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Evaluating the Japan Marathon Championship Series IV Awards

 

The JAAF held the award ceremony for its Japan Marathon Championship Series IV last night in Tokyo, the whole thing streamed live on Youtube. The two-year series, in this case running from April, 2023 to March, 2025, scores marathoners on time and place in domestic races and high-level international races, with athletes' two best performances combining to give them their series rankings. Series winners score guaranteed places on the 2025 Tokyo World Championships team, with the top 8 women and men earning prize money:

1st: ¥6,000,000 (~$40,000 USD)
2nd: ¥3,000,000 (~$20,000)
3rd: ¥1,000,000 (~$6,700)
4th: ¥800,000 (~$5,300)
5th: ¥700,000 (~$4,700)
6th: ¥500,000 (~$3,300)
7th: ¥300,000 (~$2,000)
8th: ¥200,000 (~$1,300)

Points for time are scored according to World Athletics scoring tables, with placing points based on races' designated level. Given the JAAF's financial interests in the big domestic races and the income stream from their TV broadcasts, the scoring system heavily incentivizes top Japanese marathoners to stay home and not race internationally by counting their Japanese placing for the domestic races but their overall placing for anything outside Japan. So, for example, despite running an all-time JPN #2 time of 2:05:12 for 6th in the Berlin Marathon last fall and 2:06:48 for 4th Japanese in Tokyo this month, Yohei Ikeda finished only 11th in the series because he earned about the same for the excellent Berlin performance, 1241 points for time and 50 points for 6th overall, as he did for the weaker Tokyo performance, 1214 points for time but 75 points for being 4th Japanese.

The only male athlete to have an international performance count in his scoring was Paris Olympics 6th-placer Akira Akasaki, whose 6th place there earned him 145 points versus 160 points for finishing 2nd in Japan's Olympic marathon trials. Only 3 of the 8 women had an international performance count, one of them being Paris Olympics women's 6th-placer Yuka Suzuki, who scored more for winning the Olympic trials in 2:24:09, 1191 + 105 points, than she did for finishing 6th in the Olympics in 2:24:02, 1200 + 70 points. Obviously there's a problem there.

Another is that the JAAF counted the 2025 Osaka and Tokyo marathons at a lower point-scoring level than the 2024 races. This meant that, for example, men's series 7th-placer Kenya Sonota scored more for being 2nd Japanese in 2:06:54 in Tokyo last year than series 8th-placer Tsubasa Ichiyama did for being 1st Japanese in 2:06:00 this year, 1212 + 160 for Sonota vs. 1227 + 140 for Ichiyama. Why? Don't know. But apart from the financial hit Ichiyama takes as a result, it also rewards athletes who performed earlier in the series over athletes who performed later. That's evident in how few of the series podium placers had 2025 performances score, 2 out of 8 men and 4 out of 8 women.

Women's placing scores were also lower than men's, probably to account for the smaller number of competitive-level women and to prevent lower-level athletes from breaking into the rankings by lucking into a high point-scoring place But while in relative terms it didn't really impact women's scores, just set them at a lower calibration, it did mean that times counted for more for women than for men, and that as a result competitive ability as measured by placing counted for less for them.

Safe to say it's not a perfect system. But it is a system that has its rewards. Series podium placers and the performances that got them there:

Women
1. Yuka Ando (Shimamura) - 2591 pt.
2:23:37 - 1st JPN, 2025 Tokyo Marathon - 1196 pt. + 70 placing pt.
2:21:18 - 1st JPN, 2024 Nagoya Women's Marathon - 1220 pt. + 105 placing pt.

2. Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) - 2566 pt.
2:24:02 - 6th, 2024 Paris Olympics - 1200 pt. + 70 placing pt.
2:24:09 - 1st JPN, 2023 MGC Race - 1191 pt. + 105 placing pt.

3. Sayaka Sato (Sekisui Kagaku) - 2553 pt.
2:20:59 - 1st JPN, 2025 Nagoya Women's Marathon - 1223 pt. + 70 placing pt.
2:24:43 - 3rd JPN, 2024 Osaka Int'l Women's Marathon - 1185 pt. + 75 placing pt.

4. Rika Kaseda (Daihatsu) - 2533 pt.
2:23:05 - 3rd JPN, 2025 Nagoya Women's Marathon - 1202 pt. + 45 placing pt.
2:22:11 - 3rd JPN, 2024 Nagoya Women's Marathon - 1211 pt. + 75 placing pt.

5. Mizuki Matsuda (Daihatsu) - 2532 pt.
2:20:42 - 6th, 2024 Berlin Marathon - 1226 pt. + 25 placing pt.
2:23:07 - 2nd JPN, 2024 Osaka Int'l Women's Marathon - 1201 + 80 placing pt.

6. Ai Hosoda (Edion) - 2517 pt.
2:20:31 - 5th, 2024 Berlin Marathon - 1228 pt. + 30 placing pt.
2:24:50 - 3rd JPN, 2023 MGC Race - 1184 pt. + 75 placing pt.

7. Kana Kobayashi (Otsuka Seiyaku) - 2483 pt.
2:21:19 - 1st JPN, 2025 Osaka Int'l Women's Marathon - 1220 pt. + 70 placing pt.
2:24:59 - 1st JPN, 2024 Hofu Yomiuri Marathon - 1183 pt. + 10 placing pt.

8. Natsumi Matsushita (Tenmaya) - 2454 pt.
2:25:10 - 4th JPN, 2024 Osaka Int'l Women's Marathon - 1181 pt. + 55 placing pt.
2:25:57 - 5th JPN, 2023 MGC Race - 1173 pt. + 45 placing pt.

Men
1. Naoki Koyama (Honda) - 2766 pt.
2:06:33 - 2nd JPN, 2024 Osaka Marathon - 1218 pt. + 160 placing pt.
2:08:57 - 1st JPN, 2023 MGC Race - 1178 pt. + 210 placing pt.

2. Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima) - 2761 pt.
2:06:55 - 3rd JPN, 2024 Tokyo Marathon - 1212 pt. + 135 placing pt.
2:07:23 - 1st JPN, 2023 Fukuoka Int'l Marathon - 1204 pt. + 210 placing pt.

3. Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) - 2746 pt.
2:06:54 - 2nd JPN, 2024 Fukuoka Int'l Marathon - 1212 pt. + 105 placing pt.
2:06:31 - 1st JPN, 2024 Tokyo Marathon - 1219 pt. + 210 pt.

4. Yuya Yoshida (GMO) - 2732 pt.
2:05:16 - 1st JPN, 2024 Fukuoka Int'l Marathon - 1240 pt. + 140 placing pt.
2:06:37 - 3rd JPN, 2024 Osaka Marathon - 1217 pt. + 135 placing pt.

5. Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) - 2681 pt.
2:07:32 - 6th, 2024 Paris Olympics - 1201 pt. + 145 placing pt.
2:09:06 - 2nd JPN, 2023 MGC Race - 1175 pt. + 160 placing pt.

6. Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin Univ.) - 2650 pt.
2:09:13 - 7th JPN, 2025 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon - 1173 pt. + 45 placing pt.
2:06:18 - 1st JPN, 2024 Osaka Marathon - 1222 pt. + 210 placing pt.

7. Kenya Sonota (JR Higashi Nihon) - 2641 pt.
2:08:52 - 3rd JPN, 2024 Fukuoka Int'l Marathon - 1179 pt. + 90 placing pt.
2:06:54 - 2nd JPN, 2024 Tokyo Marathon - 1212 pt. + 160 placing pt.

8. Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx) - 2618 pt.
2:06:00 - 1st JPN, 2025 Tokyo Marathon - 1227 pt. + 140 placing pt.
2:08:11 - 8th JPN, 2024 Osaka Marathon - 1191 pt. + 60 placing pt.

© 2025 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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