It's another busy weekend on the roads and track across Japan. Sunday's Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon has a good matchup between the great Tirunesh Dibaba and Japan-based Kenyan Dolphine Omare in the women's race. Tirunesh has run 1:06:50, but after 5 years away from the sport her recent best is only a 1:11:35 in Houston in January. Omare bettered that by a kilometer in winning Gifu last year in 1:08:13, and was even better with a 1:07:56 win at last year's National Corporate Half. Australian Isobel Batt-Doyle and Japan's Reia Iwade have both run under 70 minutes, and there are interesting debuts from Kenyan Hellen Ekarare and Australian Genevieve Gregson, but it's hard not to see Omare as the favorite again.
The men's race has sub-60 Japan-based Kenyans Amos Kurgat, Joseph Karanja, Vincent Raimoi and Paul Kuira up front, with support from sub-61 men Macharia Ndirangu, Joel Mwaura and Kiyoshi Koga. Kurgat, Karanja, Raimoi and Keira all have experience in Gifu, Kurgat having won it in 2019, Karanja and Raimoi having been 4th and 7th last year and Kuira finishing in the top 3 in 2016 and 2017. Former Soka University top man Philip Muluwa is a dark horse in his debut for the GMO corporate team. Last year's race was a tight pack finish, and without a clear favorite it wouldn't be a surprise to see it happen again. The Gifu Half will be streamed live starting at 8:45 a.m. Sunday local time.
Also Sunday, the Nagano Marathon has a small field of elite men chasing qualification times for October's MGC Race Olympic. marathon trials. 2021 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Michael Githae fronts the field as a late add after not getting a U.S. visa in time for last weekend's Boston Marathon. Behind him are four Japanese men hoping to hit the two-race sub-2:10:00 average criteria for trials qualification. Kento Nishi leads the way as the fastest man not to have qualified yet, with a 2:08:11 PB in Osaka at the end of February. He'll need to run 2:11:49 here. Kensuke Horio ran 2:08:25 in Tokyo last year and needs 2:11:35. Kenji Yamamoto ran 2:08:38 in Osaka last year and needs 2:11:22. Daisuke Hosomori has the hardest job ahead of him, his 2:10:22 in Tokyo last month giving him a 2:09:38 hurdle to clear, but with a 2:08:28 at Lake Biwa in 2021 that's a time he's pulled out before.
Nagano hasn't released deeper entry lists, but there are probably a lot more people in range of qualifying planning to be there too. After Nagano the main chances left to qualify are May's Prague Marathon, where five Japanese men are scheduled to run, and Ottawa Marathon, where twelve Japanese men are currently on the entry list. There's no elite women's field in Nagano, with 2:34:19 runner Yumiko Kinoshita the top entrant in her first marathon back after giving birth last June.
There's a load going on on the track all weekend. The Hyogo Relay Carnival Saturday and Sunday in Kobe is the biggest deal, with 1500 m NR holders Kazuki Kawamura and Nozomi Tanaka, Olympic steepler Ryoma Aoki, sub-27 10000 m men Richard Kimunyan and Benard Kibet Koech, a half dozen or so MGC-qualified marathoners, and a lot more. The meet schedule and live results are here. Streaming of Saturday's main events will be above starting at 17:10 local time, with Sunday streaming still TBA but on the same channel.
Friday through Sunday in Kanagawa is the National University Individual Track and Field Championships, usually a 2nd-tier meet held in June but bumped up in the schedule and importance again this year with the World University Games just around the corner. It's a pretty good lineup of collegiate talent, with eight men sub-3:45 and seven women sub-4:20 for 1500 m, two men sub-13:30 and three women sub-15:45 for 5000 m, and three men sub-28:30 and two women sub-32:30 for 10000 m, just to be myopically focused on the distance fields. Komazawa University has three members of its 2023 Hakone Ekiden-winning squad, Taiyo Yasuhara, Kotaro Shinohara and Aoi Ito, in the men's 5000 m and 10000 m, with five-time women's national champ Meijo University fielding winning team members Nanaka Yonezawa, Azumi Nagara, Asuka Ishimatsu, Yuka Masubuchi and Nanase Tanimoto across the 1500 m, 5000 m and 10000 m. But there's more than that going on, with similar quality across events. Track event streaming starts above at 9:20 a.m. Friday Japan time, with separate field event streaming and the other days of the meet on the same channel.
Also in Kanagawa on Saturday and Sunday is the 304th edition of the Nittai University Time Trials series. It's especially deep over 5000 m and 10000 m, with notable names including Hyuga Endo, Naoki Ota, Komazawa's Mebuki Suzuki, Hiroki Matsueda, Rodgers Kwemoi, Rika Kaseda, Tabitha Njeri Kamau, Judy Jepngetich, and at least another half dozen trials-qualified marathoners. There's no official streaming, but expect to see fan-shot videos of anything especially good that happens.
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