Olympic Trials Hopefuls Come Up Empty Handed at Ottawa Marathon

With the deadline for qualification for the Oct. 15 MGC Race Olympic marathon trials coming right up, at Sunday's Tartan Ottawa International Marathon eleven Japanese men took a last shot at joining the 67 men and 29 women to have already qualified. Depending on how fast they had already run inside the qualifying window each of the eleven had an individual qualifying standard to run, ranging from 2:08:00 to 2:11:30. But with the difficulties of doubling after having already raced in February or March, long international travel, and hot conditions in the last half hour of the race, none succeeded in hitting their qualifying mark.

Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Soft) and Ryo Osaki (Komori Corp.), who both ran 2:08 earlier this year and needed to run in the 2:11 range to make it, and 2:10 runner Chihiro Ono (GMO) lasted the longest, Takeuchi still on track at 35 km and Osaki and Ono right on the cusp at 30 km. But like winner Yihunilign Adane (Ethiopia), who dropped from 2:06 pace at 30 km to 2:08:23 for the win, all slowed. Takeuchi took the top Japanese spot at 7th in 2:14:04, 3:01 off what he needed to qualify. Bottom-ranked Japanese man Taiki Suzuki (Eldoreso) was next in 2:16:10 for 10th, 29 seconds ahead of the Japanese man with the fastest PB in the field, Kento Otsu (Sunbelx). Junnosuke Matsuo (NTT Nishi Nihon) was another 58 seconds behind Otsu in 12th.

Ono dropped to 17th overall in 2:19:02, Osaki fading even harder to 20th in 2:20:04 a step ahead of Akihiro Kaneko Comodi Iida). Kaneko's teammate Keisuke Yokota, who had come down with a mild fever the day before the race, dropped out at 20 km, while Mizuki Higashi (Aisan Kogyo), who likewise came down with a fever post-race, dropped out after 30 km. Hiroto Kanamori (Komori Corp.) and Tatsunori Hamasaki (Nanji AC) both managed to tough it out and finish but were run down by women's winner Waganesh Mekasha (Ethiopia) and both the 2nd and 3rd-place women.

Six of the men belonged to four teams, Komori Corporation, Sunbelx, Comodi Iida and ND Soft, that have not qualified any men for the MGC Race. Qualification in Ottawa would have guaranteed any of the six men's team's place at the New Year Ekiden in January, but having missed it means that all four teams will have to dedicate the summer and early fall to preparing for the early-November East Japan Corporate Ekiden regional New Year Ekiden qualifying race. "It makes an enormous difference," said ND Soft head coach Kiyohiro Watanabe. "We have to focus our entire summer training on East Japan."

But even though all missed their goals, all eleven Japanese men in Ottawa were satisfied with having taken a serious final shot at making the hardest marathon in the world to get into. "I'm disappointed that I didn't make it," said Takeuchi. "But I know that I couldn't have run any better today than I did. Hopefully I can learn from this and apply it to my races still to come."

Tartan Ottawa International Marathon

Ottawa, Canada, 28 May 2023

Men

1. Yihunilign Adane (Ethiopia) - 2:08:23

2. Gebretsadik Abraha (Ethiopia) - 2:09:14

3. Abdi Ali Gelchu (Ethiopia) - 2:10:39

4. Aychew Bantie (Ethiopia) - 2:13:12

5. Parker Stinson (U.S.A.) - 2:13:58

6. Felix Kibitok (Kenya) - 2:14:03

7. Ryoma Takeuchi (Japan/ND Soft) - 2:14:04

8. Daniel Mesfun (U.S.A.) - 2:14:30

9. Sydney Gidabuday (U.S.A.) - 2:14:48

10. Taiki Suzuki (Japan/Eldoreso) - 2:16:10

-----

11. Kento Otsu (Japan/Sunbelx) - 2:16:39

12. Junnosuke Matsuo (Japan/NTT Nishi Nihon) - 2:17:37

17. Chihiro Ono (Japan/GMO) - 2:19:02

20. Ryo Osaki (Japan/Komori Corp.) - 2:20:04

21. Akihiro Kaneko (Japan/Comodi Iida) - 2:20:05

27. Hiroto Kanamori (Japan/Komori Corp.) - 2:27:52

30. Tatsunori Hamasaki (Japan/Nanji AC) - 2:29:48

-----

DNF - Gadisa Shumie (Ethiopia)

DNF - Keisuke Yokota (Japan/Comodi Iida)

DNF - Mizuki Higashi (Japan/Aisan Kogyo)

Women

1. Waganesh Mekasha (Ethiopia) - 2:24:48

2. Malindi Elmore (Canada) - 2:27:45

3. Melat Kejeta (Germany) - 2:27:51

4. Aberu Ayana Mulisa (Ethiopia) - 2:30:58

5. Jacqueline Gaughan (U.S.A.) - 2:31:38

6. Ayantu Kumela (Ethiopia) - 2:33:37

7. Sarah Pagano (U.S.A.) - 2:33:53

8. Alyssa McElheny (U.S.A.) - 2:37:31

9. Tammy Hsieh (U.S.A.) - 2:37:44

10. Alexandra Hynes (Canada) - 2:46:43

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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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