11 Japanese Men Taking Last Shot at Olympic Trials Qualification at Tartan Ottawa International Marathon

The deadline for Japanese athletes to qualify for the MGC Race, Japan's Olympic marathon trials happening Oct. 15 in Tokyo, is May 31. Up to this point 67 men and 29 women have hit the tough qualifying standards that make the MGC Race the hardest marathon in the world to get into.

That looks set to be the final number of women, but 11 men will be taking their last shot at making the cut at the May 28 Tartan Ottawa International Marathon. To get in they'll have to either walk away from Ottawa with an average of 2:10:00 or better between what they run there and one other race since the qualifying window opened on Nov. 1, 2021, or run 2:08:00 or faster in Ottawa.

The 11 runners break down into four groups. At the top end, Ryo Osaki, Ryoma Takeuchi and Junnosuke Matsuo can all afford to run slower than what they already have in order to hit the 2:10:00 average. Osaki and Takeuchi both have a 2:08 race to their names inside the qualifying window and only need to run 2:11, but that doesn't mean it's an easy job. Takeuchi, a training partner of Prague Marathon winner Alexander Mutiso, needs to run 2:11:03 but came up just short at last December's Hofu Marathon, running 2:11:07.

Kento Otsu is in a category of his own, needing 2:09:47 to qualify and having run that kind of time before with a 2:08:15 PB before the qualifying window opened in 2021. That's almost exactly what Yuta Shimoda did last year in Ottawa to qualify with a 2:09:50 for 3rd off a 2:07:27 best in 2020, so Otsu knows it's an achievable goal.

Chihiro Ono, Hiroto Kanamori, Mizuki Higashi, Akihiro Kaneko and Keisuke Yokota all need to run PBs to qualify, Ono and Kanamori needing to duplicate what Takayuki Iida did in Prague and run 30-32 seconds under their bests to the 2:09:44-45 level. The other three need a breakthrough to the 2:08 level, not easy given the fastest time ever by a Japanese man in Ottawa is still Arata Fujiwara's 2:09:34 win in 2010.

Tatsunori Hamasaki and Taiki Suzuki haven't run under 2:12:00 inside the window, or ever in Suzuki's case, meaning they need to run a one-off 2:08:00 to make it. Only eight Japanese men have ever run that fast outside Japan, so if either pulled it off it would be one of the biggest stories of the year in Japanese marathoning.

And there's another level to what it means to make the Olympic trials. The corporate federation recently ruled that since the MGC Race conflicts with the fall ekiden season, any team that has a runner in the trials will automatically qualify for the National Corporate Women's Ekiden and New Year Ekiden men's championships as long as they finish the qualifying ekidens in late October and early November.

Osaki and Kanamori's team Komori Corporation, Kaneko and Yokota's team Comodi Iida and Takeuchi's team ND Soft don't have anyone qualified yet. Komori is good enough that it usually makes the New Year Ekiden, but Comodi Iida is one of the teams on the cusp and ND Soft not usually strong enough to make it, so any of their runners performing up to hopes in Ottawa would have a big impact on their winter season and potential future team funding.

JRN will be on-site in Ottawa with the Japanese group. Live results and streaming will be available here.

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."

Past Champs Win Again in Fukuoka and Hofu, Yang Breaks Chinese Men's NR, Tsutsui Break Hofu Women's CR

photo by Eldoreso , used with permission Japan's last two big marathons of the year both happened Sunday at the Fukuoka International Marathon and Hofu Yomiuri Marathon . Both came down to sprint finishes between a lead pack of four, and both saw past championships back on the top spot on the podium. Fukuoka only lasted through 15 km on the target pace for Japanese favorite Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima) to hit the 2:05:50 he needed to replace Suguru Osako (GMO) on the Paris Olympic team. Past 15 it slowed, with a halfway split of 1:03:00 that the lead group held until 30 km. At that point it was a lead group of six, with Hosoya, 2021 Fukuoka winner Michael Githae (Suzuki), 2017 Fukuoka winner Sondre Nordstad Moen (Norway), Chinese duo Shaohui Yang and Peiyou Feng , and two-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist Abel Kirui (Kenya). The pace slowed between 30 and 35 km once the pacers stopped, but even so Feng and Kirui lost contact, leaving the other four on track

10000 m National Championships Preview

Given all the breakthrough runs over 10000 m in Japan the last few weeks, enough to take Japan to 30 men sub-28 for the distance this year, it seems a bit odd to have the 10000 m National Championships happening this Sunday in Tokyo's National Stadium. But relative to the timing of ekiden season, the rest of the National Championships in the late spring, and next summer's Paris Olympics, it makes sense. NHKBS is broadcasting it live, with the men's race starting at 16:03 and the women's at 16:43. The 27:00.00 would be a stretch at this point for any of the Japanese men in the race, but one woman, former 5000 m NR holder Ririka Hironaka (Japan Post) has actually cleared the 30:40.00 standard before with a 30:39.71 at the 2022 Oregon World Championships. But that was before the qualifying window opened, so she'll have to try to continue to build back from the injuries she suffered last winter if she wants to hit the standard here. Her best this year is 31:35.12 at

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