Skip to main content

Sasaki Wins Karatsu 10-Miler

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nsp/local_other/article/144411

translated by Brett Larner

The 55th Karatsu Road Race took place Feb. 8, starting and finishing at Karatsu Municipal Field in Saga.  Marathon national team member Satoru Sasaki (Team Asahi Kasei) took his first Karatsu win in the men's 10 miles division in 47:12, outkicking Masatoshi Kikuchi (Team Fujitsu) and Naoki Kudo (1st yr., Komazawa Univ.).  Yuka Takashima (Team Denso) won the women's 10 km divison in 32:33, likewise her first Karatsu title.  Kiyoshi Koga (3rd yr., Tosu Kogyo H.S.) won the high school boys' 10 km in 29:48, while Yuki Yokoishi (3rd yr., Shiraishi H.S.) set a course record 16:48 in the high school girls' 5 km.

The win gave Sasaki momentum in his bid for the Beijing World Championships men's marathon team.  Sasaki ran mid-pack in the lead group until late in the race, unconcerned when other runners started throwing in surges with 2 km to go.  His own move to the front came with just 1 km left.  "My experience in the marathon helped me not to do the work up front, instead just riding the flow," he said.  "That was pretty much the way I thought the race was going to go."  With a new 10 mile PB by 6 seconds he was more than satisfied.

At the New Year Ekiden Sasaki ran the longest stage, the 22.0 km Fourth Stage, where he was only 15th, but after running mileage on a tough course at a training camp in Ayamachi, Miyazaki in mid-January his condition began to pick up.  "My results today were in line with my training and confirmed that I'm in good shape," he nodded.

Sasaki's next race is March's Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon where he hopes to make the World Championships team.  Last year he was 2nd in the Karatsu 10-Miler in preparation for Lake Biwa, where he ran a PB 2:09:47 for 2nd, the top Japanese finisher and his first time sub-2:10.  "Things are moving along the same way as last year," he said.  "This year I want to run 2:08 and be the top Japanese man, and I think that will get me to the World Championships."  The 29-year-old captain of the prestigious Asahi Kasei team is clearly confident of his chances.

In the high school boys' 10 km, Koga struggled with brutal 30 kph north winds but still came out with a PB by 4 seconds.  Koga held back for the first 3 km before taking advantage of a slight weakening of the headwind to take control of the race.  "I didn't run the kind of time I was hoping for, but I did achieve my goal of winning," he said happily.  After graduating next month he will join Fukuoka's Yasukawa Denki team where he hopes to run the New Year Ekiden.

The high school girls' 5 km came down to a photo finish, both of the top two getting the same time of 16:48 but coming down to a ruling that Yokoishi had crossed the line first.  Despite having set a new course record Yokoishi was disappointed, saying, "My target time was 16:20, so this wasn't good enough."  Following her graduation she will join the Kyudenko team in Fukuoka, where she hopes to continue to grow as an athlete.

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