japan running news

The Fukuoka International Marathon is the traditional major player on Japan's December marathon calendar, but resting on traditional can only last so long. The Osaka Marathon , one of the world's ten largest mass-participation marathons, this year got into the elite game in a big way with its best-ever fields and a race date that put it head-to-head with Fukuoka. Bidding to get into the IAAF/World Athletics road race label game, Osaka brought in enough quality internationals to keep its mostly amateur domestic field off the eight-deep podium. Aberu Mekuria (Ethiopia) dominated the women's race with a 2:26:29 course record, more than two minutes ahead of Kenyan mercenary runner-up Monica Jepkoech (Bahrain). 2017 Osaka winner Yumiko Kinoshita (Japan) ran the second-fastest time of her career, 2:35:16, but finished off the podium in 9th. The men's race must have had the Fukuoka organizers sweating, as Ethiopian Asefa Tefera dropped a 2:07:47 course record for th...

Hot on the heels of the announcement of the field for the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon , the organizers of the Nagoya Women's Marathon have put out the entry list for this year's race, the last domestic chance for Japanese women to qualify for the MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials. With the impending imperial succession the Tokyo Marathon moves this year from the last weekend of February to Lake Biwa's traditional date of the first weekend of March, forcing Lake Biwa to move a week later. That puts it the same day as Nagoya, with Nagoya starting three hours earlier. Logistical challenges aside, Nagoya is set to be a big race. While 24 men have qualified for September's MGC Race to date, only nine women have done it. A few will be trying to make it in Tokyo, but dozens are lining up in Nagoya to try to pick up one of the six spots available for sure. The top three Japanese women will qualify if under 2:28:00, with up to three more qualifying if under 2:27:00. The...

by Brett Larner 2010 National Corporate Half Marathon champion Flomena Cheyech Daniel (Kenya) negative split her way to the win in the second edition of the Saitama International Marathon .  The four invited Africans and two pacemakers in the race went out on track to go under 2:22:30, but without even a single top-level Japanese woman in the race the leading Japanese contenders were out of it within the first km.  A familiar face in Japan, Amane Gobena (Ethiopia) ground down compatriot Atsede Habtamu and Monica Jepkoech (Kenya) over the first 20 km before Daniel in turn said goodbye after the 24.6 km turnaround.  From there on in it was a race against the clock, Daniel on track to go close to her 2:22:46 PB at 35 km but unable to keep it up alone.  Her time of 2:23:18 was a sizable new course record and one of the better times in her career.  Gobena, Jepkoech and Habtamu trundled in over the next 6 1/2 minutes, the top four the only ones to clear 2:30. ...

by Brett Larner In its first running last year the Saitama International Marathon tagged a small elite women's race, the descendant of the defunct Yokohama International Women's Marathon and Tokyo International Women's Marathon, onto a new 3500-runner amateur race.  Tokyo International was a high-profile, high-prestige elite event that served an important role in both the development of women's marathoning worldwide and Japanese national team selection.  The profile and prestige dipped with the move to Yokohama, its 2014 winner Tomomi Tanaka controversially left off the 2015 Beijing World Championships team, and both dropped again last year with the move out to Tokyo's northwestern suburbs in Saitama. Its legacy as the inheritor of Japan's premier women's race and nominal current role as a women's event are obscured by the co-ed mass marathon, local boy  Yuki Kawauchi proudly splashed across the Saitama website's top page for this year's...

by Brett Larner 2010 Nagoya International Women's Marathon winner Yuri Kano (Second Wind AC) was 3rd at the May 14 Grand Prix von Bern 10-Miler in Switzerland in her first serious race since pulling out of last month's London Marathon. Kenyan Monica Jepkoech and Hungarian Aniko Kalovics ran side-by-side throughout the race, finishing 1-2 in 55:55, while Kano ran a solo performance further back to finish in 57:25. Her teammate Yumi Hirata (Second Wind AC) started more conservatively and advanced through the field to finish 5th in 58:44. Kenyan Daniel Chebii took the men's race easily in 48:18. 2011 Grand-Prix von Bern 10-Miler click here for complete results Men 1. Daniel Chebii (Kenya) - 48:18 2. Abraham Tadesse (Eritrea) - 49:16 3. Alemayehu Wodajo (Ethiopia) - 49:16 Women 1. Monica Jepkoech (Kenya) - 55:55 2. Aniko Kalovics (Hungary) - 55:55 3. Yuri Kano (Second Wind AC) - 57:25 ----- 5. Yumi Hirata (Second Wind AC) - 58:44 (c) 2011 Brett Larner all rights reserve...