Skip to main content

Waseda University 3rd-Year Yota Ifuku Breaks Nobeoka Marathon CR in 2:09:26 Debut

The Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon is the least well-known of the four big Japanese men's marathons in five weeks, traditionally a place for debuts and 2nd-tier talent. And for the second year in a row a debuting Waseda University runner took the top spot this time, Yota Ifuku making history as the first runner ever to break 2:11 in Nobeoka with a 2:09:26 school record for the win.

5th on the Hakone Ekiden's Eighth Stage for Waseda six weeks ago, Ifuku was at the front of the pack of 19 at halfway in an ambitious 1:05:02. Just past 25 km he took off with a 15:10 split to 30 km that put him out front by 28 seconds, then went even faster with a 15:06 to 35 km. With a 38-second negative split Ifuku broke the tape in 2:09:26, one minute 39 seconds under the older CR of 2:11:05 set by Yuichi Washio back in 2006.


6th on Hakone's competitive Second Stage for Toyo University, Ren Umezaki was 2nd in his debut in 2:10:19. Corporate leaguer Takashi Soma (Otsuka Seiyaku) joined Ifuku and Umezaki under the old CR at 3rd in a PB 2:10:46. Results were good far down into the field, with five of the top 15 running PBs and the other 10 all debuting at 2:15:11 or better.

Nobeoka only introduced a women's field in 2015, Saori Sugawa setting the CR of 2:44:40 in 2019. This year amateur Akiko Ogawa just missed bettering that record, running a big 1:15 negative split to win in 2:45:31 off a 1:23:23 first half. The top four were all under 3 hours, with a total of 22 women finishing the race versus 339 men.

62nd Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon

Nobeoka, Miyazaki, 11 Feb. 2024

Women
1. Akiko Ogawa (Koyugun T&F Assoc.) - 2:45:31
2. Reina Hayashida (Asahi Yukizai) - 2:50:57
3. Yuki Tomitaka (Izumo AC) - 2:56:14

Men
1. Yota Ifuku (Waseda Univ.) - 2:09:26 - CR, debut
2. Ren Umezaki (Toyo Univ.) - 2:10:19 - debut
3. Takashi Soma (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 2:10:46 - PB
4. Tatsuya Sumide (Aichi Seiko) - 2:11:29 - PB
5. Yuya Yamashita (Sunbelx) - 2:11:37 - PB
6. Takeshi Nishida (Toyota) - 2:11:41 - debut
7. Yuya Kawata (Subaru) - 2:12:31 - debut
8. Kira Migita (Toyota Kyushu) - 2:12:32 - debut
9. Shusei Ohashi (Kodaira T&F Assoc.) - 2:12:34 - PB
10. Takuma Takemura (SGH) - 2:12:39 - debut
11. Taisei Kato (Asahi Kasei) - 2:13:58 - debut
12. Suguru Otaguro (Nishi Nippon Tetsudo) - 2:14:18 - debut
13. Atsushi Yamato (Toyota) - 2:14:29 - debut
14. Yuta Suzuki (Yasukawa Denki) - 2:15:06 - debut
15. Kazuto Kawabata (SGH) - 2:15:11 - PB
16. Taiyo Watanabe (Togami Denki) - 2:15:40
17. Yusei Yoshida (Mitsubishi Juko) - 2:17:55
18. Tatsuya Yamamoto (Komori Corp.) - 2:18:22
19. Hiroto Uesugi (Soka Univ.) - 2:18:37 - debut
20. Ryoya Sakurai (JFE Steel) - 2:19:15

© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...
1 comment
Read more

Morinomiyako Ekiden Preview

The university men's ekiden circuit is 100% dominated by schools from the Tokyo-area Kanto Region, but for women it's more geographically diverse, the last two big dynasty schools being the Tokai Region's Meijo University and the Kansai Region's Ritsumeikan University with Kanto's Daito Bunka University a perpetual close 2nd at both of the main races, Sunday's Morinomiyako Ekiden and December's Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden . Last year Kanto's Josai University scored upset wins at both Morinomiyako and Mt. Fuji , to make it a rare Kanto sweep. At Morinomiyako DBU was 2nd yet again with Meijo 3rd and Tohoku region local Tohoku Fukushi University a surprise 4th to hold 2024 winner and top Kansai team Ritsumeikan back to 5th. At Mt. Fuji Tohoku Fukushi almost pulled off a shock win on the anchor stage before Josai came back on the final climb, bumping DBU down to 3rd and Meijo to 4th, with Ritsumeikan 5th there too. Fresh names at the top of the list a...
1 comment
Read more