Skip to main content

Kayoko Fukushi to Go For Third-Straight Olympic Double

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120530-959350.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The highlight of the first half of track season, the 96th National Track and Field Championships, is getting set to kick off June 8-10 at Osaka's Nagai Stadium.  Doubling as the Japanese Olympic Trials, any athlete holding an Olympic A-qualifying mark who wins their event at Nationals will earn their place on the Olympic team then and there.  The day after the Championships, June 11, the complete Olympic team apart from relay squads will be announced.

Having failed in her bid to make the marathon squad, multiple national record holder Kayoko Fukushi (30, Team Wacoal), will seek for her third-straight Olympic 5000 m and 10000 m double.  If she is anywhere near her normal strength there is almost no chance she will lose the 10000 m. If anyone can score an upset it will be Hitomi Niiya (24, Team Universal Entertainment).  In her 10000 m debut she won April's Hyogo Relay Carnival in a year-leading and Olympic A-standard 31:28.26, so she has the momentum.

The 5000 m won't be so easy for Fukushi to win.  Hard-finishing five-time 1500 m national champion Mika Yoshikawa (Team Panasonic) and 1500 m national record holder Yuriko Kobayashi (Team Toyota Jidoshokki), fast-starting Niiya and negative-split specialist Megumi Kinukawa (Mizuno) are all in the race, making for a wide variety of possible race patterns.  Altogether six women have the A-standard, making it almost as competitive to make as the women's marathon squad.

Defending men's 10000 m national champ Yuki Sato (25, Team Nissin Shokuhin) has the fastest PB in the field and is the favorite, but he currently only holds a valid B-standard (sub-28:05.00) time.  It's definitely conceivable that A-standard (sub-27:45.00) men Tsuyoshi Ugachi (Team Konica Minolta) and Chihiro Miyawaki (Team Toyota) could go 2-3.  That case will the Federation choose one B-standard man, Sato, or the two A-standard men behind him?  Olympic selection could get tricky.

Former Hakone Ekiden "God of the Mountain" Ryuji Kashiwabara (22, Team Fujitsu) ran 28:25.37 in May, close to his PB but still far from what the best Japanese athletes run on the track.  Kashiwabara said his goal for Nationals is "To break the B-standard and win."  If he manages that he could just make the Olympic team.

In the men's 800 m, Masato Yokota (24, Team Fujitsu) came just 0.03 seconds short of breaking his own national record two weeks ago with a 1:46.19 clocking at the Daegu International meet.  He has the B-standard, but if he hits the hoped-for 1:45.60 A-standard he will deliver Japan its first-ever 1:45.  Women's 800 m favorite Ruriko Kubo (23, Team Edion) had injury problems before the season but is still on a different level from any other domestic athlete.  Her goal is to become Japan's first women to go under two minutes and hit the 1:59.90 Olympic A-standard.

Check back next week for JRN's Olympic Trials previews and field listings.  Complete field listings in Japanese are available here.

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