MGC 2023 - Your 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials Viewing Guide

 

Could this be the biggest weekend of road racing Tokyo has ever seen? Maybe. Saturday is the qualifying half marathon for the 100th Hakone Ekiden. Sunday is the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon, but that’s just a minor counterpoint running simultaneously with the main event, the 2nd Marathon Grand Championship race, Japan’s marathon trials for the 2024 Paris Olympics. TBS will show the men’s race starting at 8:00 a.m. local time with streaming on TVer, which should be viewable internationally with a VPN. NHK is handling the women’s race ad-free at 8:10 a.m., with streaming on NHK+. You can try mov3.co/ntv and mov3.co/nhk too. JRN will cover it all live on @JRNLive.

Japan first held a single-race Olympic trials race in 2019 ahead of the home soil Tokyo Olympics, and it was the toughest marathon ever to qualify for. The basic standards were the same for women this year, sub-2:24:00 or two races averaging 2:28:00, but even tougher for men, sub-2:08:00 or two races averaging sub-2:10:00 versus 2:08:30 and 2:11:00 in 2019. But even so, the number of qualifiers doubled on both sides, with 29 women and 67 men getting in this time versus 15 women and 34 men last time. Out of those, 24 women and 61 men are scheduled to start on Sunday.

The top two finishers in each race will be on the Paris team. 3rd place will be provisionally listed, with the 4th and 5th placers named provisional alternates. For everyone else, this winter they’ll have the chance to steal the 3rd spot by being the fastest one under time standards of 2:21:41 and 2:05:50 at one of the major domestic marathons, bumping the MGC 3rd-placer down to alternate. 

Conditions are looking less ideal as race day approaches, the current forecast calling for 16˚C temperatures and heavy rain during race time. If the rain holds off it could be fast. If it comes down the way it’s looking right now, there could be some surprises.

The two fastest women’s qualifiers are both sitting the MGC race out, but all three members of the Tokyo Olympic team are in it as favorites. Mao Ichiyama (Shiseido) is top-ranked with a 2:21:02 last year in Tokyo, but has only run a 2:31:52 in Tokyo and a 1:10:23 win at June’s Hakodate Half Marathon this year. Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) ran a PB of 2:21:52 for 2nd in Nagoya this year and had solid training for the MGC race in St. Moritz. Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) was 3rd in Nagoya behind Suzuki in a PB 2:22:32, a great comeback after a rocky few years post-Olympics.

They’re the most likely contenders, with Suzuki and Maeda having the edge on Ichiyama, but they’re not the only ones. Ai Hosoda (Edion) and Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu) both ran sub-2:22 PBs in overseas World Marathon Majors last year, Kaseda in particular showing a lot of potential coming up through the ranks from national champion Meijo University. Yuka Ando (Wacoal) and Mao Uesugi (Starts) are both right there at the 2:22 level, and another two members of the Tenmaya team, Natsumi Matsushita and Mizuki Tanimoto, are at 2:23:05 and 2:23:11. Given history the smart money would be on at least one Tenmaya runner making it, but exactly who is more unpredictable than ever.

And if you want to talk unpredictable, let’s talk about the men’s race. The unsung catalyst of the 2019 MGC race, NR holder Kengo Suzuki (Fujitsu) tops the list but is almost completely opaque after a long comeback from injury, his only result a 1:02:46 for 7th in Hakodate in June. Ichitaka Yamashita (Mitsubishi Juko) and Kenya Sonota (JR Higashi Nihon) both ran 2:05 in Tokyo this year but are doubling at the MGC after crashing and burning at the Budapest World Championships in August. 5000 m NR holder Suguru Osako (Nike) is the only member of the Tokyo Olympic team to have qualified again, and he and Tokyo alternate Shohei Otsuka (Kyudenko) are 4th and 5th on the start list with 2:06 performances in the spring. With big question marks over the three ahead of them on the list it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see Osako and Otsuka go 1-2.

But this is Japan we’re talking about, and there are 17 guys right behind them with 2:07 times and another 27 at 2:08. Like always in these super deep shinkansen-style Japanese races, just about anyone could randomly pop off a good one. Eugene World Championships team members Gaku Hoshi (Konica Minolta) and Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) both stand out with 2022 wins to make the Eugene team, but while Nishiyama ran well there neither has done much since then. Hiroto Inoue (Mitsubishi Juko) ran 2:07:09 in Tokyo this year, the 3rd-fastest time of his career, but has a history of not running well when it counts. 

Sentimental picks would be veteran duo Naoki Okamoto (Chugoku Denryoku) and Masato Imai (Toyota Kyushu), but if we had to make one pick for serious darkhorse contender it’d be Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko). Akasaki ran only 2:09:01 for 8th in Fukuoka last December but has been extremely good since then, including a 13:27.79 5000 m PB in July and days later a 13:28.70 where he outkicked 3000 mSC NR holder Ryuji Miura (Juntendo Univ.) for the win. If it comes down to the same kind of close finish we saw at the MGC last time Akasaki has the wheels to pull off an upset.

But whoever ends up up front, both races are going to be deep and competitive, the crowds huge, and the TV broadcast the best in the business. And there’s one big improvement over last time: the top three placers will earn good prize money, not just an Olympic place and participation trophy. Here’s to progress and great racing.

© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved