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Osaka Marathon Elite Field

With 3 weeks to go the elite fields for the Feb. 22 Osaka Marathon are out. Given Osaka's history as the elite men-only Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon the women's field is small, with only one entrant, Sinhala Kureshi , having broken 2:21 with her 2:19:53 in Hamburg last spring. Afera Godfay , Mare Dibaba and Rose Chelimo have all run 2:21 to 2:22 in recent races, and Esther Chemtai is an interesting debut off a 1:08:09 at last fall's Cardiff Half. Kaede Kawamura is the highest-level Japanese woman in the field with a 2:25:44 in Osaka 2 years ago. Last year's men's champ and CR breaker Yihunilign Adane is back, his main competition being fellow Ethiopians Bute Gemechu , Mulugeta Asefa Uma and South Africa's Elroy Gelant . 4th last year in 2:05:58, Kyohei Hosoya leads the front of the super deep Japanese field along with Ichitaka Yamashita , Kenta Sonota , Kiyoto Hirabayashi , Yuhei Urano , Yusuke Nishiyama and Daisuke Doi . But where Osaka excels is in deb...
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Matsuo Breaks High School Half Marathon Record in 1:02:47

At the 48th Kanagawa Half Marathon at Yokohama's Nissin Olio Group's Isogo Plant, Jinya Ozaki (Teikyo Univ.) outran tough competition from National University Ekiden champion Komazawa University and Hakone Ekiden winner Aoyama Gakuin University to take 1st in the men's race in 1:02:04. AGU's Sho Fukutomi was 2nd in 1:02:07, with Komazawa's Rinta Muta 3rd in 1:02:08. High schooler Nichika Maeda (Miura Gakuen H.S.) took the women's race in 1:16:30. But it was another high schooler who made headlines. 3rd-year Koki Matsuo (Shiritsu Funabashi H.S.) ran 1:02:47, taking 28 seconds off the fastest half marathon time ever run by a Japanese-born high school student. Last summer Matsuo ran the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in November he went under 14 minutes for 5000 m, his time of 13:55.07 putting him into the top class of high school running. At last fall's Chiba Prefectural High School Ekiden Matsuo set a new CR of 2...
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Hirayama Strikes Again, Kabasawa Over Fuwa in Whiteout Conditions at National Corporate Half

With heavy snow hitting most of the country the National Corporate Half Marathon and 10 km in Yamaguchi almost dodged a bullet. Almost. It was -2˚ and windy at the start, but with sunny skies it wasn't too bad. The men went out 15 minutes ahead of the women on sub-61 pace with a massive pack trailing early leader Daisuke Shimojo (ND Software). At times snow was in the air, but even right up to the end the sun was still breaking through. From a few km out a lead trio coalesced of last year's winner Tsubasa Ichiyama (Sunbelx), Kenyan Boniface Mulwa (ND Software) and Taiga Hirayama (Konica Minolta), CR-breaking winner at the Osaka Half Marathon 2 weeks ago. Ichiyama made a break for it with 500 m to go, but on the track at the end Muluwa reeled him back it. Entering the home straight Hirayama threw down and passed them both, bettering his Osaka time by 6 seconds to win in 1:00:44. Muluwa was next in 1:00:45, with Ichiyama, in training for the Tokyo Marathon in 3 weeks, 3rd in...
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