After the Osaka International Women's Marathon and Osaka Half Marathon last weekend Japan's winter road season rolls on with 3 big races Sunday. The Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon has a good field up front in the women's race with 5 runners, Eilish McColgan , Dolphine Omare , Isobel Batt-Doyle , Charlotte Purdue and Yuka Ando , with sub-1:09 bests and the debut of #1 collegiate runner Sarah Wanjiru of Daito Bunka University . 3 men in Marugame have recent sub-60 times, Emmanuel Maru , Richard Etir and Kotaro Shinohara leading the way. Shinohara was one of 2 Japanese men to break 60 at Marugame last year and missed the NR by 3 seconds in 59:30. After a 42:53 CR on his 15.3 km leg at the New Year Ekiden on Jan.1, 45:06 pace for 10 miles, he's looking to pick up at least another 4 seconds this time around. 14 other men in the field are at the 60-minute level, and Chuo University 's sub-28 10000 m runner Yamato Hamaguchi is making a highly anticip...
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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.