Skip to main content

First Japan Marathon Championship Series Winners Awarded $165,000


On Mar. 31 the JAAF recognized the winners of the new Japan Marathon Championship Series I at an award ceremony in Tokyo. Marathoners were scored on their best two performances from December, 2020 through March, 2022, with preference given to results from domestic races. The overall #1-ranked woman and man were named to Japan's team for this summer's Oregon World Championships, with anyone in the top 8 who hadn't otherwise already qualified for next year's MGC Paris Olympic marathon trials given a place on the trials starting line.

A total prize pool of ¥20,000,000, roughly $165,000 USD at the current dismal exchange rate, was divided between the top three women and men, with the top-ranked athletes receiving ¥6,000,000, about $50,000, 2nd-place receiving ¥3,000,000, around $25,000, and 3rd-place ¥1,000,000, or $8,000.


Women-only NR holder and Tokyo Olympics 8th-placer Mao Ichiyama took 1st in the women's standings, Mizuki Matsuda 2nd and Mao Uesugi 3rd. Both Ichiyama and Matsuda were named to the Oregon team, with Uesugi picking up a place on September's Hangzhou Asian Games team. NR holder Kengo Suzuki was the men's winner, Kyohei Hosoya taking 2nd and 2020 Olympic alternate Shohei Otsuka 3rd. Suzuki joins his partner Ichiyama and Matsuda on the Oregon team, Hosoya headed instead for Hangzhou alongside Uesugi.

"I'm really happy to be the first winner," said Ichiyama. "I'm doing more strength training than I have in the past in order to improve my form, and in Oregon I'll be aiming to place better than at the Olympics." "Together we want to get even better and deliver an incredible run as a couple," added Suzuki. "To be honest I don't really think in terms of time goals and think it's more important to try to compete, but as a whole I think Japanese men should be targeting 2:03. I get injured a lot, and that's something I need to work on, but I won't be changing my approach for Worlds except to deal with heat."

Despite losing to Ichiyama by only 6 points Matsuda was all smiles, saying, "My goal was to make the World Championships team to get a chance to race against the best, and that's what I've done." Hosoya commented, "I'm disappointed that I wasn't picked for the Worlds team, but my road to the Olympics runs through the Asian Games and I'll be going for the win there." Otsuka, the only JMC podium placer not named to a national team, said, "I need to improve both my speed and stamina."

© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

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

Ageo City Half Marathon Preview and Streaming

This weekend's big race is the Ageo City Half Marathon , the next stop on the collegiate men's circuit. Most of the universities bound for the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden use Ageo to thin down the list of contenders for their final Hakone rosters, and with JRN's development program that sends the first two Japanese collegiate finishers in Ageo to the United Airlines NYC Half every year a lot of coaches put in some of their A-listers too. That gives Ageo legendary depth and fast front-end speed, with a 1:00:47 course record last year from Kenyan corporate leaguer Paul Kuira (JR Higashi Nihon) and the top 26 all clearing 63 minutes. Since a lot of programs just enter everybody on their rosters you never really know who on the entry list is actually going to show up, but if even a quarter of the people at the top end of this year's list run it'll be a great race, even if conditions are looking likely to be a bit warmer than ideal. Chuo Gakuin University 's Reishi Yoshi
Post a Comment
Read more

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