Japan-based Kenyans dominated at the revamped and improved Kumamoto Kosa Road Race across all three of its main distances. Agnes Ngetich from the Canon team got things started in the women's 5 km, blasting a 14:48 that left Japanese NR holder Nozomi Tanaka almost 40 seconds behind. Tanaka, whose 15:25 was technically a NR, was only 10 seconds up on Nanami Watanabe , who continued a good season with a 15:35 for 3rd only 1 second off Tanaka's previous NR iteration. Kosa's 10 km race has historically been for high school boys, but this year's race had an excellent field of corporate league runners. Triple Hakone Ekiden CR breaker Vincent Yegon , now with the Honda corporate team, won in 28:05 by 1 second over Festus Kiprono . Mangata Kibet was 3rd in 28:13, with Kenyans taking the top 6 spots. Top high schooler Mahiro Kubo from local Omuta H.S. ran a solid 29:58, good enough for the win a lot of years but only 14th against his older c...
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