Skip to main content

Cheboitibin Breaks Seko's Course Record at Ome 30 km

One of Japan's longest-standing course records at its elite races fell Sunday as Kenyan Ezekiel Cheboitibin (Sunbelx) beat the great Toshihiko Seko's 38-year-old Ome 30 km Road Race record by almost 30 seconds.

Tough and hilly with a net climb in the first half and descent on the return trip, Ome is a standard spring marathon prep run and a natural partner for April's Boston Marathon, with which it has a longstanding athlete exchange program. The 2017 Ome winner, this time out Cheboitibin was gunning for Seko's record from the start, hitting the mostly uphill 10 km completely solo in 29:47, 20 km midway through the return trip in 59:30, and saving his fastest 10 km split for the end as he crossed the finish line in 1:29:06. Seko's 1:29:32 just two months before his first Boston win had made him the only man in Ome history to break 90 minutes. With the best performance of his career Cheboitibin turned the page on that history.

With the withdrawal of Fukuoka winner Yuma Hattori (Toyota) the remaining Japanese men didn't even try to go with Cheboitibin, the top group going through 10 km in 31:00 and 20 km in 1:02:30 before splitting up. Masao Kizu (Kanebo) dueled the final kilometers with Hakone Ekiden runner Kei Tsuboi (Hosei Univ.), outkicking him by 4 seconds to take 2nd in 1:33:30 with less than 30 seconds separated 2nd through 6th place.

Women's winner Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) had a solo run of her own, skimming just under 3:30/km pace the entire way to take the win in 1:44:28, over three and a half minutes faster than her 3rd-place finish last year. Nami Hashimoto (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) ran much of the way with Reno Okura (Hokuren) behind Yoshida, pulling away in the final third of the race to take 2nd in 1:46:30. As part of Ome's exchange program with the Boston Marathon, last year's Boston 4th-placer Rachel Hyland (B.A.A.) also ran, taking 7th in 1:52:20. As the top Japanese finishers both Kizu and Yoshida earned invitations to this year's Boston.

30 km may be an uncommon distance, but Ome wasn't the only race that length in Japan today. While Ome may be the bigger and more popular, the Kumanichi 30 km Road Race has a decade-longer history and usually pulls in more competitive elite fields. This year 2017 World University Games half marathon gold medalist Kei Katanishi (Komazawa Univ.) was the star of the show in his debut at the distance, outrunning 2018 National University Ekiden champion Aoyama Gakuin University's top 2nd-year Keita Yoshida and 2019 Hakone Ekiden champion Tokai University's captain Haruki Minatoya to win in 1:29:34.

A university athlete also took the Kumanichi women's race, with Nanayo Okamoto (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) outrunning corporate league favorite Anna Matsuda (Kyocera) for the win in 1:45:48. Osaka Gakuin also put two other women in the top seven, with the total quality of the results making it the deepest women's 30 km in history according to the ARRS database. With a faster course at Kumanichi it's a mark of how good Cheboitibin and Yoshida's winning times in Ome were that they beat the winning times run by Katanishi and Okamoto.

53rd Ome 30 km and 10 km Road Race

Ome, Tokyo, 2/17/19
complete results

Men's 30 km
1. Ezekiel Cheboitibin (Sunbelx) - 1:29:06 - CR
2. Masao Kizu (Kanebo) - 1:33:30
3. Kei Tsuboi (Hosei Univ.) - 1:33:34
4. Ryo Kuchimachi (Subaru) - 1:33:47
5. Takumi Iwata (JFE Steel) - 1:33:53
6. Kenta Uchida (Saitama Iryo Univ.) - 1:33:56
7. Masaki Sawada (Soka Univ.) - 1:34:13
8. Futoshi Ebisawa (Raffine) - 1:34:58

Women's 30 km
1. Kaori Yoshida (Team RxL) - 1:44:28
2. Nami Hashimoto (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:46:30
3. Reno Okura (Hokuren) - 1:47:16
4. Kaoru Nagao (Sunfield) - 1:47:49
5. Shiori Morita (Panasonic) - 1:48:17
6. Hiroko Yoshitomi (Memolead) - 1:50:50
7. Rachel Hyland (B.A.A.) - 1:52:20
8. Io Akashi (Raffine) - 1:55:19

Women's 10 km
1. Kaori Morita (Panasonic) - 33:01
2. Miku Daido (Iwatani Sangyo) - 33:37
3. Sakiko Naito (Panasonic) - 34:21

High School Boys' 10 km
1. Daisuke Shimojo (Tokyo Jitsugyo H.S.) - 30:23
2. Kazuki Ino (Takushoku Prep Daiichi H.S.) - 30:52
3. Hiroto Ito (Koku Gakuin Prep Kugayama H.S.) - 30:55

63rd Kumanichi 30 km Road Race

Kumamoto, 2/17/19
complete results

Men's 30 km
1. Kei Katanishi (Komazawa Univ.) - 1:29:34
2. Keita Yoshida (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:29:47
3. Haruki Minatoya (Tokai Univ.) - 1:30:00
4. Kento Kikutani (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 1:30:04
5. Ryoichi Yoshida (Kyudenko) - 1:30:04
6. Kiyohito Akiyama (Aichi Seiko) - 1:30:24
7. Shun Yuzawa (Tokai Univ.) - 1:30:37
8. Takuya Nishizawa (Toenec) - 1:31:37

Women's 30 km
1. Nanayo Okamoto (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) - 1:45:48
2. Anna Matsuda (Kyocera) - 1:46:27
3. Chika Ihara (Higo Ginko) - 1:46:42
4. Aina Takaya (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) - 1:49:27
5. Hiroko Miyauchi (Hokuren) - 1:49:35
6. Minori Goto (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:50:17
7. Aimi Tanigawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.) - 1:50:19
8. Megumi Hirai (Canon AC Kyushu) - 1:50:41

text and photos © 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...
Post a Comment
Read more

World Marathon Majors Japanese Entries

We're back from a short summer break. A week and a half out from the first race of the season's four World Marathon Majors races, here's a look at Japanese athletes scheduled to run. Everything right now is about qualifying for the MGC Race, the official trials race for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to be held in the fall of 2027 in Nagoya. The JAAF makes no mistake about wanting to keep its top people racing domestically where it can get a share of revenue from the TV broadcast and race operations, so anyone who decides to race overseas has to do it in a WA platinum label race and hit either 2:06:30 or 2:23:30, regardless of place, course or weather if they want to make the trials. At the same time concessions are make for domestic races, like for example the late-August Hokkaido Marathon where up to 3 men and 3 women can qualify if they go 2:12:00 or 2:32:00. As a result, you get things like last year where amateur runner Yudai Fukuda made the trials by finishing 3rd Jap...
1 comment
Read more

Nakajima Breaks 100 mH NR Twice, Kitaguchi Returns - August Track Roundup

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...
1 comment
Read more