Tanimoto and Futaoka to Lead Japanese Marathon Team for Doha World Championships

The JAAF announced the lineups today for the Japanese women's and men's marathon teams for this fall's Doha World Championships. Having scheduled Japan's new MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials event for two weeks before the World Championships the JAAF has specified that nobody can double, meaning that, including alternates, three of the four women and all four men named would have to give up a chance at being part of the Tokyo Olympics in order to get a guaranteed spot on a lesser national team.

That means a team drawn from the middle and lower end of the list of trials qualifiers, a good mix of relatively inexperienced younger athletes likely to develop further for the 2024 Paris Olympics, mid-career runners without much chance of making the top few spots at the trials, and aging veterans who've shrewdly sussed out that being on a national team is better for their brands than going for a higher-level one they know they can't make. It's a B-team to be sure, but given the depth in Japanese marathoning it's still one that almost any country except Ethiopia and Kenya would have a hard time matching.

Looking at performances within the MGC Race qualifying window, midsummer 2017 through the end of April this year, the top-ranked members of the Doha women's and men's teams are their youngest, Mizuki Tanimoto and Kohei Futaoka. Tanimoto, 24, ran 2:25:28 for 11th in Nagoya in March in just her third marathon, a performance that ranked her 9th among the fifteen women to qualify for the trials. Her corporate team Tenmaya has the best track record for putting people on national teams, and with two of its other runners with better PBs also qualified for the trials Tenmaya is opting for Doha for Tanimoto.

Futaoka, 25, ran 2:09:15 for 4th in Beppu-Oita in February in his second serious marathon, ranking him 11th among the 34 men on the trials list. His corporate sponsor Chudenko is one of the lower-tier corporate teams, and having him make a Worlds team is a major coup for them. Both Tanimoto and Futaoka have shown rapid progression so far, Tanimoto going from 2:35 to 2:31 to 2:25 and Futaoka from 2:13 to 2:09, and no doubt the powers that be are banking on them being contenders for the 2024 Paris Olympic team. The complete Doha team rosters with best performances inside the MGC Race qualifying window:

Women
Mizuki Tanimoto, 24 - 2:25:28, Nagoya Women's Marathon 2019 - 11th
Ayano Ikemitsu, 28 - 2:26:07, Nagoya Women's Marathon 2019 - 12th
Madoka Nakano, 27 - 2:27:39, Osaka International Women's Marathon 2019 - 4th
alternate: Yukari Abe, 27 - 2:28:02, Osaka International Women's Marathon 2019 - 5th (did not qualify for MGC Race)

Men
Kohei Futaoka, 25 - 2:09:15, Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon 2019 - 4th
Yuki Kawauchi, 32 - 2:09:21 - Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon 2019 - 8th
Hiroki Yamagishi, 27 - 2:10:14 - Tokyo Marathon 2018 - 17th
alternate: Daiji Kawai, 27 - 2:10:50 - Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon 2019 - 11th

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

19-Yr-Old Munakata Breaks Miura's U20 NR to Win Ageo City Half Marathon

The Ageo City Half Marathon is always big, the main race that the coaches of Hakone Ekiden-bound university men's teams use for firming up their entry rosters for the big show. That makes what's basically an idyllic small town race into one of the world's great road races, with depth unmatched anywhere. One of the top-tier people on the start list at 1:02:07, Kodai Miyaoka (Hosei Univ.) took the race out fast, but the entire pack was keying off the fastest man in the race, Reishi Yoshida (Chuo Gakuin Univ.), 1:00:31. Yoshida reeled Miyaoka in before 5 km and kept things steady in the low-1:01 range, wearing down the lead group to around 10 including his CGU teammate Taisei Ichikawa , a quartet from Izumo and National University Ekiden runner-up Komazawa University , 2 runners from local Daito Bunka University , 2:07:54 marathoner Atsumi Ashiwa (Honda), and Australian Ed Goddard . Right after 15 km Komazawa went into action, Yudai Kiyama , Hibiki Murakami and Haru Tanin

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi

10000 m NR Attempt In the Works Saturday at Hachioji Long Distance - Streaming and Preview

There are a bunch of other time trial meets this weekend and next, but Saturday's Hachioji Long Distance is the last big meet for Japanese men, 8 heats of Wavelight-paced 10000 m finely graded from target times of 28:50 down to 26:59 for the fastest heat. Heat 6 at 17:55 local time is effectively the B-race, with 35 Japan-based Kenyans targeting 27:10 at the front end, and in a lot of cases a spot on their teams at the New Year Ekiden national championship on Jan. 1. Corporate teams are only allowed to field one non-Japanese athlete in the New Year Ekiden, and only on its shortest stage, and getting to that has a big impact on African athletes' contracts and renewal prospects. Toyota Boshoku , Yasukawa Denki , Chugoku Denryoku , Aisan Kogyo , JR Higashi Nihon , Subaru and 2024 national champion Toyota are all fielding two Kenyans, and Aichi Seiko three. For people like Toyota's Felix Korir and Samuel Kibathi , getting as close to the 27:10 target time as they can and

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