Matsumoto and Waku Win in Hokkaido, Yamaguchi Become First Woman to Win New Caledonia Four Times

As a route to qualification for next month's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials the Hokkaido Marathon saw higher-quality results than usual last year, but in its first edition after the closing of the trials qualifying period yesterday's 2019 running had no shortage on quality. In warm conditions the men's race went out conservatively with a 1:06:57 first half and turned into a show of who could negative split the hardest, with the top six all running the second half faster. Ryo Matsumoto, part of the top current marathon program in Japan, Toyota, won by over 30 seconds in 2:12:57 with 2nd through 6th all finishing within 15 seconds of each other in the mid-2:13s.

Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) did a lot of the work in leading the women's pack for the first 30 km before heavy favorite Mirai Waku (Univ. Ent.) took off. Waku had said pre-race that she wanted to break 2:30, but despite falling well short of that she opened a lead of over a minute and a half to win in 2:33:44. 2015 winner Yui Okada (Otsuka Seiyaku) was next in 2:35:16, with Yoshida 3rd in 2:35:38. Two-time winner Chihiro Tanaka (Athle-C), 49, was 11th in 2:48:49.

At almost the same time, club runner Haruka Yamaguchi became the first woman to win the New Caledonia International Marathon four times, running 2:36:56 on a tougher course than in Hokkaido to win by nearly 9 minutes. The second-fastest women's winning time in New Caledonia history and fastest since its course was certified in 1995, Yamaguchi's run made her the fastest Japanese woman ever in New Caledonia and was good enough for her to finish 3rd overall, beating men's 3rd-placer Mark Moore (New Zealand) by over a minute. Japanese men Yuki Kawauchi and Junichi Ushiyama went 1-2, a fifth-straight Japanese double in New Caledonia.

2019 Hokkaido Marathon

Sapporo, Hokkaido, 8/25/19
complete results

Women
1. Mirai Waku (Univ. Ent.) - 2:33:44
2. Yui Okada (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 2:35:16
3. Kasumi Yoshida (Nitori) - 2:35:38
4. Chika Ihara (Higo Ginko) - 2:36:24
5. Yume Nagayama (Osaka Geijutsu Univ.) - 2:36:41
6. Erika Honda (Higo Ginko) - 2:40:18
7. Mai Nagaoka (Sysmex) - 2:40:33
8. Aki Odagiri (Takemura) - 2:44:23
9. Moeka Toge (Osaka Geijutsu Univ.) - 2:45:29
10. Mai Fujisawa (Excel AC) - 2:45:41
11. Chihiro Tanaka (Athle-C) - 2:48:49

Men
1. Ryo Matsumoto (Toyota) - 2:12:57
2. Masanori Sumida (Aichi Seiko) - 2:13:33
3. Koki Tanaka (Kanebo) - 2:13:36
4. Michael Githae (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 2:13:43
5. Shota Yamazaki (Yakult) - 2:13:44
6. Ryoichi Matsuo (Asahi Kasei) - 2:13:48
7. Kenta Iinuma (SGH Group) - 2:13:55
8. Ryo Ishida (SDF Academy) - 2:14:07
9. Kansuke Morihashi (Raffine) - 2:14:17
10. Takuma Shibata (Komori Corp.) - 2:14:50

New Caledonia International Marathon

New Caledonia, 8/25/19

Women
1. Haruka Yamaguchi (Japan) - 2:36:56
2. Yuko Kawauchi (Japan) - 2:45:34
3. Nana Ogawa (Japan) - 2:47:39

Men
1. Yuki Kawauchi (Japan) - 2:17:24
2. Junichi Ushiyama (Japan) - 2:19:59
3. Mark Moore (New Zealand) - 2:38:06

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...

japan running news

Search This Blog