Skip to main content

Yuya Yoshida 2:05:16 CR to Win Fukuoka International Marathon




Yuya Yoshida's story is really the kind you love to read. A guy who never got to run the big races at Aoyama Gakuin University until his very last chance his senior year, when he dropped a course record at the 2020 Hakone Ekiden in what he was thinking of as his last race. Then a 2:08:30 marathon debut for 3rd at Beppu on his coach's advice. Then a 2:07:05 win at the Fukuoka International Marathon later the same year after deciding to keep going and joining the GMO corporate team. A few years of setbacks, then a 2:06:37 PB in Osaka this spring. And now this.

A 2:05:16 CR for the win in Fukuoka, 1:02:58 at halfway and a smoking 1:02:18 mostly solo 2nd half, 2 seconds under the old record set back in pre-super shoe days in 2009 by the great Tsegaye Kebede. Really, what else is there to say? Yoshida was great. In the pack through 25 km, then throwing down at dropping 2:06:31 man Yusuke Nishiyama and everyone else except Israeli Tadesse Getahon, who lasted another 5 km before dropping off, then dropping out shattered and broken.

NR holder Kengo Suzuki blasted the last part of the old Lake Biwa course to run the NR of 2:04:56, so Yoshida was up against a pretty hard mark to crack. But 2:05:16 was enough to erase Kebede's CR and moved Yoshida up to all-time Japanese #3 behind only Suzuki and Yohei Ikeda, who ran 2:05:12 in Berlin in September. And it's not like conditions were that easy, windy, sunny, and warm outside the shadows. Only 5 people in the top 25 ran PBs, which makes Yoshida's run all the more impressive. That kind of speed in the 2nd half at the Tokyo World Championships, for which he became the 5th Japanese man to qualify, and it could get interesting.


Nishiyama, who missed the 2:06:30 Tokyo Worlds standard by only 1 second at the Tokyo Marathon in February, was 2nd in 2:06:54, missing out on qualification but pretty much certain to be in on rankings. Former Nihon University star Patrick Mathenge Wambui ran a PB of 2:08:28 for 3rd, with Kenya Sonota and Kohei Futaoka, like Nishiyama grads of Komazawa University, 4th and 5th in 2:08:52 and 2:09:46. Amateur Ryuichi Yoshioka ran a big PB of 2:10:50 for 8th, and further down the field Vincent Lam, coached by Paris Olympian Rory Linkletter, took almost a minute off the Hong Kong NR with a 2:15:31 for 16th.

Along with the small number of PBs, the massive DNF list, including almost every overseas runner on the invited athlete list and two-time Fukuoka winner Michael Githae, and Chinese NR holder Jie He running only 2:18:16 were other signs of how tough the conditions were. All Yoshida's best performances so far have been between December and February, and his two best marathons were both in relatively tough conditions. Let's hope he's got it in him to do the same in heat at the Tokyo World Championships next September if he's named to the team.

Fukuoka International Marathon

Fukuoka, 1 Dec. 2024

1. Yuya Yoshida (GMO) - 2:05:16 - CR, PB
2. Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) - 2:06:54
3. Patrick Mathenge Wambui (KEN/NTT Nishi Nihon) - 2:08:28 - PB
4. Kenya Sonota (JR Higashi Nihon) - 2:08:52
5. Kohei Futaoka (Chudenko) - 2:09:46
6. Vincent Raimoi (KEN/Suzuki) - 2:10:18
7. Bedan Karoki (KEN/Toyota) - 2:10:18
8. Ryuichi Yoshioka (Honda Tochigi) - 2:10:50 - PB
9. Kazuya Nishiyama (Toyota) - 2:11:33
10. Asuka Tanaka (RunLife) - 2:12:13
11. Shaohui Yang (CHN) - 2:12:38
12. Daisuke Doi (Kurosaki Harima) - 2:12:53
13. Yusuke Tobimatsu (Hioki City Hall) - 2:12:56
14. Kazuya Azegami (Toyota) - 2:13:17
15. Takuma Kumagai (Sumitomo Denko) - 2:13:29
16. Vincent Lam (HKG) - 2:15:31 - NR
17. Kiyoshi Koga (Yasukawa Denki) - 2:17:39
18. Jie He (CHN) - 2:18:16
19. Tomohiro Kaijo (Kanazawa City Hall) - 2:18:17
20. Jake Barraclough (GBR) - 2:18:28
21. Daigo Tomimura (Tokyo T&F Assoc.) - 2:18:35
22. Takeru Ikka (Jupiter RC) - 2:19:11
23. Naoya Sato (Miraspo) - 2:19:14 - PB
24. Tesfalem Weldu Dejen (ERI) - 2:19:45
25. Tomohiro Ozawa (Tokyo City Hall) - 2:20:26
-----
61. Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) - 2:26:00
-----
DNF - Yitayew Abuhay (Israel)
DNF - Naoki Aiba (Chudenko)
DNF - Tadesse Getahon (Israel)
DNF - Michael Githae (KEN/Suzuki)
DNF - Luka Musembi (KEN)
DNF - Tony Ah-Thit Payne (Thailand)
DNF - Ryu Takaku (Yakult)
DNF - Lemeck Too (KEN)
DNF - Bethwel Yegon (KEN)
DNF - Shuhei Yamamoto (Aichi T&F Assoc.)
DNF - Koki Yoshioka (Kyudenko)

text and photo © 2024 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