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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I have been critical of the way Juntendo staff developed him after his 1st year and since he is still with the same staff I didn't think he could get this time by such a big margin.
He almost broke the NR a couple of months ago but then he struggled at some other races.
This time we saw the Miura we witnessed in his 1st year at Juntendo and in the first part of his second year.
Very good strategy during the race, not sure if on purpose but starting at the back, but with the pack scattered and in line had him able to keep a tight inside line for the first 1.5km and avoiding contacts and not having to run on outside lanes.
His form was under control most of the race and the last lap was a spectacular 58 seconds 400 that reminded me of his 1st year and half at Juntendo.
El Bakkali answered in amazing fashion after the last barrier, he is an olympics/world champion for a reason.
It's hard to convert steeplechase time to flat track time but Miura's 8.03 in the steeplechase could have translated to what on a 3000? Possibly around Osako's 3000 record or better? An intriguing thought I think.