Skip to main content

MGC Race Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifier - Ryo Hashimoto

Ryo Hashimoto

age: 25
sponsor: GMO
graduated from: Oita Nishi H.S., Aoyama Gakuin University

best time inside MGC window:
2:09:29, 5th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon

PB: 2:09:29, 5th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon

other PBs:
5000 m: 13:57.91 (2016) 10000 m: 28:35.37 (2019) half marathon: 1:02:55 (2019)

marathons inside MGC window (Aug. 1 2017 – April 30 2019)
5th, 2019 Beppu-Oita Marathon, 2:09:29 – PB
9th, 2018 Fukuoka International Marathon, 2:11:40

other major results:
7th, 2019 HDC Fukagawa Meet 10000 m B-Race, 28:35.37 – PB
4th, 2019 Sendai International Half Marathon, 1:02:55 – PB
4th, 2018 Year-End Half Marathon, 1:03:31
4th, 2017 Gold Coast Marathon, 2:10:19
20th, 2017 Tokyo Marathon, 2:13:29
1st, 2016 Hofu Marathon, 2:11:20
23rd, 2016 Tokyo Marathon, 2:14:38

Hashimoto is totally unique in the MGC men’s field, someone who went to a Hakone Ekiden champion university but never made its starting roster for Japan’s biggest race. A benchwarmer for four-time Hakone winner Aoyama Gakuin University, he watched from the sidelines as AGU won its first two titles his third and fourth years. As a substitute, he ran his first marathon just before graduating, running a decent 2:14:38 at the Tokyo Marathon.

Hashimoto joined other AGU runners at the new GMO corporate team post-graduation, and something unusual started to happen. In his second marathon he won Hofu in 2:11:20. Seven months later, a 2:10:19 for 4th at the Gold Coast Marathon. This spring, a 2:09:29 for 5th on home ground at the Beppu-Oita Marathon that made him the fastest AGU grad ever.

That was enough to get him into the MGC Race, and, notably, of the four AGU runners to qualify, including Hakone stage winners Daichi Kamino and Takuya Fujikawa and National University Half Marathon champ Tadashi Isshiki, it made him the only one to qualify outright instead of through the two-race sub-2:11 average option. Since then he’s run 10000 m and half marathon PBs. With the MGC entry list above him paved with bigtime Hakone stars it’s hard to imagine him really competing in the front end of the race, but who knows? Who could’ve imagined he’d come this far?

Next profile: Daisuke Uekado (Otsuka Seiyaku).

© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
82 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
54 comments
Read more