japan running news

by Brett Larner The 22nd running of the Hokkaido Marathon takes place on Aug. 31 in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Historically a hot race, this year's event comes just a week after the Beijing Olympics and features a relatively limited field. In the men's race, last year's champion Julius Gitahi of Team Nissin Shokuhin will return to defend his title. Gitahi, a track Olympian for his native Kenya, won last year's race in his marathon debut, running 2:17:26 in conditions of extreme heat and humidity. He went on to run 2:08:57 and take 3rd in the 2008 Tokyo Marathon. Gitahi's biggest challenger will be his Nissin teammate Yuzo Onishi, who set a personal best of 2:08:54 at the 2008 Biwako Mainichi Marathon. With the nearly identical times run by both athletes this year, the potential is there for a major duel between the two teammates. Other contenders in the field include 2005 Brecia Marathon winner Richard Maiyo (Kenya), 2006 Warsaw Marathon winner Vitaliy Shafar (Ukraine), an...

http://www.iaaf.org/news/kind=100/newsid=43380.html

by Brett Larner The Kyoto Prefectural team took the lead on the 2nd stage of the 26th All-Japan Interprefectural Ekiden , progressively widening its lead to take its 4th straight victory and break Kumamoto's 11 year old course record with a finish time of 2:14:58. The Interprefectural Women's Ekiden is held in Kyoto on the same course as the All-Japan High School Boys' Ekiden, covering the full marathon distance of 42.195 km in 9 stages. The event features teams made up of top runners from each of Japan's 47 prefectures and has an unusual format in that teams are made up of a mix junior high school, high school and university students running together with professionals and Olympians over appropriately-scaled stages. This year's race took place in cold, windy, intermittently rainy conditions. Mizuki Noguchi had a good start to the year by running a stage-best 31:53 on the 10 km anchor stage over an assortment of other stars including Yukiko Akaba to bring the Mie Pr...

http://www.iaaf.org/news/kind=2/newsid=42684.html#team+mitsui+sumitomo+again+gifu Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo won despite missing Osaka World Championships women`s marathon bronze medalist Reiko Tosa who has been suffering from assorted injuries since Osaka . This bodes ill for her recovery leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Similarly, Team Kyocera was missing its star runner Yumiko Hara who performed poorly in Osaka due to a leg injury. Hara is scheduled to run the Osaka International Women`s Marathon next month to attempt to qualify for the Beijing Olympics, but her absence here raises questions about her current fitness. It is also worth noting that despite most of the teams` best runners being Kenyan, foreign runners were limited to the 10 km third stage rather than being allowed to run the longest stage, the 11.6 km fifth stage. This type of restriction is also true in the men`s All Japan Jitsugyodan Ekiden. Complete results from the race website: http://www.tbs.co.jp/ekiden...

http://www.sanyo.oni.co.jp/sanyonews/2007/11/16/2007111608312197005.html Team Tenmaya`s Mika Hikichi is scheduled to run in the 1st of the qualification races for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Tokyo International Women`s Marathon on Nov. 18. Athens Olympics gold medallist Mizuki Noguchi (Team Sysmex) and former Japanese national record holder Yoko Shibui (Team Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) are the heavy favorites and expected to lead the way, but Hikichi is unconcerned. "I want to run my own race under my own power." At age 25, Hikichi is the youngest of the 5 elite domestic women scheduled to run. Hikichi`s preparation for this, her 3rd full marathon, has been steady and solid. She ran the Hokkaido Marathon on Sept. 9 as a training run for Tokyo, finishing 4th and running a tough 2:36:15 despite temperatures in the 30`s. Hikichi felt her time in Hokkaido was irrelevant. "The important thing I gained from that race was experience and confidence from running well in such ...