Shikama and Kabasawa Take National Corporate Half Marathon Titles

Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed), Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) and Chikako Mori (Sekisui Kagaku) won close races to take the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships titles Sunday in Yamaguchi. In the men's race, Shikama was head-to-head with 2024 New Year Ekiden First Stage winner Naoki Ota (Yakult), the entire way, together at 5km, 10km, 20 km, and breaking away together from the rest of the front pack coming into the stadium. In a sprint finish both runners clocked 1:00:41, with Shikama taking the win.

Ota joined his older brother Tomoki Ota (Toyota) in breaking 61 minutes for the half, with Koki Kamata (Yakult) 3rd in 1:00:47 and the top 10 breaking 61 minutes. The third major Japanese half marathon in 3 weeks, depth was solid with 37 under 62 minutes, 85 under 63 minutes and 111 under 64. One prominent DNF was 2017 runner-up Joseph Macharia Ndirangu (Aichi Seiko), 14:47 at 5 km and 29:45 at 10 km but not making it to the 15 km mat.

The lack of top-level Japanese women in the race meant slow winning times, but it was still an exciting race between debuting duo Kabasawa and Mizuki Nishimura (Tenmaya). In the lead pack of eleven at 15 km, Kabasawa and Nishimura broke away together over the last quarter of the race, 11 seconds up on the competition together at 20 km. Over the final kilometer the more accomplished Kabasawa opened 9 seconds on Nishimura to win in 1:10:13. Yuri Karasawa (Kyudenko) was 3rd in 1:10:26, with eight women breaking 1:11:00.

The women's 10 km went out painfully slowly, the top 18 in the field of 37 starters jogging through 5 km in 16:54. The top 16 of them ran negative splits, with Mori having the fastest finish to win in 32:51 by 1 second over Mitsu Ozaki (Sysmex) and 2 seconds over teammate Rina Sasaki (Sekisui Kagaku).

52nd National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km Championships

Yamaguchi, 11 Feb. 2024

complete results

Men

1. Shunsuke Shikama (Logisteed) - 1:00:41

2. Naoki Ota (Yakult) - 1:00:41

3. Koki Kamata (Yakult) - 1:00:47

4. Soshi Suzuki (Yasukawa Denki) - 1:00:49

5. Daiki Hattori (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:49

6. Daisuke Doi (Kurosaki Harima) - 1:00:51

7. Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:54

8. Peter Kibui Wangari (NTN) - 1:00:55

9. Shunya Kikuchi (Chugoku Denryoku) - 1:00:57

10. Sota Fukutani (Kurosaki Harima) - 1:00:58

-----

25. Kazuya Nishiyama (Toyota) - 1:01:42

50. Shuhei Yamamoto (Team Nitro) - 1:02:09

75. Takuya Kumashiro (Sanyo Tokushu Seiko) - 1:02:42

100. Hiroki Tsujiyoko (Osaka Gas) - 1:03:32

125. Hayate Takeuchi (Fujisan no Meisui) - 1:05:35

150. Ryota Shimizu (Komori Corp.) - 1:07:20

-----

DNF - Joseph Macharia Ndirangu (Aichi Seiko)

Women

1. Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:10:13

2. Mizuki Nishimura (Tenmaya) - 1:10:22

3. Yuri Karasawa (Kyudenko) - 1:10:26

4. Rinka Hida (Daiichi Seimei) - 1:10:33

5. Yukari Nagatomo (Memolead) - 1:10:34

6. Moe Shimizu (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:10:37

7. Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:10:46

8. Toshika Tamura (Hitachi) - 1:10:59

9. Momoko Hanano (Hitachi) - 1:11:06

10. Kaho Horio (Route Inn Hotels) - 1:11:06

Women's 10 km

1. Chikako Mori (Sekisui Kagaku) - 32:51

2. Mitsu Ozaki (Sysmex) - 32:52

3. Rina Sasaki (Sekisui Kagaku) - 32:53

4. Chihiro Tsushima (Starts) - 32:56

5. Momoka Kawaguchi (Uniqlo) - 32:57

6. Miu Yagi (Iwatani Sangyo) - 32:59

7. Yui Fujimaru (18 Ginko) - 33:00

8. Marumi Abe (Uniqlo) - 33:16

9. Nana Ebisui (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 33:20

10. Yuna Arai (Sekisui Kagaku) - 33:27

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DNF - Kadogo Chebotibin (SID Group)

Osako Breaks Marathon NR for 3rd Time - Weekend Roundup

It looked like it was going to be a big weekend, and it delivered. For the 3rd time in his career Suguru Osako broke the men's marathon NR, running 1 second under the standing record to take 4th in the Valencia Marathon in 2:04:55. All the way to 40 km he was steady on 2:58/km, 2:05:10 pace, and like a surprising number of other people in both the men's and women's races, there was a massive jump over the last 2.195 km from his projected finish time to his actual one. His run put Osako back on top of the Japanese charts, put the average of Japan's 10 fastest marathon times of the year under 2:06 for the first time, and got him into the L.A. Olympics marathon trials. Valencia has been trying to get top-tier Japanese athletes to come for years, and now that they finally managed to do it it paid off in a big way. Expect more next year. Back home, former Takushoku University captain Derese Workneh won a 3-way race against Toyota teammates Kazuya Nishiyama and Bedan Ka...

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