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Weekend Overseas Japanese Results

Aiming for Olympic trials qualification at Sunday's Rotterdam Marathon, Sakiho Tsutsui (Yamada Holdings) had the closest thing to a good race out of the four elite-level Japanese athletes competing abroad this weekend. Needing to run 2:27:15 for qualification after running a 2:28:45 PB just five weeks ago in Nagoya, Tsutsui was just off target at 5km in 17:29, 2:27:33 pace. She fell progressively further off as she went but rallied in the last 10 km to finish 8th overall in 2:29:09, a solid effort at just 24 seconds off her Nagoya best.

Also in Rotterdam, Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) needed to run 2:10:45, just under 3:06/km pace, after a 2:09:15 PB at Beppu-Oita the first weekend of February. Shunya Kikuchi (Chugoku Denryoku) only needed 2:11:40, just over 3:07/km, off a 2:08:20 PB in Osaka at the end of February that put him as the 2nd-fastest Japanese man not to have qualified for October's Olympic trials yet.

Mystifyingly, both went out at 3:00/km only to crash and burn. Ichida fell off after only 15 km, eventually finishing in 2:16:10. Kikuchi lasted longer, making it until 25 km only to crash even harder with a 2:21:09 finishing time. Their pacing strategies said a lot about the quality of goal setting in the traditional powerhouse corporate teams. With the May 31 deadline for qualification just over the horizon it's not likely, but not impossible, that either Ichida or Kikuchi will turn up at the May 28 Ottawa Marathon for one desperate last swing.

The only athlete already qualified for the trials to race abroad this weekend, Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita) had a disappointing run at the Boston Marathon. Hoping to match her sub-2:30 winning time from last August's Sapporo Marathon, Yamaguchi was well behind that within the first 5 km, splitting only 18:11 there and struggling the rest of the way to a 2:44:17 finish in 44th. In tears afterward, Yamaguchi told Japanese media that there hadn't been anything specifically wrong, and that she just hadn't felt right right from the start. Yamaguchi plans to run July's Gold Coast Marathon before the MGC Race Olympic trials on Oct. 15.

© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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