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Kondo Runs Fastest-Ever Japanese Time at TCS New York City Marathon

Coming at a key point in ekiden season, few elite-level Japanese athletes run the TCS New York City Marathon, but this year 3 were on the line, 2026 Osaka Women's Marathon 6th-placer Rie Kawauchi (Otsuka Seiyaku), last year's Osaka Marathon men's runner-up Ryota Kondo (Mitsubishi Juko), and former men's NR holder Kengo Suzuki (Nike).

In the women's race, Kawauchi, a 2:24:16 runner, lost touch with the lead group before 20 km, going through halfway in 1:14:04 en route to an 18th-place finish in 2:31:29. Surprisingly, that was still the 4th-fastest time ever by a Japanese woman in New York, and the fastest since double Olympic medalist Yuko Arimori ran 2:31:12 in 2000.

In the men's race, both Kondo and Suzuki took turns surging to the front, Suzuki doing it early and paying for it with splits of 1:04:06/1:08:09, ultimately landing 23rd in 2:12:15. Kondo, whose Osaka run last year was a solid debut of 2:05:39, was in it til the end and made multiple moves over the last 10 km. He survived well enough to take 7th in 2:07:08, the first-ever Japanese sub-2:10 in New York and with a 1:04:09/1:02:59 negative split.

Kondo was almost 4 minutes faster than the previous best-ever Japanese time in New York, Masato Imai's 2:10:45 in 2013, and even Suzuki's 2:12:15 put him at all-time #7. With a seeded bracket coming to the New Year Ekiden it should free up people on the top teams like Kondo's Mitsubishi Juko to run fall marathons overseas, and New York is bound to be at the top of the list. Look for more additions to the all-time top 10 over the next few years.

text and photo © 2026 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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