Skip to main content

Yuri Yoshizumi and Ryunosuke Omi Win Again at 77th Fuji Mountain Race, Salt Lake City Olympics Gold Medalist Hoffman 2nd

 

The 77th running of the Fuji Mountain Race took place on July 26. In the long course summit race, 21 km with around 3000 m of climb from Fuji Yoshida city hall to the peak of Mount Fuji, Yuri Yoshizumi won the women's race in 3:13:08 and Ryunosuke Omi the men's race in 2:42:24.;

In the women's race, last year's 2nd-placer Rieko Koshi led Yoshizumi by 19 seconds at the end of the road section at around 11.5 km. But on the trail section after that Yoshizumi passed her and built a winning lead to score her sixth Fuji Mountain Race title since 2017. 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016 winner Mina Ogawa was 2nd in 3:21:44, with Koshi hanging on to make the podium again in 3:25:02 for 3rd.

Having won in his summit course debut last year, Omi was in the lead at the 11.5 km checkpoint. But by the Fifth Stage checkpoint he had been overtaken by Ruy Ueda and dropped two minutes behind. But Ueda, running the summit course for the first time, faded after hitting the steepest trail section and was caught by both Omi and Austrian Christian Hoffman. 49 years old, Hoffman was the cross-country skiing 30 km gold medalist at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and bronze medalist in the 50 km at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.

From the Fifth Stage to the Eighth Stage checkpoint Hoffman was a minute and a half faster than Omi, splitting an excellent 58:37, and closed to within two minutes. In the last kilometer from the Eighth Stage to the summit Hoffman outran Omi by 67 seconds, but Omi hung on to make it two in a row, even though his time was 53 seconds slower than last year's. Hoffman was only 52 seconds behind in 2:43:16, with Tatsuya Itagaki running down Ueda for 3rd in 2:49:59.

In the Fifth Stage short course race, 15 km with 1480 m elevation gain, Takako Takamura won the women's race in 1:41:44 with Sho Matsumoto winning the men's race in 1:26:53. Past women's summit course winner Yuri Kanbara was 10th in the Fifth Stage race in 1:58:06.

77th Fuji Mountain Race

26 July, 2024

Women's Summit Course
1. Yuri Yoshizumi - 3:13:08
2. Mina Ogawa - 3:21:44
3. Rieko Koshi - 3:25:02
4. Honoka Akiyama - 3:29:13
5. Chihiro Aibara - 3:32:33
6. Airi Sawada - 3:44:02
7. Mari Fujimoto - 3:52:01
8. Mami Saito - 3:54:43
9. Mai Funakoda - 3:55:23
10. Adeline Smirnova - 3:56:15

Men's Summit Course
1. Ryunosuke Omi - 2:42:24
2. Christian Hoffman - 2:43:16
3. Tatsuya Itagaki - 2:49:59
4. Kei Ikushima - 2:50:39
5. Taiga Yamaguchi - 2:51:02
6. Ruy Ueda - 2:51:32
7. Naoki Satani - 2:57:31
8. Toshiaki Murata - 2:57:40
9. Tsubasa Fuji - 2:59:37
10. Kensuke Yoshimura - 3:00:55

Women's Fifth Stage Course
1. Takako Takamura - 1:41:44
2. Yoshimi Tanaka - 1:44:01
3. Ryoko Tanabe - 1:46:47
4. Hiyori Hirata - 1:48:50
5. Yui Kamiya - 1:50:49
-----
10. Yuri Kanbara - 1:58:06

Men's Fifth Stage Course
1. Sho Matsumoto - 1:26:53
2. Shosei Habu - 1:28:01
3. Takamaru Kawasaki - 1:28:24
4. Hirotoshi Saito - 1:28:54
5. Hiroya Funamizu - 1:29:09

source article:
translated and edited by Brett Larner

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...

Kipyegon Repeats, Toyo Wins Hakone Ekiden Qualifier in First Appearance in 21 Years

Back for the first time in 21 years after a disastrous 14th-place finish at the 102nd Hakone Ekiden this past January, Toyo University hit one out of western Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with a solid win at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai, the half marathon that serves as the official qualifying race for the 103rd Hakone Ekiden. The top 10 teams in the Hakone auto-qualify for the following year, with the rest having to run the Yosenkai in October with a squad of 10 to 16 runners out of which the top 10 score on aggregate time, with the 10 fastest schools joining the Hakone field and top individuals from non-qualifying teams names to the Kanto Region Student Alliance select team to make up the complete Hakone field of 21. Driven in large part by an aggressive run from 3rd-year Yu Miyazaki , one of only 2 Japanese athletes to go with the big African contingent up front, Toyo won in 10:31:30, 1:03:09 or 2:59.6/km per athlete. As the first team to have broken the 3:00/km average pace barrie...

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...