japan running news

by Brett Larner

Running as part of a corporate league overseas junket, 2017 National Corporate Half Marathon women's champion Ai Utsunomiya (Team Miyazaki Ginko) and other Japanese athletes at Sweden's Göteborgsvarvet Half Marathon were totally ineffectual. Utsunomiya had the best placing at 9th in 1:15:41, nearly eight minutes off Kenyan winner Fancy Chemutai's 1:07:58, with Yuri Nozoe (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) another minute behind.

Only a mid-63 runner, Ryo Hashimoto (Team GMO Athletes) went out with the lead pack for the first couple of kilometers before fading to 1:05:01 for 11th, nearly five minutes off winner Geoffrey Yegon of Kenya.  With a 1:02:01 best Shun Inoura (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) barely escaped being run down by women's winner Chemutai, finishing 17th in 1:07:26.

Göteborgsvarvet Half Marathon
Gothenburg, Sweden, 5/20/17
click here for complete results

Men
1. Geoffrey Yegon (Kenya) - 1:00:19
2. Amos Kipruto (Kenya) - 1:00:24
3. Leonard Langat (Kenya) - 1:00…

by Brett Larner

#名古屋ウィメンズマラソン
🥇キルワ 🇧🇭 2:21:17 =3連覇
🥈安藤 🇯🇵 2:21:36#nagoyawomensmarathonpic.twitter.com/aVP3sVJg2Q — EKIDEN_MANIA (@ekiden_mania) March 12, 2017
Rio Olympics silver medalist, two-time defending champion and course record holder Eunice Kirwa (Bahrain) brought the race of her career to the Nagoya Women's Marathon.  And she needed to in order to win.

Despite a fall at the start Kirwa was out strong, accompanied by the star first-timer of last year's Nagoya, Mao Kiyota (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC), her debuting teammate Yuka Ando, and the likewise debuting Hisami Ishii (Team Yamada Denki).  The 5 km split of 16:51 put them on track for 2:22:12, just under the JAAF's London World Championships auto-selection standard of 2:22:30, but when the pacers took it up to 16:25 for the next 5 km the pace got too hot for Kiyota and Ishii.

Kiyota made a few brave attempts to get back on board but quickly lost touch for good.  Ando, 10th at last year's Cardiff World Half Mar…

http://www.nikkan-gendai.com/articles/view/sports/199496/1

translated by Brett Larner

It's turned into an era when it's hard to break even 2:09.

On Feb. 12, Yuki Kawauchi (29), the top Japanese finisher in December's Fukuoka International Marathon at 3rd overall, set a new course record of 2:09:54 to win the Ehime Marathon for the first time.  Speaking of 2:09, in Fukuoka as well Kawauchi ran 2:09:11.  On the 5th this month Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon winner Kentaro Nakamoto (34) ran 2:09:32 too.  And the three members of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics team did it in the selection races.  Satoru Sasaki barely broke 2:09 at 2:08:56 for 3rd in Fukuoka, and Hisanori Kitajima and Suehiro Ishikawa ran 2:09:16 and 2:09:25 for 2nd and 4th at Lake Biwa.  Even in the Olympic season when marathoners' gaze is supposed to be loftier, that was all they could do.

Even though the world standard in the men's marathon is now at the 2:02 level, Japanese haven't run 2:07 in a domest…

by Brett Larner

Alongside Sunday's record-breaking marathon action, the weekend featured three high-level road races across the country.  In Yamaguchi, Ethiopian Abiyot Abinet (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) made a strong half marathon debut to win the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships men's title. Emerging from a lead pack of seven including Kenyans Macharia Ndirangu (Team Aichi Seiko), Charles Ndirangu (Team JFE Steel) and Daniel Muiva Kitonyi (Team Kanebo) plus Japanese men Taku Fujimoto (Team Toyota), Ken Yokote (Team Fujitsu) and Hiroyuki Ishikawa (Team Aisan Kogyo), Abinet ran the last two-thirds of the race alone to win in 1:01:21.  Fujimoto took 4th overall in 1:01:53 in the top Japanese position.  Kitonyi, Yokote and Ishikawa faded in the second half and were run down by 2014 National University Half Marathon champion Hideto Yamanaka (Team Honda) and Komazawa University graduate Shun Inoura (Team Yachiyo Kogyo) who set new PBs of 1:02:00 and 1:02:01.

The women'…

by Brett Larner

2014 Incheon Asian Games marathoner Eri Hayakawa (Team Toto) ran Sunday's Rock 'n' Roll San Diego Half Marathon, finishing 3rd in 1:14:10 behind American Rio Olympics marathoners Shalane Flanagan and Amy Cragg.  Japan's Eri Okubo ran into trouble early at Saturday's Stockholm Marathon, dropping out just halfway through the race.  Okubo started slow, averaging around 4:00/km through 15 km, before dropping to slower than 6:00/km through 20 km and then dropping out.  Jane Moraa Onyangi (Kenya) won the women's race in 2:31:46, with countryman Stanley Kipchirchir Koech taking the men's race in 2:10:58.

Ai Utsunomiya (Team Miyazaki Ginko) had more success in the Czech Republic, finishing 4th in the women's race at the Mattoni České Budějovice Half Marathon in 1:13:57.  Ashete Bekere (Ethiopia) won in 1:10:40.  Two of Japan's better male athletes, London Olympian Kentaro Nakamoto (Team Yasukawa Denki) and 2016 National XC Champion Takashi Ic…