Skip to main content

Beppu-Oita and Marugame Lead Weekend Action

by Brett Larner

Another busy weekend is on the way, with the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon and Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon leading at least five elite road races nationwide. Despite a padding of aging veterans and the withdrawal yesterday of two A-list athletes, Beppu-Oita still sports what may be the best field in its 63-year history, from a domestic standpoint at least as good as what Tokyo has put together this year.  The fastest Japanese marathoner of 2013 with a 2:08:00 in Tokyo and a vocal critic of Beppu-Oita course record holder Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't), Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko) is back in Beppu for the first time since 2011 looking to eclipse the 2:08:15 record Kawauchi set last year.  His best competition comes form Mongolian national record holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir, a high-volume marathoner who beat Kawauchi to win the Hofu Yomiuri Marathon in 2:09:00 seven weeks ago.  If things go well and Bat-Ochir is fully recovered from Hofu the race should shake down to a head-to-head between these two.

Kenyan Jason Mbote has run 2:07:37 but has been closer to the just-sub-2:10 level for the last two years, positioning him perfectly for the other two top Japanese contenders, 2:09:55 man Masashi Hayashi (Team Yakult) and former Hakone Ekiden star Masato Imai (Team Toyota Kyushu).  More than a half-dozen others with times under 2:12 are also in the field with another half-dozen making their debuts, so there will be plenty of company in the second group and potential for someone to step up and challenge Maeda and Bat-Ochir in the front.  Worth keeping an eye on among the first-timers are Ryuji Watanabe (Team Toyota Kyushu), winner of this year's New Year Ekiden anchor stage, and 2004 World Junior Championships 10000 m bronze medalist and Athens Olympian Ryuji Ono (Team Asahi Kasei).  Click here for a more detailed field listing.

The Marugame Half has seen explosive growth the last few years, including 24 men sub-1:02 in its 2012 running, as it has grown into the tune-up race of choice for people running the Tokyo Marathon three weeks later.  2013 Fukuoka International Marathon winner Martin Mathathi (Kenya/Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) is the favorite for Marugame's 68th running, with competition from Amanuel Mesel (Eritrea), Jacob Wanjuki (Kenya/Team Aichi Seiko), defending men's champion Collis Birmingham (Australia) and 2:04:48 marathoner Yemane Tsegaye (Ethiopia).

This year Marugame counts toward selection of the Japanese men's team for March's World Half Marathon championships, so there is no shortage of top-level Japanese men either.  All-time Japanese #3 Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) leads the domestic contingent with a best of 1:00:53 as he prepares for a marathon debut in Tokyo at age 22, followed closely by #1 collegiate Kenta Murayama (Komazawa University), who cracked the all-time Japanese top ten last year in Marugame when he ran 1:01:19 at age 19.  Nine other Japanese men with bests under 1:02 are also in the field, including London Olympian Arata Fujiwara (Miki House) who is also preparing for Tokyo.  Most notable among the first-timers is Kenyan Daniel Muiva Kitonyi (Nihon Univ.), 2nd at October's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai 20 km in 58:00, while Murayama's identical twin brother Kota Murayama (Josai Univ.) will be running his first serious half marathon off a 59:17 for 4th behind Kitonyi at the Yosenkai.

With Marugame not counting toward women's World Half selection and the National Corporate Half Marathon Championships, which does, just two weeks later, the women's race is very thin this year. London Olympics marathon 7th-placer Jessica Augusto (Portugal) looks virtually certain to be set for the win, her best of 1:09:10 far ahead of anyone else in the race.  Of the others, only Berlin World Championships track runner Yukari Sahaku (Team Univ. Ent.) has broken 1:10, but with no quality performances on her record since Berlin Sahaku doesn't seem likely to be a factor.  Four other women have bests under 1:11, Eri Hayakawa (Team Toto) and Misato Horie (Team Noritz) having gotten there last year in Marugame and Yolanda Caballero (Colombia) a month later with a national record 1:10:30 in New York.  Worth a mention is 2012 National University Half Marathon champion Ayame Takaki (Meijo Univ.), whose solo 1:11:10 win to take the 2012 national title suggested she could step up to bigger things if she can find the same magic.  Click here for a deeper listing of the Marugame field.

Two other half marathons on Sunday feature decent numbers of collegiate athletes.  The 36th Kanagawa Half Marathon is the bigger of the two, with top-level Hakone Ekiden schools including Komazawa University, Waseda University and Aoyama Gakuin University typically fielding men each year.  Northeast of Tokyo, the Moriya Half Marathon, a frequent post-ekiden sortie for 2013 Hakone champion Nittai University, celebrates its 30th running.  To the northwest, Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) is back in action at the 81st running of the local Saitama Ekiden.  Check back throughout the weekend for coverage of all five races.

(c) 2014 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr