Skip to main content

Beppu-Oita, Marugame and More - Weekend Preview

With championship ekiden season a wrap this weekend gets Japan's winter road racing season up to full steam. The main race of the weekend is Sunday's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon. Everything is about qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics more-or-less one-shot trials right now, and that's obvious with a look at what's probably the strongest-ever Beppu-Oita entry list. Ten men in the field have broken 2:10 in the last three years, five of them Japanese, with last year's top two Desmond Mokgobu (South Africa) and Hayato Sonoda (Kurosaki Harima) leading the way.

Sonoda, Daisuke Uekado (Otsuka Seiyaku) and 2018 Hokkaido Marathon winner Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) have already qualified for September's MGC Race trials event, but anyone else in the 2:10 to 2:11 range will have a shot. With a 2:09:36 in Tokyo last year Kohei Ogino (Fujitsu) only needs to run 2:12:24 to qualify, making him the probable favorite to qualify, but the field also features the debuts of sub-61 and sub-62 half marathoners Keijiro Mogi and Shuho Dairokuno of three-time national champion Asahi Kasei.

Along with Mokgobu recent 2:08 runners Hicham Laqouahi (Morocco) and Abdela Godana (Ethiopia) and 2018 Muenster Marathon winner Justus Kiprotich (Kenya) make up the front end of the international field, raising a strong chance of a sub-2:10 winning time if the weather cooperates. Right now the forecast is looking good, with temperatures in the mid-teens and cloudy skies shifting to light rain later in the day. All that remains to be seen are the infamous Oita winds. Beppu-Oita will be broadcast live nationwide on TBS starting at 11:50 a.m. Follow @JRNLive for English-language coverage.

Also Sunday is the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon, one of Japan's top races all around. Last year's Kenyan winners Betsy Saina and Edward Waweru are both on the entry list again, up against tough competition including Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal), Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post), Sinead Diver (Australia) and Sara Hall (U.S.A.) on the women's side and Geoffrey Kirui (Kenya), Shadrack Kiplagat (Kenya) and Evans Cheruiyot (Kenya) on the men's. Suzuki's debut is one of the more exciting parts of the race, along with that of Richard Ringer (Germany), both with great histories in the track 10000 m behind them. The weather in Marugame looks to be similar to that in Oita with temperatures a few degrees cooler.

Along with Marugame, the Kanagawa Half Marathon and Moriya Half Marathon each feature loads of university men, both Hakone Ekiden regulars and B-team runners trying to make the jump to their schools' A-rosters. Kanagawa in particular has grown into a quality race with winning times in the 62-minute range and depth approaching that of some of the higher-level Japanese half marathons. Hakone Ekiden top four programs Aoyama Gakuin University and Komazawa University are Kanagawa regulars, but look for plenty of others to be right there with them. No rain is in the forecast for either race, making for excellent conditions overall.

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Takei Breaks Gold Coast Marathon CR in Dominant Japanese Run

Japanese men showed up in force at the 45th ASICS Gold Coast Marathon Sunday in Australia, taking the top 6 spots and 8 of the top 10 led by a 2:07:33 course record by Yuki Takei . Expert pacing by World Marathon Majors-bound Tsubasa Ichiyama and Masato Arao kept things on track to break the 2:07:40 CR by 30 seconds until Arao stepped off at 30 km, a 30 km that saw at least two falls, one by 2:08:40 runner Ryoma Takeuchi at 23 km and another by debuting 61-minute half marathoner Tatsuya Tsunashima at 27 km. In Tsunashima's case it was enough to knock him out of the race when he hit his head on the pavement, send to the hospital post-race for examination. When Arao stepped off former Aoyama Gakuin University ekiden specialist Aoi Ota went straight to the front, looking to make up for a stellar and predictable DNF at this year's Tokyo Marathon in prep for Berlin by getting an easy finish under his belt. Right on him was Yuki Takei , 2:08:06 in Osaka the week before Tokyo. ...
1 comment
Read more

National Track and Field Championships Highlights

Japan's National Championships happened Friday through Sunday at Tokyo's National Stadium, the same track where September's World Championships will take place. The biggest result of the weekend came in the women's 800 m, where high schooler Rin Kubo cleaned up the mess caused last when she became the first Japanese woman under 2 minutes but did it at a JAAF-sanctioned time trial meet that hadn't been registered to the World Athletics calendar. In Saturday's final she bettered that time with a 1:59.52, making it a national record that WA will actually recognize. The only other record set came in the women's 5000 m on Friday, where NR holder Nozomi Tanaka set a meet record 14:59.02 to win a competitive race over Ririka Hironaka , 2nd in 15:12.61, and Kana Mizumoto , 3rd in a big PB of 15:13.19. Tanaka doubled back in the 1500 m Sunday, duly winning in 4:04.16. Veteran Tomoka Kimura ran a PB of 4:09.88 for 2nd, giving a big boost to her chances of making i...
2 comments
Read more