japan running news

by Brett Larner 2015 Beijing World Championships marathon silver medalist Helah Kiprop (Kenya) delivered the outstanding performance of the 10th Tokyo Marathon , doing all she could to try to deliver a performance that would score her the win in the Abbott World Marathon Majors.  Leading a pack including two-time world champion Edna Kiplagat (Kenya), fellow AWMM title contenders Birhane Dibaba (Ethiopia) and Aberu Kebede (Ethiopia) and three other Ethiopians through halfway in 1:10:41, Kiprop kept it even and ground down the others, never really accelerating or losing pace on the hills in the last 6 km but dropping the competition one by one. All alone by 40 km it looked like she might take down the fastest marathon ever run by a woman on Japanese soil, Mizuki Noguchi 's 2:21:18 in Osaka in 2003, but despite coming up just short Kiprop succeeded in taking nearly a minute off the course record as she won in 2:21:27.  Runner-up Amane Gobena (Ethiopia), a frequent face i...

For Immediate Release NEW YORK, September 18, 2013 - A quartet of past champions— Kurt Fearnley of Australia, Edith Wolf-Hunkeler of Switzerland, Ernst van Dyk of South Africa and returning men's champion, Masazumi Soejima of Japan —will lead a powerhouse field of international stars at the ING New York City Marathon wheelchair race, it was announced today by NYRR officials.  Also announced were Canadian star and marathon all-conditions world record-holder Josh Cassidy , 2013 Boston Marathon men's champion Hiroyuki Yamamoto  of Japan and women’s wheelchair pioneer Louise Sauvage of Australia. They join a formidable lineup of previously announced USA contenders for the November 3 race, including reigning Boston and Virgin London champion  Tatyana McFadden , London Paralympic marathon gold medalist Shirley Reilly  and two-time New York City Marathon champion and course record-holder  Amanda McGrory . On the men's side, Josh George , ...

by Brett Larner World records fell in three of the five divisions of the Sept. 17 Beijing Paralympics Marathon on the final day of competition. The 95 athletes from the combined five classes began together in Tiananmen Square at 7:30 a.m. local time. First to reach the Bird's Nest were the men's wheelchair competitors, with ten athletes entering the tunnel in a dense pack. Defending gold medalist Kurt Fearnley of Australia, Japan's Hiroki Sasahara and South Africa's Ernst Van Dyk battled for the medal positions, with Fearnley and Sasahara clocking identical times of 1:23:17, a PB for the Australian and SB for the Japanese. Fearnley was awarded the gold in the photo finish, Sasahara receiving the silver and Van Dyk the bronze after finishing just one second back. Japanese athletes in the lead pack also finished 5th, 6th and 7th. Veteran world record holder Heinz Frei of Switzerland, now in his 50's, was 14th in a creditable 1:25:43. Next to finish were the women...