Skip to main content

2021 Lake Biwa Marathon to Go Ahead Feb. 28 With International Field


With race after race canceling or postponing, this week the organizers of the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon announced plans for next year's 76th running to go ahead on Feb. 28, 2021. A week earlier that its traditional date due to the Tokyo Marathon's move to March, the planned date comes with the caveat that, "depending on the future situation with regard to COVID-19, there may be changes to the race's operation, including the possibility of cancelation." 

But with that said, it looks like the organizers plan no additional restrictions on their event's field beyond the normal qualifying times and requirement for national federation approval. In that past that has typically meant a field of under 200 finishers from Japan and abroad. For the domestic field, with no Beppu-Oita or Tokyo Marathon there's sure to be record-setting depth. as between Beppu-Oita, Tokyo and Lake Biwa this year 29 men went sub-2:10 and 50 sub-2:12.

For international men, if it actually happens Lake Biwa will be one of the only elite spring marathons in the world. In contrast to the 2020 Fukuoka International Marathon and 2021 Nagoya Women's Marathon, both of which restricted their fields to those already in Japan, Lake Biwa appears to be open to any internationals who meet the standards, have federation approval, and are willing to make the trip. 

At the moment immigration restrictions would prevent that from being an easy option for most nationalities, but as it works on its athlete COVID protocols for the Tokyo Olympics it's quite possible that changes to Japan's policies could open the door to a legit international field at Lake Biwa. With the race's application deadline standing at Dec. 31 there's just over 2 months for those changes to happen one direction or the other. Major Japanese marathons still scheduled to happen in 2020 and 2021 marathon announcements to date:

Dec. 6: Fukuoka International Marathon (370) - scheduled with limited field size
Dec. 20: Hofu Marathon (2,724) - scheduled with limited field size

2021

Jan. 10 - Ibusuki Nanohana Marathon (10,954) - canceled
Jan. 31 - Katsuta Marathon (10,627) - canceled
Jan. 31 - Osaka International Women's Marathon (423) - TBA
Feb. 7 - Beppu-Oita Marathon (3,141) - canceled
Feb. 14 - Ehime Marathon (9,554) - canceled
Feb. 14 - Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon (536) - TBA
Feb. 21 - Kyoto Marathon (13,894) - canceled
Feb. 21 - Kochi Ryoma Marathon (10,924) - canceled
Feb. 21 - Kumamoto Castle Marathon (10,444) - canceled
Feb. 21 - Kitakyushu Marathon (9,485) - canceled
Feb. 21 - Okinawa Marathon (7,990) - canceled
Feb. 28 - Shonan International Marathon (16,821) - rescheduled from Dec. 6
Feb. 28 - Himeji Castle Marathon (6,938) - canceled
Feb. 28 - Iwaki Sunshine Marathon (5,259) - canceled
Feb. 28 - Lake Biwa Marathon (191) - scheduled
Mar. 7 - Kagoshima Marathon (9.356) - canceled
Mar. 7 - Tokyo Marathon (151) - postponed to October 17
Mar. 14 - Shizuoka Marathon (9,802) - canceled
Mar. 14 - Nagoya Women's Marathon (96) - scheduled with limited field size
Mar. 21 - Itabashi City Marathon (13,310) - canceled
Mar. 21 - Koga Hanamomo Marathon (8,766) - canceled
Mar. 21 - Saga Sakura Marathon (8.509) - canceled
Mar. 28 - Tokushima Marathon (11,010) - decision in early November
Mar. 28 - Sakura Marathon (5,614) - canceled
Apr. 18 - Kasumigaura Marathon (10,096) - decision by end of October
Apr. 18 - Nagano Marathon (8,082) - decision by end of October

© 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

justin said…
How stacked are Lake Biwa and the Corporate Half going to be... even if it ends up being just Japan-based athletes. Fukuoka and Hofu being the only legitimate road races in Japan since Lake Biwa 2020. Nagano, Hokkaido, Kobe, Beppu-Oita, Tokyo cancelled. Gifu, Sendai, Osaka, Marugame half cancelled. Going to stack those two races.
Brett Larner said…
Sanyo has yet to cancel and I'd certainly consider the elite-level ekidens legit road races, but I know what you're saying. Should be entertaining if it happens as scheduled.
Mark said…
Wondering, hoping, waiting to see if you’re going to post an all japan university ekiden preview. Without Izumo, some notable graduations, and with just a handful of 5000 and 10,000 races since the spring, I’m not sure what to expect teamwise upfront and further down the field. I don’t think Chuo is in, so we won’t get to see Yoshii at a distance he’s currently better suited for than HM. KGU? Koma Dai? Haven’t heard much about AGU recently. Tokai has some strong 4th years for sure. Juntendo is improving...
Jreddy said…
Well this is exciting. I might as well throw my hat in the ring and see what Japan decides to do. It's not like there are any other races to plan for.

Most-Read This Week

Koku Gakuin Goes For the Triple Crown - 2025 Hakone Ekiden Preview

The biggest road race of the year is days away, with the Hakone Ekiden entering its second century on Jan. 2 and 3. 20 university teams and one select team race 217.1 km in 10 legs from central Tokyo to the mountains near Mt. Fuji and back, with Nippon TV broadcasting the whole thing live and nationwide to an audience in the tens of millions. TVer is streaming Day One here starting at 7:50 a.m. local time on Jan. 2, and Day Two here at 7:50 a.m. again. If you've got a VPN you should be good to go. JRN will be on-site at the Day One finish line and Day Two start line and will be doing some coverage on @JRNLive . At October's Izumo Ekiden and November's National University Ekiden Koku Gakuin University , Komazawa University and Aoyama Gakuin University went 1-2-3, and the main question at Hakone is whether it'll be the same order again. Komazawa is the heavyweight legacy school of the three, with 8 wins and 18 top 3 finishes at Hakone in the last 25 years under ex...

Defending Champ Aoyama Gakuin Takes Hakone Ekiden Day One By a Kilometer

Chuo University came out hard on Day One of the 2025 Hakone Ekiden , leading from the gun until partway through Hakone's great equalizer, the uphill Fifth Stage. Gunning for his older brother Yamato Yoshii 's 1:00:40 CR for the 21.3 km opening leg, Chuo's Shunsuke Yoshii went it alone, coming up short of the the record at 1:01:07, 1:00:33 half marathon pace, but almost a minute and a half ahead of nearest competitor Yudai Kiyama from Komazawa University . Itta Tameike ran what would normally be a great time on the 23.1 km Second Stage, 1:06:39, but behind him collegiate 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon record holder Richard Etir of Tokyo Kokusai University , Soka University 's top man Hibiki Yoshida and last year's Second Stage winner Asahi Kuroda of defending champion Aoyama Gakuin University all broke the 1:05:49 course record to cut Chuo's lead down to 40 seconds. In Hakone's first 100 years only two runners had ever broken 66 minutes on the Secon...

Aoyama Gakuin Breaks Hakone Ekiden CR for Second Year in a Row

2024 Hakone Ekiden course record breaker Aoyama Gakuin University was 3:16 up on 2023 winner Komazawa University at the end of Day One of the Hakone 2025, an even bigger margin than last year when it was 2:38 ahead of Komazawa and went on to win the 217.1 km overall race in a course record 10:41:25, beating Komazawa by almost 7 minutes. There was almost no chance Komazawa could close the gap today on the return trip of Hakone Day Two. But that doesn't mean they didn't try. Komazawa 3rd year Aoi Ito was just off the CR on the ~800 m downhill 6th leg in 57:38, but even with a run that good he lost ground when AGU's Akimu Nomura proved a hypothetical, breaking the 57-minute barrier for the 20.8 km leg with a 30-second CR of 56:47. Post-race Nomura said that he had spent the whole year training to run 56, and he executed perfectly. And put AGU 4:07 ahead, hopeless, except for a ray of hope. Injured for most of 2024 and running his first race since March on only 6 weeks of...