JAAF Announces Changes to Lineup for World Half Marathon Championships Team

The JAAF has announced a few changes to the lineup for Japan's team for the rescheduled World Half Marathon Championships Oct. 17 in Gdynia, Poland. Gone but not forgotten are men's Olympic marathon trials winner Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu), 1:01:40 at January's Takanezawa Half, and second-tier women's team members Rui Aoyama (Universal Entertainment) and Toshika Tamura (Hitachi).

In their places are track star Yuki Sato (Nissin Shokuhin), 1:01:06 in Marugame this February, and marathon heavy hitters Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) and Yuka Ando (Wacoal) with half marathon bests of 1:09:08 and 1:09:38, both from last December's Sanyo Ladies Half. Overall it's a step up in quality for the Japanese team if the World Half happens as planned.

World Half Marathon Championships Japanese Team

Gdynia, Poland, 10/17/20
complete listing
times listed are best in last three years except where noted

Men
Taku Fujimoto (Toyota) - 1:00:06 (Marugame 2020)
Kiyoshi Koga (Yasukawa Denki) - 1:00:49 (National Corp. Half 2020)
Jun Nobuto (Mazda) 1:00:56 (National Corp. Half 2020)
Takahiro Nakamura (Kyocera Kagoshima) - 1:00:57 (National Corp. Half 2020)
Yuki Sato (Nissin Shokuhin) - 1:01:06 (Marugame 2020)

Women
Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) - 1:09:08 (Sanyo 2019)
Kaena Takeyama (Daihatsu) - 1:09:12 (National Corp. Half 2020)
Sara Miyake (Tenmaya) - 1:09:23 (Sanyo 2019)
Yuka Ando (Wacoal) - 1:09:38 (Sanyo 2019)
Ayumi Hagiwara (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 1:10:16 (National Corp. Half 2019)

© 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Osako Breaks Marathon NR for 3rd Time - Weekend Roundup

It looked like it was going to be a big weekend, and it delivered. For the 3rd time in his career Suguru Osako broke the men's marathon NR, running 1 second under the standing record to take 4th in the Valencia Marathon in 2:04:55. All the way to 40 km he was steady on 2:58/km, 2:05:10 pace, and like a surprising number of other people in both the men's and women's races, there was a massive jump over the last 2.195 km from his projected finish time to his actual one. His run put Osako back on top of the Japanese charts, put the average of Japan's 10 fastest marathon times of the year under 2:06 for the first time, and got him into the L.A. Olympics marathon trials. Valencia has been trying to get top-tier Japanese athletes to come for years, and now that they finally managed to do it it paid off in a big way. Expect more next year. Back home, former Takushoku University captain Derese Workneh won a 3-way race against Toyota teammates Kazuya Nishiyama and Bedan Ka...

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