Skip to main content

Osaka International Women's Marathon Elite Field


The organizers of next month's Osaka International Women's Marathon have announced the invited field of 43 for Japan's last remaining purely elite marathon. Like the 2021 race, despite the event's name it's a Japanese-only field with male pacers, kind of inevitably on the first point given Japan's ongoing border fortification but a bit regrettably on the second.

For a domestic field it's pretty good, all 17 of the women in it who've run under 2:35 in the last three years having done it either here or in Nagoya. 2020 winner and unlucky Olympic alternate Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) is the favorite, with support from Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku), the 4th-fastest Japanese woman in 2020 and 2021, 2019's fastest Reia Iwade (Adidas), and 2021's 3rd and 4th-placers Yukari Abe (Shimamura) and Mao Uesugi (Starts). 

Six other women in the field have run under the 2:27:00 B-standard for qualification for the 2024 Olympic marathon trials, including current JMC Series I leader Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita), so with the qualifying window now open the race to finish in the 4th-6th place B-standard bracket should be just as good as the one to make the 1st-3rd place A-standard bracket. Alongside the marathon, the Osaka Half Marathon will also feature two-time Osaka International winner Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) in her final race.

Check back closer to race date for options on streaming and following the race live.

41st Osaka International Women's Marathon

Elite Field Highlights
Osaka, 30 Jan. 2022
complete elite field listing

Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) - 2:21:47 (1st, Osaka Int'l 2020)
Sayaka Sato (Seiksui Kagaku) - 2:23:27 (5th, Nagoya Women's 2020)
Reia Iwade (Adidas) - 2:23:52 (5th, Nagoya Women's 2019)
Yukari Abe (Shimamura) - 2:24:41 (3rd, Osaka Int'l 2021)
Mao Uesugi (Starts) - 2:24:52 (4th, Osaka Int'l 2021)
Mizuki Tanimoto (Tenmaya) - 2:25:28 (11th, Nagoya Women's 2019)
Ayano Ikemitsu (Kagoshima Ginko) - 2:26:07 (12th, Nagoya  Women's 2019)
Ayumi Hagiwara (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 2:26:15 (5th, Oaka Int'l 2021)
Natsumi Matsushita (Tenmaya) - 2:26:26 (3rd, Nagoya Women's 2021)
Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) - 2:26:35 (7th, Osaka Int'l 2020)
Hanae Tanaka (Daiichi Seimei) - 2:26:49 (5th, Nagoya Women's 2021)
Misaki Kato (Kyudenko) - 2:27:20 (8th, Nagoya Women's 2021)
Madoka Nakano (Iwatani Sangyo) - 2:27:39 (4th, Osaka Int'l 2019)
Shiho Kaneshige (GRlab Kanto) - 2:28:51 (16th, Osaka Int'l 2020)
Anna Matsuda (Denso) - 2:29:52 (8th, Osaka Int'l 2021)
Rie Kawauchi (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 2:31:34 (17th, Nagoya Women's 2021)
Ayano Ikeuchi (Denso) - 2:33:29 (19th, Nagoya Women's 2021)
Mai Fujisawa (Hokkaido Excel AC) - 2:35:52 (1st, Kanazawa 2021)
Asuka Yamamoto (Edion) - 2:36:14 (21th, Osaka Int'l 2020)
Tomomi Sawahata (Sawahatas) - 2:37:02 (1st, Gunma 2021)
Mai Ito (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 2:38:07 (25th, Nagoya Women's 2021)
Michi Numata (Toyota Jidoshokki) - 2:38:30 (39th, Nagoya Women's 2019)
Saki Tokoro (Kyocera) - 2:38:49 (40th, Nagoya Women's 2019)
Mitsuko Ino (Linkstyle) - 2:39:04 (10th, Osaka 2019)

© 2021 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Stefan said…
I'm very much looking forward to this event. This will indicate whether Sayaka Sato can step up and win an elite marathon and capitalise on her excellent middle distance performances this year. I feel Mizuki Matsuda will run well here as she has done previously. I fully expect a time below 2:23:00 and hopefully one below 2:22:00. I am a fan of Sayaka Sato so I really hope she can break 2:23:00 and achieve a PB here. I think it is a race between these two.
December 23, 2021 at 4:20 PM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

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
Post a Comment
Read more

Queens Ekiden Streaming and Preview

Sunday is the first big race of championship ekiden season, the Queens Ekiden in Sendai, the season-ending national championship for corporate women. 24 teams race 42.195 km in 6 legs, with the top 8 scoring places for 2025. TBS' live nationwide broadcast starts at 11:50, with multi-camera streaming on Youtube above. Last year Sekisui Kagaku won by almost a minute and a half, and with Paris Olympian Yuma Yamamoto , 2023 World Championships marathoner Sayaka Sato on its entry list and collegiate 1500 m record holder Mizuki Michishita having come on board this season it looks like a contender for another win. But last year's runner-up Japan Post got a big boost this season with the addition of its first non-Japanese member, two-time double 1500 m and 3000 m high school champion Caroline Kariba . The Queens Ekiden limits non-Japanese athletes to a 3.8 km leg, so it'd be tough for Kariba to bridge a 1:25 gap by herself with that little ground to work with. But what she can
1 comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more