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2020 Olympic Marathon Trials Winner Honami Maeda Out of Hokkaido Marathon With Corona

On Aug. 15 the organizing committee of the Aug. 28 Hokkaido Marathon announced that 2020 Olympic marathon trials winner and 30 km national record holder Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) has withdrawn from the race after contracting COVID-19. Maeda became the first woman to qualify for the 2020 trials when she won Hokkaido in 2017. This was to be her first marathon since the Tokyo Olympics marathon in Sapporo last summer. A win would have qualified her for next year's Olympic trials. The remainder of the Hokkaido field is listed here.

Translator's note: Another major blow for Japanese marathoning. Maeda has been running well this season, with two half marathon PBs. She was a leading contender for the win in Hokkaido. Her withdrawal with COVID-19 follows the last-second withdrawals of women-only NR holder Mao Ichiyama, women's half-marathon NR holder Hitomi Niiya, and men's NR holder Kengo Suzuki from last month's Oregon World Championships marathons after testing positive for coronavirus.

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translated and edited by Brett Larner

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Stefan said…
Wow! This is a cursed year for some of the headlining Japanese women athletes.
First Seira Fuwa gets injured early in the year and misses the World Champs, then Mao Ichiyama and Hitomi Niiya contract COVID just prior to their world championship race and now the 'in form' Honami Maeda contracts COVID too. It's hard to believe! I can just hope all the athletes mentioned recover fully and can be at their best in the very near future. I was so looking forward to watching Honami Maeda in this race. I'm gutted. I can only imagine how she must be feeling.
August 15, 2022 at 3:57 PM
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