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

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
53 comments
Read more