modern era, from the Boston Marathon field with a stress fracture is a blow to what would have been the best Japanese contingent in Boston in decades.

Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) leads the way, arriving in Boston off wins in his last four marathons:
  • 2:10:03, Hofu Yomiuri Marathon, 12/17/17
  • 2:18:59 CR, Marshfield New Year's Day Marathon, 1/1/18
  • 2:11:46 CR, Kitakyushu Marathon, 2/18/18
  • 2:14:12, Wan Jin Shi Marathon, 3/18/18
Kawauchi hopes to at least equal Suguru Osako's top 3 placing in last year's Boston, his optimism growing as the weather forecast gets worse.

Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) runs for what was once Japan's most successful corporate team in the marathon, his best of 2:12:31 coming 6 years ago at Lake Biwa and his fastest recent time a 2:13:33 in Tokyo last year. Okamoto earned a place in Boston by winning February's tough and hilly Ome 30 km in 1:33:09.

A high-volume marathoner like Kawauchi, Kansuke Morihashi (Raffine) won January's Katsuta Marathon in 2:16:51 to earn an invite to Boston. A month later he followed up with a PB of 2:14:25 at the Tokyo Marathon, jogging the Seoul Marathon three weeks after that in a fun run effort.

Topping the women's side is another idiosyncratic high-volume marathoner, Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead). Yoshitomi won the hilly Katsuta Marathon in January in 2:33:56, the second-fastest winning time in event history, then came back a week later to smash the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon course record with a 2:33:00 win. A week after that she took 9th in the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships in 1:13:58. Two weeks later in Tokyo she ran 2:30:16 for 6th, cutting over a minute off her five-year-old PB. Three weeks after that, a 2:33:57 win in her hometown Saga Sakura Marathon.

Ome women's winner Maki Ashi (Kyudenko) rounds out the Japanese lineup in her marathon debut at age 24. A 1:11:12 half marathoner, Ashi ran 1:44:14 in Ome to seal up a trip to Boston. Interestingly, joining her in Boston as her coach is the just-retired Kazuhiro Maeda, a longtime rival of Kawauchi's who was part of the 2013 Moscow World Championships team alongside both Kawauchi and Nakamoto.

All-time Boston Marathon Japanese Men's Top Ten
  1. 2:09:27 - Toshihiko Seko, 1st, 1981
  2. 2:10:13 - Toshihiko Seko, 2nd, 1979
  3. 2:10:28 - Suguru Osako, 3rd, 2017
  4. 2:11:02 - Hiromi Taniguchi, 4th, 1993
  5. 2:11:32 - Kenjiro Jitsui, 6th, 2006
  6. 2:11:50 - Toshihiko Seko, 1st, 1987
  7. 2:13:15 - Takayuki Inubushi, 10th, 1998
  8. 2:13:40 - Tomoyuki Taniguchi, 5th, 1987
  9. 2:13:49 - Yoshiaki Unetani, 1st, 1969
  10. 2:13:55 - Akinori Kuramata, 11th, 1998
All-time Boston Marathon Japanese Women's Top Ten
  1. 2:24:11 - Reiko Tosa, 3rd, 2006
  2. 2:26:26 - Yoshiko Yamamoto, 2nd, 1992
  3. 2:26:39 - Yuko Arimori, 3rd, 1999
  4. 2:26:52 - Kiyoko Shimahara, 5th, 2006
  5. 2:29:24 - Nobuko Fujimura, 3rd, 1996
  6. 2:30:34 - Mitsuko Hirose, 8th, 1999
  7. 2:30:40 - Yurika Nakamura, 6th, 2010
  8. 2:31:12  - Junko Asari, 6th, 1997
  9. 2:31:31 - Kaori Tanabe, 10th, 2001
  10. 2:31:39 - Yoshiko Yamamoto, 6th, 1995
© 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

'Kobe 2024: Monday Sees Shocking Wins on the Track and the Field'

  https://www.paralympic.org/news/kobe-2024-para-athletics-world-championships-monday-sees-shocking-wins-track-and-field Complete results and daily schedule from the Kobe World Para Athletics Championships  are here .
Post a Comment
Read more

Summary of Japanese Medalists at Asian Athletics Championships

Overall:    gold: 4   silver: 6   bronze: 10 Men:    gold: 1   silver: 3   bronze: 4 Women:    gold: 3   silver: 3   bronze: 6 20th Asian Athletics Championships Pune, India, July 3-7, 2013 click here for complete results Men's 200 m Final   +0.7 m/s 1. Xie Zhenye (China) - 20.87 2. Fahad Mohammed Alsubaie (Saudi Arabia) - 20.912 3. Kei Takase (Japan) - 20.918 Men's 400 m Final 1. Yousef Ahmed Masrahi (Saudi Arabia) - 45.08 2. Ali Khamis (Bahrain) - 45.65 3. Yuzo Kanemaru (Japan) - 45.95 Men's 110 m Hurdles Final   +0.1 m/s 1. Jiang Fan (China) - 13.61 2. Abdulaziz Almandeel (Kuwait) - 13.78 3. Wataru Yazawa (Japan) - 13.88 Men's 400 m Hurdles Final 1. Yasuhiro Fueki (Japan) - 49.86 2. Cheng Wen (China) - 50.07 3. Satinder Singh (India) - 50.35 Men's 3000 m SC 1. Tarek Mubarak Taher (Bahrain) - 8:34.77 2. Dejene Regassa Mootoma (Bahrain) - 8:37.40 3. Tsuyoshi Takeda (Japan) - 8...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fast High School 5000 m Times at Nittai and Kyoto

After the great men's 10000 m and women's 5000 m results on day 1 of the last full Nittai University Time Trials meet of 2025, day 2 brought a lot of great 5000 m times from high schoolers, both at Nittai and at another meet in Kyoto. At Nittai, Bilith Boi (Sapporo Yamanote H.S.) downed 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Subaru) in the last of the 35 heats of 5000 m, running 13:27.52 to Miura's 13:28.61. Ryo Goda (Yasukawa Denki) also got under 13:30, running 13:29.41 for 3rd, with 40-year-old Yuichiro Ueno (Hiramatsu Byoin) rocking on with a 13:32.12 for 4th. James Karuri (Aomori Yamada H.S.) was 8th in 13:35.46, with 17-year-old Naoya Doma (Sera H.S.) running an excellent 13:39.13 for 10th. Samuel Gayu and Yua Hayashi also got under 14 minutes in the same heat to make it 3 sub-14 for Sapporo Yamanote H.S. In Heat 34, Chien Tzu-Chieh (Sendai Ikuei H.S.) ran a Taiwanese NR 13:48.99 for 4th, with Yui Kudo and Yugo Yamamoto running sub-14 to bring the Aomori Yamada...
Post a Comment
Read more