Skip to main content

Beijing World Championships Women's Marathon - Japanese Results

by Brett Larner

In a sight already familiar from the women's 5000 m heats and 10000 m final, the Japanese women ran up front together through most of the Beijing World Championships women's marathon, the slow early pace and low-hanging fruit of the JAAF's promise of a place on the Rio Olympic team to the first of them to make the top 8 combining to ensure they stayed near the front until things really got moving.  Mai Ito (Team Otsuka Seiyaku) was the first Japanese woman to go to the lead, joined in short order by domestic favorite Sairi Maeda (Team Daihatsu) and the controversial Risa Shigetomo (Team Tenmaya).  Apart from periodic surges at water stations by Mare Dibaba and other members of the Ethiopian team the Japanese trio led until well into the second half tailed all the while by rival Hye-Song Kim (North Korea).

Shigetomo, again followed by Kim, made the first real effort to get the pace moving faster after halfway, killing off the European members of the lead pack and sending Ito and Maeda to the back row.  Ito slipped a few meters behind and appeared to be in trouble, but on the uphill of an overpass it was Maeda who first really lost touch with the leaders.  A surge from 2014 Asian Games champion and 2015 Nagoya Women's Marathon winner Eunice Kirwa (Bahrain) dropped all the non-African-born contenders, leaving six up front with Ito leading a chase group of five.

Up front it came down a sprint finish with Dibaba taking gold in 2:27:35 a stride ahead of Helah Kiprop (Kenya), Kirwa consigned to bronze in 2:27:39.  Further back, Ito pulled away from Kim and the others in pursuit of Tirfi Tsegaye (Ethiopia), a straggler from the lead group, but could not close the gap.  7th in 2:29:48, she nevertheless cleared the JAAF's requirements and scored herself a place on the Rio Olympic team, along with men's 50 km racewalk bronze medalist Takayuki Tanii one of only two Japanese athletes to do it in Beijing.  Maeda overtook Shigetomo late in the race, 13th in 2:31:46 with Shigetomo 14th in 2:32:37.

The sight of the entire Japanese women's team frontrunning made for good TV for the home crowd and played to memories of the golden years, but ultimately the results were only passable.  In some events, say the men's 200 m or women's 5000 m, a top 8 finish by a Japanese athlete would be meaningful, but in the women's marathon where Japanese athletes have made the top 8 at every World Championships except 1983, 1987 and 1995, it was a virtual handout.  With the remaining two places on the Rio team to be settled between three domestic selection races the assigning of one place now leaves plenty of room for the same kind of chicanery that saw Shigetomo named to the Beijing team over Yokohama selection race winner Tomomi Tanaka (Team Daiichi Seimei).  The wisdom of this process and whether Japanese women will prove relevant in Rio either way remain to be seen a year from now.

15th IAAF World Championships Women's Marathon
Beijing, China, 8/30/15
click here for complete results

1. Mare Dibaba (Ethiopia) - 2:27:35
2. Helah Kiprop (Kenya) - 2:27:36
3. Eunice Kirwa (Bahrain) - 2:27:39
4. Jemima Sumgong (Kenya) - 2:27:42
5. Edna Kiplagat (Kenya) - 2:28:18
6. Tigist Tufa (Ethiopia) - 2:29:12
7. Mai Ito (Japan) - 2:29:48
8. Tirfi Tsegaye (Ethiopia) - 2:30:54
9. Hye-Song Kim (North Korea) - 2:30:59
10. Serena Burla (U.S.A.) - 2:31:06
-----
13. Sairi Maeda (Japan) - 2:31:46
14. Risa Shigetomo (Japan) - 2:32:37

(c) 2015 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

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

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

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