Skip to main content

Prague Adds Two Men To List of Olympic Trials Qualifiers




Five Japanese men including the top two placers at the 2020 Olympic marathon trials ran Sunday's Prague Marathon in a last shot at qualifying for the 2024 trials to be held on Oct. 15. Takayuki Iida (Fujitsu), Yuichi Yasui (Toyota) and '20 trials runner-up Yuma Hattori (Toyota) ran most of the way together on mid-2:08 pace, while Kyoya Tsujino (NTN) and '20 trials winner Shogo Nakamura (Toyota) fell off early. Yasui and Hattori began to slow after 25 km, but Iida held on for 5th in a PB of 2:09:34, the first time a Japanese man has gone sub-2:10 in the Czech Republic, and under the 2:10:03 he need to run to become the 66th man to qualify for the trials.

After 25 km Yasui and Hattori's projected finish time slowed 30 seconds ever 5 km, meaning Yasui would stay under the 2:11:12 he needed for qualification but that Hattori was right on the edge of his 2:10:13 qualifying time. Both kicked in the home straight, Yasui taking 6th in 2:10:33 and Hattori a step behind in 8th in 2:10:34. For Yasui that meant his name being added to the list as the 67th qualifier, but for Hattori, an agonizing 21 seconds short of what he needed, it meant no return trip to the Olympic trials and a hard road ahead to steal the third spot on the Olympic team at one of the domestic marathons next winter. Tsujino was 12th in 2:17:17 and Nakamura 24th in 2:26:14, both far out of qualifying range.



With the deadline for qualifying coming up on May 31 only two races remain where Japanese men and women can qualify, the May 21 Taiyuan Marathon in China and the May 28 Ottawa Marathon in Canada. It's not likely there will be any Japanese athletes in Taiyuan, but as of right now eleven Japanese men are entered in Ottawa. Nine of them will be trying to hit a two-race sub-2:10 average like Iida, Yasui, Hattori and Tsujino, and two a single race at 2:08:00 or better like Nakamura.

Athletes in red on the list of non-qualifiers are people who ran in Rotterdam, Nagano or Prague in hopes of qualifying but missed their time standard. The recent announcement that teams with at least one athlete in the Olympic trials will auto-qualify for the New Year Ekiden and National Corporate Women's Ekiden as long as they finish the regional qualifying races will give the men running Ottawa some extra motivation, as four of them are from three teams that have yet to produce a qualifier.






© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Ngetich Breaks CR, Murayama and Sasaki Make U.S. Debut at New York Mini 10k

WR holder Agnes Ngetich  soloed a fast one at the 54th edition of the Mastercard New York Mini 10k, leading inside the first mile and pulling away the rest of the race to run a 30:07 CR for the win, the fastest time ever on U.S. soil albeit on a slightly net downhill course. On a warm day that saw over 10,000 women finish  Tsigie Gebreselama  was on her own most of the way too, a distant 2nd in 30:53 and 17 seconds up on past champ Hellen Obiri . Further back, 2026 World University Cross Country bronze medalist Amisa Murayama  and 2025 Morinomiyako Ekiden 3rd leg CR breaker Nazuki Sasaki  from 2025 National University Women's Ekiden runner-up Tohoku Fukushi University  made their U.S. debuts. Murayama was targeting the fastest-ever Japanese time at the Mini, 32:37, but struggled on the hills just before 5 km and late in the race, fading to finish 23rd in 34:08. Sasaki, recovering from a stress reaction in her upper back a few months ago, ran a conservative ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Federation Tells World Championships Marathoner Horibata To Go On Diet

http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/sports/etc/news/20110307-OHT1T00258.htm translated by Brett Larner Having made the 2011 World Championships marathon team by running a PB of 2:09:25 to come in 3rd overall and as the top Japanese finisher at the Mar. 6 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, Hiroyuki Horibata (24, Team Asahi Kasei), talked to the media at Osaka Airport on Mar. 7. Following Sunday's race Rikuren director Keisuke Sawaki , 67, told Horibata, "Let's cut things down a bit until the World Championships," directing him to go on a diet. The 189 cm Horibata weighs 72 kg [~6'3", 160 lbs]. When he joined Team Asahi Kasei in 2005 at age 18 he weighed 65 kg, and this weight is still generally listed on his profile at races and in the media. "For some reason it never changes," he said with a grin. His coach Takeshi Soh , 58, commented, "If he was hungrier for glory his world would change completely," slapping the 'heavyweight division runner...
Post a Comment
Read more

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."...
82 comments
Read more