Where Japan's Paris Olympic Marathon Trials Qualification Is At

Last Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon was the last of the main chances for Japanese marathoners to qualify for the Oct. 15 MGC Race, the country's official marathon trials for the 2024 Paris Olympics. At the trials the top 2 finishers will be named to the Olympic team, with the 3rd finisher provisionally in and the 4th and 5th placers named provisional alternates. After that it's one last turn through the winter 2023-24 season of the big domestic races where people will have the chance to steal the 3rd spot on the team and bump the 3rd-placer at the trials down to alternate.

The deadline for qualifying for the trials is May 31, and there are still a few smaller domestic races like this Sunday's Tokushima Marathon and April's Nagano Marathon, and overseas races with a World Athletics elite label or better where those who haven't qualified yet can try to make a miracle happen. But for the most part, almost all the real contenders are already in.

62 men and 29 women have qualified at this point. It's really interesting that both of these are double the number who qualified for the first MGC race ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, 34 men and 15 women, even though the men's standards are tougher this time. About half the men and half the women qualified by being in the top 3 Japanese finishers in the race where they qualified and under the designated time standards. Another 15 men and 10 women made it by placing in the top 6 Japanese in their race and under tighter time standards. 18 men and 4 women qualified by running 2 marathons averaging 2:10:00/2:28:00 or better since the qualifying window opened on Nov. 1, 2021.

For those who haven't qualified yet and are planning to race internationally in April or May, they can get in with 2:08:00/2:24:00 or better. But realistically the 2-race average is the more likely criteria to shoot for. Not including qualifiers or people who've retired, another 55 men and 10 women have run a marathon 2:12:00/2:30:00 or better inside the qualifying window, putting them within a reasonable range of hitting the 2-race average marks.

Out of those, 19 men and 2 women ran their first race under 2:10:00 or 2:28:00, meaning they could run another race slower and still make it. Kento Nishi leads the men with a 2:08:11 in Osaka last month and would only need to run 2:11:49 by May 31 to qualify. Yuri Karasawa is the fastest woman with a 2:27:27 also in Osaka and needs to run 2:28:33. In a lot of cases the people who ran slower than 2:10:00 or 2:28:00 would need to run a PB to get in. Takashi Soma ran 2:11:50 in Nobeoka in February and would need to pull out a 2:08:10. Shiho Kaneshige had a 2:29:26 in Tokyo last year and would need a 2:26:34. All of the women who made the Tokyo Olympics have qualified this time, but the top 2 men at the last trials, winner Shogo Nakamura and runner-up Yuma Hattori, have yet to make it.

Japan being Japan there's a good chance a few people like that will drop something big, but the chances are we'll see a few more men pull off last-second qualification but very few or no more women. Apart from Tokushima and Nagano, the overseas races whose results the JAAF will accept for trials qualification are:

Mar. 19: Chongqing Marathon, CHN
Mar. 19: Wan Jin Shi Marathon, TPE
Mar. 19: Rome Marathon, ITA
Mar. 19: Seoul Marathon, KOR
Mar. 19: Wuxi Marathon, CHN
Mar. 19: Barcelona Marathon, ESP
Mar. 26: Suzhou Taihu Marathon, CHN
Apr. 2: Xiamen Marathon, CHN
Apr. 2: Daegu International Marathon, KOR
Apr. 2: Paris Marathon, FRA
Apr. 16: Rotterdam Marathon, NED
Apr. 16: Shijiazhuang Marathon, CHN
Apr. 16: Wuhan Marathon, CHN
Apr. 17: Boston Marathon, USA
Apr. 22: Qingdao Marathon, CHN
Apr. 23: London Marathon, GBR
Apr. 23: Vienna Marathon, AUT
May 7: Prague Marathon, CZE
May 28: Jilin International Marathon, CHN
May 28: Ottawa International Marathon, CAN

Given history the European marathons will draw some numbers, but as the real last chance Ottawa is probably going to be the one that ends up with a planeload of Japanese marathoners like Hamburg before the last trials when the deadline was a month earlier. We'll update with final numbers after the May 31 deadline.

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...

World Marathon Majors Japanese Entries

We're back from a short summer break. A week and a half out from the first race of the season's four World Marathon Majors races, here's a look at Japanese athletes scheduled to run. Everything right now is about qualifying for the MGC Race, the official trials race for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics to be held in the fall of 2027 in Nagoya. The JAAF makes no mistake about wanting to keep its top people racing domestically where it can get a share of revenue from the TV broadcast and race operations, so anyone who decides to race overseas has to do it in a WA platinum label race and hit either 2:06:30 or 2:23:30, regardless of place, course or weather if they want to make the trials. At the same time concessions are make for domestic races, like for example the late-August Hokkaido Marathon where up to 3 men and 3 women can qualify if they go 2:12:00 or 2:32:00. As a result, you get things like last year where amateur runner Yudai Fukuda made the trials by finishing 3rd Jap...

Nakajima Breaks 100 mH NR Twice, Kitaguchi Returns - August Track Roundup

Catching up on what's been happening in track and field this month during our summer break: Men's 3000 m NR holder Nagiya Mori was just off his 5000 m PB at the IFAM Oordegem meet in Belgium on Aug. 1, taking 16th in 13:15.01. Shota Nakano was 26th of 28 in 13:35.02. This year's national champion Ryoma Aoki ran the 3000 mSC but didn't finish. Naoto Hasegawa was the only Japanese athlete at Mutaz Essa Barshim 's What Gravity Tour stop at the Monaco Athletics Festival meet on Aug. 5. Having cleared 2.30 m for the first time earlier this year Hasegawa only managed 2.18 m in Monaco, taking 7th of 10. There were a lot of good performances at the Fuji Hokuriku World Trial meet in Fujiyoshida on Aug. 9, but the one that got the headlines was a 12.62 (-0.2) NR in the women's 100 mH by Hitomi Nakajima . Nakajima actually did it twice, running 12.62 (+2.0) in the heats before repeating in the final. Masumi Aoki also ran big in the heats, with a 12.68 (+2.0) for al...

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