Skip to main content

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Course Announced



At a Tokyo-area press conference on May 31, the organizing committee of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games announced the course for the men's and women's marathons. Passing many of Tokyo's prime tourist spots, the Tokyo 2020 course will not be the sort of circuit course that has become common in international championship marathons in recent years. Executive Koji Murofushi commented, "This will be the greatest Olympic course ever."

A hybrid of the historic Tokyo International Marathon course and the new Tokyo Marathon course introduced in 2018, the Tokyo 2020 course features an elevation difference of 33 m. Starting and finishing at the new Olympic Stadium, it will head down a 30 m drop hill, turning around in front of Kaminarimon in Asakusa near the 15 km point and passing through the Nihonbashi and Ginza areas before hitting another turnaround near Tokyo Tower and Zojoji atround 25 km.

After that the course will turn around again at around 33 km at Nijubashi in front of the Imperial Palace before returning back up the 30 m climb starting around 37 km. That final uphill is bound to become the critical point of the race. IAAF officials inspected the proposed course on May 23 and gave formal approval on May 25.

source article:
https://topics.smt.docomo.ne.jp/article/nikkansports/sports/f-sp-tp0-180531-5248
translated and edited by Brett Larner
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Measuring Marathon Courses by Bicycle

http://news.searchina.ne.jp/disp.cgi?y=2013&d=0110&f=column_0110_034.shtml translated by Brett Larner The full marathon is a sport where you compete over 42.195 km, but how do they go about measuring that distance?  Today we're going to look a little bit at how they go about certifying the distance of a marathon. The reality is that major international marathons use a bicycle to measure the distance.  This rule is an international standard, and the same method of measurement is used everywhere.  It was put into place in 1986.  In order to ensure that the same method is used everywhere, a bicycle that meets IAAF specifications must be used for measurement. In the case of Japan's major marathons, to be certain that the distance is correct a provisional measurement is first made.  Before the course is certified using a bicycle the course is measured using a 50 m-long length of wire to determine that it is in fact 42.195 km.  When a bicycle is u...
2 comments
Read more

Ai Hosoda Announces Retirement

photo © 2025 Victah Sailer/Photo Run, all rights reserved On Jan. 8 the Edion women's corporate team announced that Ai Hosoda , 30, will retire at the end of March this year. The Tokyo Marathon will be her last race. At Nagano Higashi H.S. Hosoda ran in the National High School Ekiden her 2nd and 3rd years. During her 3rd year at Nittai University she won both the 5000 m and 10000 m at the Kanto Region University Track and Field Championships, going on to win the bronze medal in the 10000 m at the World University Games in her 4th year at Nittai. After graduating she joined the Daihatsu corporate team, debuting at the 2019 Nagoya Women's Marathon in 2:29:27. 2 years later she transferred to Edion. She qualified for the Paris Olympics marathon trials at the 2022 Nagoya Women's Marathon and finished 3rd in the trials in the fall of 2023, but was later bumped down to Olympic alternate after another athlete ran a faster time. Instead of the Olympics, Hosoda ran the 2024 Ber...
2 comments
Read more

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .
77 comments
Read more