Skip to main content

Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon Elite Field


The Feb. 1 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon is coming in hot this year with what's got to be a shot at the 2:04:55 Japanese NR. Up front is the king of this year's Hakone Ekiden, collegiate marathon NR holder Asahi Kuroda of 2026 Hakone champ Aoyama Gakuin University. Last year at Beppu-Oita AGU's Hiroki Wakabayashi ran a 2:06:07 debut to break the collegiate marathon record. 3 weeks later Kuroda bettered that with a 2:06:05 in his debut in Osaka. He comes in fresh off the greatest run in Hakone history, taking 2 minutes off Wakabayashi's CR for the massive uphill Fifth Stage in a run that Letsrun.com estimated was worth a 57:30-58:00 half marathon. Make of that what you will, if you accept 58:00 that's worth sub-2:02 in the marathon. Call it 59:00 and you're still talking sub-2:04. Can he possibly live up to the hype?

Beppu-Oita is basically not that kind of race, but looking at the rest of the front end of the field they've got to be thinking that way. 2:04:22 Kenyan Ronald Korir, Fukuoka International Marathon CR holder at 2:05:16 and AGU grad Yuya Yoshida, and multiple 2:06 runner, even pre-carbon shoes, Hiroto Inoue. Add the cream of the debuting people, sub-61 half marathoners Toru Kubota and Daiki Hattori, and 3 other members of AGU's 2026 Hakone roster, Shota Shiode, Kyosuke Hiramatsu and Shunya Udagawa, and it's going to be great.

There are a ton of others in the 2:06 to 2:09 range and debuting off 61-minute half marathons or 27-minute 10000 m times, and they'll pretty much all be going for qualification for the L.A. Olympic marathon trials to be held in the fall of 2027, because it's never too early to obsess over that. Basically they have to be in the top 6 Japanese finishers and sub-2:09:00, or sub-2:06:30. A 2:03:59 would let them bypass the trials altogether and score a place on the L.A. team, assuming nobody else beats their time before then. That wouldn't have seemed realistic pre-Hakone, but what's stopping Kuroda here? Gravity didn't at Hakone.

Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon Elite Field Highlights

Beppu, Oita, 1 Feb. 2026
times listed are athletes' best in last 3 years except where noted

Ronald Korir (Kenya) - 2:04:22 (Berlin 2023)
Yuya Yoshida (GMO) - 2:05:16 (Fukuoka Int'l 2024)
Asahi Kuroda (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 2:06:05 (Osaka 2025)
Hiroto Inoue (Mitsubishi Juko) - 2:06:14 (Tokyo 2025)
Mohamed Reda El Aaraby (Morocco) - 2:06:45 (Seville 2025)
Getachew Masresha (Ethiopia) - 2:07:04 (Dubai 2025)
Kento Kikutani (Toyota Boshoku) - 2:07:53 (Osaka 2025)
Takeru Yamaguchi (Suzuki) - 2:07:58 (Osaka 2023)
Mizuki Higashi (Aisan Kogyo) - 2:08:03 (Osaka 2024)
Taiyo Iwasaki (JFE Steel) - 2:08:25 (Osaka 2025)
Abe Gashahun (Ethiopia) - 2:08:35 (Riadh 2025)
Takashi Ichida (Asahi Kasei) - 2:08:57 (Chicago 2023)
Keijiro Mogi (Asahi Kasei) - 2:09:06 (Beppu-Oita 2025)
Kiyoshi Koga (Yasukawa Denki) - 2:09:22 (Gold Coast 2024)
Yota Ifuku (Sumitomo Denko) - 2:09:26 (Nobeoka 2024)
Yuma Hattori (Toyota) - 2:09:47 (Osaka 2023)
Asuka Tanaka (Runlife) - 2:10:02 (Fukuoka Int'l 2025)
Chihiro Ono (GMO) - 2:10:15 (Osaka 2023)
Hiroshi Ichida (Logisteed) - 2:10:21 (Tokyo 2025)
Wataru Tochigi (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 2:10:28 (Gold Coast 2025)
Ryoma Inoue (Chudenko) - 2:10:32 (Nobeoka 2025)
Sota Fukutani (Kurosaki Harima) - 2:10:46 (Osaka 2025)
Takanori Ogata (Toyota Kyushu) - 2:10:47 (Beppu-Oita 2024)
Takuma Takemura (SG Holdings) - 2:10:59 (Nobeoka 2025)

Debut
Toru Kubota (Honda) - 1:00:49 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2025)
Daiki Hattori (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:49 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2024)
Shota Nishimura (Aichi Seiko) - 1:01:08 (Nat'l Corp. Half 2025)
Hinata Shirakawa (Chuo Univ.) - 1:01:34 (Ageo City Half 2025)
Yuta Nakagawa (M&A BP) - 1:01:40 (Marugame Half 2025)
Shota Shiode (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:01:54 (Marugame Half 2024)
Kyosuke Hiramatsu (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:04 (Setagaya 246 Half 2025)
Kotaro Ito (Waseda Univ.) - 1:02:14 (Ageo City Half 2025)
Shunya Udagawa (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:20 (Kanagawa Half 2025)
Itta Tameike (Chuo Univ.) - 27:52.38 (Abashiri 2024)
Tomoki Aramaki (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 28:37.51

© 2026 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

 
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
What a great marathon this could turn out to be. Deep and with interesting field and debuts in addition to Kuroda.

Not sure if the translation was accurate but I think I read Hara advising Kuroda to aim for the 2.03.59 in Berlin (would check with Ota running Berlin after graduating too). Maybe he'll use Beppu like Brett suggested to qualify for MGC and aim for Berlin in September but NR could be on the cards right away if he hasn't had issues after Hakone. Safe to say it should be a great run.

Curious to see what the pacers and target time look like.
January 17, 2026 at 8:01 AM
Brett Larner said…
I'm sure it'll end up being something more like 2:05-06 here, but it'll be exciting either way. Hirabayashi had a hard time repeating his debut, but Kuroda doesn't seem to miss.
January 17, 2026 at 1:00 PM
Anonymous said…
2:05/06 sounds reasonable, i think Kuroda has an higher ceiling than wakabayashi/hirabayashi but its a marathon so we will see how it goes and it ll be a long season.
January 18, 2026 at 8:25 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

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

Goto Drops 2nd-Straight WR - National Championships Day Three Highlights

Just over a month since his 17th birthday, Taiju Goto proved his 48.31 U18 WR in the men's 400 mH heats yesterday wasn't a fluke as he bettered that in the final on the last day of the 110th National Track and Field Championships in Nagoya. Slow in the start, Goto picked up momentum coming up to 200 m before really getting into gear, pulling away from the rest of the field in the last 100 m to win in 48.09, another U18 WR, a new U20 NR, and a run that made him the first high schooler ever to with the Nationals 400 mH. Now only 0.20 off the senior NR, Goto joins the list of Rakunan H.S. talent to be re-writing the record books that includes Yoshihide Kiryu , Ryuji Miura , Keita Sato and Toshinari Takaoka . Another Nationals MR went down, this one in the women's 3000 mSC thanks to NR holder Miu Saito . Having taken 3rd in the 5000 m 2 days ago, Saito started out a little on the conservative side with company from last year's winner Manami Nishiyama in the first 1000 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Goto Breaks 400 mH U18 WR - National Championships Day Two Highlights

The performance of the 2nd day of Japan's 110th National Track and Field Championships came c/o the latest monster to come out of Kyoto's Rakunan H.S. , 400 m hurdler Taiju Goto . In the opening round heats Goto, who turned 17 last month, closed hard to win his heat in 48.31, a PB by nearly a second and the fastest-ever U18 time anywhere in the world. And at only 0.42 off the senior NR held by the great Dai Tamesue , there's a lot of optimism for more in the final and the rest of the season. Another great performance came in the men's 200 m heats, where Soshi Mizukubo moved up to all-time #2 on the Japanese lists with a 20.07 (+0.5) PB to win Heat 3, 0.04 off another antique NR held by another legend, Shingo Suetsugu . By comparison the 100 m seemed pretty tame, with veteran Shuhei Tada scoring his first national title in 5 years in only 10.17 (+0.1) in what seems like an off-year for the event in Japan. After leading the women's 200 m heats in 23.01 (+0.1) Abiga...
Post a Comment
Read more