Ichida, Kikuchi Tsutsui and Yamaguchi Racing Overseas This Weekend

Four noteworthy Japanese marathoners are racing overseas this weekend, all with goals centered on October's MGC Race Olympic marathon trials. Sunday at the Rotterdam Marathon, Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) and Shunya Kikuchi (Chugoku Denryoku) will try to become the 63rd and 64th Japanese men to qualify for the MGC Race. Kikuchi ran 2:08:20 at the Osaka Marathon at the end of February, making him the 2nd-fastest Japanese man not to have qualified yet. He has a relatively low bar of 2:11:40 to clear in Rotterdam in order to hit the two-race 2:10:00 qualifying criteria. With a 2:09:15 PB at February's Beppu-Oita Marathon Ichida needs to run 2:10:45 in Rotterdam, giving him a bit less of a margin of error. With his wife Misaki Nishida (Edion) having made the MGC cut at the Osaka Marathon later in February, Ichida getting there in Rotterdam would make them the second married couple to qualify following men's NR holder Kengo Suzuki (Fujitsu) and women-only NR holder Mao Ichiyama (Shiseido).

Also in Rotterdam for MGC qualification is Sakiho Tsutsui (Yamada Holdings). Tsutsui ran a 2:28:45 PB in Nagoya on March 12 and just five weeks later needs a new PB of 2:27:15 to become the 30th Japanese woman to make the trials.

Along with Nishida and Ichiyama one of the 29 women to have qualified for the MGC Race six weeks out from the deadline, Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) is running Monday's Boston Marathon with support from JRN. Yamaguchi had originally planned to focus on improving her 2:26:35 PB, the second-slowest in the MGC field, this season, but given the chance to run Boston decided that a non-paced race on a technical course would be better prep for similar race circumstances at the MGC and, if she were to make top 2 there, Paris next year. Her goal is to at least match her 2:29:52 winning time at last summer's Hokkaido Marathon.

Ichida photo © 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Yamaguchi photo c/o Haruka Yamaguchi
text © 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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