The Mar. 1 Tokyo Marathon has great fields this year, so let's get right to it. The women's field has 3 of last year's top 10, winner for the 2nd year in a row and Tokyo CR holder Sutume Asefa Kebede , 3rd-placer and 2025 Chicago winner Hawi Feysa , and 5th-placer and 2025 Berlin winner Rosemary Wanjiru , plus 2024 Valencia winner Megertu Alemu , 2025 Prague winner Bertukan Welde , 2024 Paris winner Mestawut Fikir , 2024 Osaka winner Waganesh Mekasha , former WR holder Brigid Kosgei , and a lot more. Japanese hopes pretty much go to all-time #7 Ai Hosoda , 2:20:31 in Berlin 2024 but who announced this month that she is retiring after Tokyo despite having qualified for the 2028 Olympic marathon trials with her 2:23:27 for 6th in Sydney last year. Other internationals include Canadian Malindi Elmore , American Sara Hall , a big Chinese group led by Yuyu Xia , Poland's Aleksandra Brzezińska and Australian Vanessa Wilson . The men's race has 5 of last year's top 1...
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As far as the unretirement, Osako announced on July 29, 2021 that he was going to retire after the Olympic marathon, which he ran on Aug. 8, 2021. On Feb. 7, 2022 he announced that he was coming out of retirement. It would probably take a lawyer to determine for sure whether that announcement happened exactly on the last day of a 6-month period following the Olympic marathon, but TV ratings in Japan for the men's marathon were more than double those for the women's marathon and it's safe to say a big part of that was due to Osako saying it was going to be his last race.