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

Tokyo Marathon Preview

The Tokyo Marathon kicks off the 2026 Abbott World Marathon Majors this Sunday. The forecast is looking pretty good, maybe a bit on the warm side but not like last year or even last weekend in Osaka , and with quality fields in all 4 races there's a decent chance we'll see some fast times on Tokyo's borderline record-eligible downhill course. As usual, JRN's Brett Larner will host Nippon TV's international broadcast on local affiliates in 115 countries worldwide starting at 9:00 a.m. local time Sunday. Details on where to watch the broadcast here . A live leaderboard will be posted here on race morning. In the wheelchair races Switzerland's Catherine Debrunner and Japan's Tomoki Suzuki both broke the Tokyo course records last year and are back for more this year. Debrunner could get a race out of British athlete Eden Rainbow-Cooper who she beat by just 1 second in Berlin 3 years ago, and if they go the whole way there could be another new CR. Suzuki w...
2 comments
Read more

2026 Tokyo Marathon Elite Field

The Mar. 1 Tokyo Marathon has great fields this year, so let's get right to it. The women's field has 3 of last year's top 10, winner for the 2nd year in a row and Tokyo CR holder Sutume Asefa Kebede , 3rd-placer and 2025 Chicago winner Hawi Feysa , and 5th-placer and 2025 Berlin winner Rosemary Wanjiru , plus 2024 Valencia winner Megertu Alemu , 2025 Prague winner Bertukan Welde , 2024 Paris winner Mestawut Fikir , 2024 Osaka winner Waganesh Mekasha , former WR holder Brigid Kosgei , and a lot more. Japanese hopes pretty much go to all-time #7 Ai Hosoda , 2:20:31 in Berlin 2024 but who announced this month that she is retiring after Tokyo despite having qualified for the 2028 Olympic marathon trials with her 2:23:27 for 6th in Sydney last year. Other internationals include Canadian Malindi Elmore , American Sara Hall , a big Chinese group led by Yuyu Xia , Poland's Aleksandra Brzezińska and Australian Vanessa Wilson . The men's race has 5 of last year's top 1...
4 comments
Read more

Hassan Runs NR/CR for Osaka Win, Dibaba Hits Women's CR, Yoshida and Shuley Earn Legends

This was maybe the most entertaining marathon in years. After rocking the 2nd leg at last year's Hakone Ekiden Hibiki Yoshida (Sunbelx) ran an incredible 1:01:01 CR for the 21.9 km New Year Ekiden 2nd leg last month, equivalent to a 58:47 half marathon. That predicted a 2:03:27 marathon if he ever ran one, and when Yoshida announced he was debuting at this year's Osaka Marathon he wasted no time in saying it'd be a shot at the 2:04:55 NR. Things went out fast enough with a 14:50 split through 5 km, 2:05:11 pace, but Yoshida just couldn't hold back and took off at 8 km. He clearly DGAF about what was probably going to happen as his projected finish kept getting faster, 2:04:41, 2:04:15, 2:03:51, 2:03:40, edging closer and closer to what his New Year time predicted, but not helped along by the fact that he missed 4 out of his first 5 drink bottles. People laughed, and then cheered him on. 30 km was the first time he slowed, his finish projection dropping to 2:03:53, an...
4 comments
Read more