Skip to main content

Tanaka, Ino and Yoshimatsu Take on Harmony Geneva Marathon

Three elite-level Japanese athletes will race the 14th edition of Switzerland's Harmony Geneva Marathon Sunday with support from JRN. In a women's field headed by Ethiopian Alemitu Lema and debuting Kenyan Ruth Waithera, 2017 Osaka Marathon runner-up Mitsuko Ino seeks to rebound from a poor performance at March's Skechers Performance Los Angeles Marathon with a bettering of her 2:34:39 breakthrough in Osaka.

2016 Osaka runner-up Hisae Yoshimatsu will be aiming to follow her 3rd place finish at last September's Volksbank Muenster Marathon and 2nd-place finish at December's Hofu Yomiuri Marathon with another top three placing, ideally cracking 2:35 on Geneva's slightly net downhill course.

The men's field features four men with recent sub-2:10 times led by 2:08 man Joseph Aperumoi of Kenya. Seeded 6th on recent time, club runner and Tokai University alumnus Asuka Tanaka makes his international marathon debut after a surprise 2:10:13 PB in Tokyo in February. "I'm less focused on time and more on just being as competitive as I can," Tanaka said.

JRN will be on-hand throughout the weekend to provide support and cover the race live. Follow @GeneveMarathon for more coverage.


14th Harmony Geneva Marathon Elite Field

Geneva, Switzerland, 5/6/18
times listed are best within last three years except where noted

Women
Alemitu Lema  (Ethiopia) - 2:31:36 (Mersin 2017)
Berha Lemelem (Ethiopia) - 2:33:10 (Seville 2017)
Ametework Fekadu  (Ethiopia) - 2:34:25 (Lodz 2017)
Mitsuko Ino (Japan) - 2:34:39 (Osaka 2017)
Hisae Yoshimatsu (Japan) - 2:35:46 (Hofu 2015)
Ruth Waithera (Kenya) - debut - 1:10:15 (Milan Half 2018)

Men
Joseph Aperumoi (Kenya) - 2:08:26 (Amsterdam 2017)
Wilfred Murgor (Kenya) - 2:09:37 (Seoul 2015)
Abraraw Misganaw (Ethiopia) - 2:09:47 (Lubljana 2015)
Wycliff Biwott (Kenya) - 2:09:55 (Zagreb 2017)
William Yegon (Kenya) - 2:10:11 (Hefei 2015)
Asuka Tanaka (Japan) - 2:10:13 (Tokyo 2018)
Alfred Kering (Kenya) - 2:10:27 (Lisbon 2016)
Bernard Cheruiyot (Kenya) - 2:10:42 (Gyeongju 2017)
Abdelkabir Saji (Morocco) - 2:13:44 (Marrakech 2018)
Tadese Tolesa (Ethiopia) - 2:16:04 (Metz 2014)
James Kiplagat (Kenya) - 2:19:06 (Nairobi 2017)
Tamiru Sahelu (Ethiopia) - debut - 29:00 (Addis Abeba 10 km 2017)

© 2018 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