Skip to main content

Marugame Half and Beppu-Oita Marathon Headline Weekend Action


Post-ekiden road season is up to full speed in Japan with two major races this Sunday. First up, the Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon kicks off its 75th anniversary edition at 10:35 a.m. with an Aussie-heavy field and the usual domestic depth. Kenyan Nancy Jelagat is the class of the women's field on paper with a 1:05:21 in Berlin 2021, but without any race results in 2022 it's a question how she'll fare against Japan-based Pauline Kamulu (Route Inn Hotels), the Aussie trio of Sinead Diver, Eloise Wellings and Isobel Batt-Doyle, Brit Charlotte Purdue, American Sarah Pagano, and top-ranked domestic woman Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu).

Sub-58 man Alexander Mutiso (ND Software) fronts the men's field, with Aussies Jack Rayner and Riley Cocks set to mix it up with debuting 27:20.34 man Cleophas Kandie (Mitsubishi Juko) and a million domestic men including sub-61 half marathoners Yusuke Tamura (Kurosaki Harima) Takashi Namba (Toenec) and Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota). BS-Fuji has the live TV broadcast starting at 10:30.

Nishiyama won the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon last year, but this year he's swapped places with half marathon NR holder Yusuke Ogura (GMO), who has opted for Beppu instead of a return trip to the place he set his NR. The international field is tiny, with just three 2:07-level Africans, Hamza Sahli (Morocco), Ibrahim Hassan (Djibouti) and Daniel Kipchumba (Kenya), a pretty clear sign of what kind of time the powers that be hope the race will end up delivering. Alongside Ogura are 2:07 men Shin Kimura (Honda), Kento Kikutani (Toyota Boshoku), Kazuki Muramoto (Sumitomo Denko), Tsubasa Ichiyama (Komori Corp.) and Tatsuya Maruyama (Toyota), another 4 men at the 2:08 level, and 2022 Hokkaido Marathon winner Luka Musembi (Tokyo Kokusai Univ.). With conditions looking good expect to see a few more names join the list of qualifiers for October's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials.

TBS will be broadcasting Beppu-Oita live starting at 11:50 a.m. Sunday local time. Partial streaming will be on local broadcaster RKB's site, so check there for more info. JRN will be on-site locally and will have limited coverage on @JRNLive.

© 2023 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