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National Corporate Women's Ekiden Qualifier, Amsterdam, Changsha and More - Weekend Preview

It's a busy weekend ahead on the track and the roads at home and abroad. Saturday and Sunday's Nittai University Time Trials feature 10000 m national record holder Kota Murayama (Asahi Kasei) in the 5000 m A-heat, where he hopes to run a season best time ahead of a return next month to the track where he set the national record at the Hachioji Long Distance Meet. Half marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (Honda) is also entered in the 10000 m A-heat along with pretty much the entire Honda roster, in Shitara's case a tuneup for November's Ageo City Half Marathon.

There's also a fast 3000 m on deck Sunday at the Sumitomo Cup meet in Hyogo, where wunderkind Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) is going for time with pacing from Ethiopian Yeneblo Biyazen (Yachiyo Kogyo) and Kenyan John Maina (Fujitsu). One of Japan's top current men on the track, Hiroki Matsueda (Fujitsu) is entered both there and in the Nittai 5000 m. Saturday's Heisei Kokusai University Time Trials meet in Saitama offers a more meat-and-potatoes program.

On the roads the main event is Sunday's Princess Ekiden, the qualifying race for the National Corporate Women's Ekiden Championships. Competing on a six-stage, 42.195 km course in Fukuoka, the top 14-placiing teams in the field of 27 will qualify to join the seeded teams at next month's Nationals. Notable for the absence of the Juhachi Ginko team featuring 2018 Jakarta Asian Games silver medalist Keiko Nogami and the Hitachi corporate team, neither of which could put together a six-member team that met the standards, the biggest news at this year's race is the presence of Universal Entertainment.

The 2017 national champion, Universal was stripped of its title earlier this year when team member Moeno Nakamura tested positive in-competition for a steroid she had received as part of a non-athletics-related surgical procedure months before. Nakamura subsequently quit the team, which was banned from competing until it could demonstrate that it was taking adequate steps to deliver proper anti-doping awareness and education to its team members and to increase the female component of the coaching staff for its all-women's team. Universal didn't meet the deadline for the initial entries into the qualifying race, but having proven the restructuring of its organization to the National Corporate Federation's satisfaction it was officially added to the field earlier this week. JRN will cover Sunday's race on @JRNLive starting at noon Sunday Japan time.

Having escaped the confines of the corporate leagues, two independent Japanese marathoners will be headed overseas this weekend. 4th at July's Gold Coast Marathon a few days after announcing she had quit the Nitori corporate team, Miharu Shimokado (Brooks) will run the Amsterdam Marathon. A 2:26:22 there would make her the ninth woman to qualify for the 2020 Olympic trials marathon to be held next September. 2nd at last December's Hofu Yomiuri Marathon in a PB of 2:11:26, former Komori Corporation runner Tatsunori Hamasaki (Nanjo City Hall) will run China's Changsha International Marathon as a tuneup for a planned December shot at the 2:10:34 time he needs to make the Olympic trials.

The man who beat Hamasaki in Hofu, 2018 Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) will tune up for next week's Huawei Venice Marathon at one of the fixtures on his annual calendar, Tokyo's Takashimadaira 20 km. His main competition there will include 2014 Ageo City Half Marathon runner-up Koki Takada (Sumitomo Denko).

© 2018 Brett Larner

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