Benard Koech Clears Budapest 10000 m Standard Again

Benard Koech Clears Budapest 10000 m Standard Again - Weekend Track Roundup

The Night of the 10000 m PBs meet in the U.K. got most of the hype for good reason, but winner Paul Chelimo's 27:12.73 wasn't the fastest time run worldwide this weekend. That belonged to fastest-ever 10-mile man Benard Koech (Kyudenko). who won the Kyushu Region Corporate Championships 10000 m in 27:07.71. Koech had already cleared the Budapest World Championships qualifying standard with a 26:55.04 PB last October at Nittai University, but his season best run in Kyushu was enough to rank him 4th globally this season.

Between Kyushu, the Chugoku Region Corporate Championships and East Japan Region Corporate Championships, a total of six Japan-based Kenyans went sub-28. Ren Tazawa (Toyota) was the only Japanese man to do it, running a 27:40.40 for 5th at the Night of the 10000 m PBs that would have beaten everyone back home but Koech by 10 seconds or more.

Corporate Half champ Dolphine Nyaboke Omare (U.S.E.) had the fastest women's 10000 m between the three meets at 31:45.49 for the win in East Japan. Eva Cherono (Toto) took the Kyushu win in 31:57.62, with marathoner Mizuki Tanimoto (Tenmaya) beating the only other woman in the Chugoku Region race by 3 minutes to win in 33:09.99.

Amos Kurgat (Chudenko) and Hillary Mosop (Mazda) were the only men to go under 13:30 for 5000 m, both of them breaking the Chugoku Region meet record in 13:25.05 and 13:26.18. Most of the top Japanese men's 5000 m talent opted for the Golden Grand Prix 3000 m in Yokohama instead of the regional corporate meets, where indoor 5000 m NR holder Hyuga Endo (Sumitomo Denko) won with the 4th-fastest time ever by a Japanese man, a 7:45.08 MR. The top 5 were all under 7:50, with 2:06 marathoner Yohei Ikeda (Kao) running an impressive 7:50.39 for 6th. 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura returned to his main event at the GGP meet, winning 8:19.07 by almost 2 seconds.

Esther Muthoni (Nitori) led the top three women under 15:30 in the East Japan meet 5000 m, getting the win in 15:22.51 by less than a second over Tabitha Njeri Kamau (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo). Joan Kipkemoi (Kyudenko) took the Kyushu title in 15:35.95, beating a doubling Cherono by only 0.20. Rebecca Mwangi (Daiso) had the fastest 3000 m time in the corporate regional meets with an 8:53.16 to win the Chugoku title, but her teammate Teresiah Muthoni (Daiso) went one better with an 8:43.81 MR to win the Gold Grand Prix. 2nd-placer Rose Davies (Australia) and 3rd-placer Margaret Aikidor (Comodi Iida) ran 8:44.07 and 8:46.77, all three making the world top five so far this year.

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."...

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...

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