Yuri Kano of Japan winning 2008 Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon (© Victah Sailer)
12 March 2010The 2010 Nagoya International Women’s Marathon, the 31st edition counting from the inaugural race in 1980 as a 20Km road race (extended to the marathon distance in 1984), will be held on Sunday March 14.
The Nagoya Women's Marathon is an IAAF Silver Label Road Race.
This race, along with Yokohama Women’s marathon and Osaka Ladies Marathon held earlier, doubles as one of the selection races for the upcoming 2010 Asian Games marathon team. Naoko Takahashi, 2000 Olympic marathon champion, holds the course record of 2:22:19.
The co-favourites of the race are Yuri Kano, who has a personal best of 2:24:27, and Derartu Tulu, who was fourth at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. Tulu, of course, is the two-time Olympic champion at 10,000m as well as 2001 World Champion at 10,000m, and has a personal best at the distance of 30:17.49. Tulu, a three-time World Cross Country champion, is also the second fastest marathon runner in the field with the personal best of 2:23:30, which was recorded in Helsinki. Tulu has not run in Nagoya, but has run three times in Tokyo and twice in Nagano. Although she is one week shy of her 38th birthday on race day, Tulu can still win a big marathon, attested by her performance at in New York City last year. She won in New York with 2:28:52, her fastest marathon since finishing third in New York in 2005. Incidentally, in the same race, Kano was only ninth with 2:39:05.
However, Kano was seventh in the 2009 World Championships in Berlin two month earlier. Her personal best, 2:24:27, was recorded in the 2008 Tokyo Women’s marathon, the race which qualified her for Berlin. Looking over her marathon career, she has cracked the 2:30 marathon barrier in five of her seven completed marathons. She has run in Nagoya before, in 2008, and recorded 2:26:39, the fastest time recorded by this year’s entrants at Nagoya.
All Japanese invited runners, except for two debutantes and Akane Wakita, have run in Nagoya before. Hiromi Ominami, the fastest marathoner in the field, has run in Nagoya five times. Ominami’s marathon best, 2:23:26, was set back in 2004, however she has not broken 2:30 since 2007 Rotterdam. Okunaga, who competed here in 2007, twice ran 2:27 marathons in Osaka. Yuko Machida’s marathon career consists of four appearances in Nagoya, while Mayumi Fujita’s only marathon has been at Nagoya. Machida cracked the 2:30 marathon barrier twice, and Fujita once.
Akane Wakita has run only one marathon, in Osaka in 2009, where she was ninth in 2:31:16. After her debut, her coach, Yoshio Koide said to her, “You have run little faster than Q-chan (nick name of Naoko Takahashi, who was coached by Koide).” If you compare the career of Takahashi and Wakita, one sees a few parallels. Takahashi made her marathon debut at Osaka in 1997 where her time was 2:31:23, and ran her second marathon 14 month later at Nagoya in 1998 where she set a national record. Wakita is following a similar path. After debuting in Osaka, Wakita is running in Nagoya 14 months later. Wakita ran the 10,000m in the 2007 World championships, while Takahashi ran 5000m in the 1997 World Championships.
Two notable marathon debutantes, Yoko Miyauchi and Remi Nakazato, are invited. Miyauchi ran two half marathons – Miyazaki and Marugame - this year, finishing second in both. She set a personal best of 1:09:51 in Marugame. It should be noted that her twin sister made a marathon debut in 2009 at Yokohama and finished 8th with 2:32:30. Nakazato has a half marathon best of 1:10:03, recorded at the 2009 Corporate team championships. She was 16th at the 2009 World Half Marathon Championships.
The only invited runner from abroad who has run in Nagoya is Rose Nyangacha, who was 18th with 2:36:09 in 2005. Her personal best is 2:29:22 from Hamburg in 2007. Other invited runners from abroad are Lyubov Denisova, Wang Jiali and Tatiana Aryasova. Denisova has a marathon best of 2:25:18 from New York in 2004. More importantly, Denisova was consistently running sub-2:30 marathons from 2002 to 2006. Aryasova has higher potential. Her marathon best may be only 2:29:09 from 2008 but has a 31:04.88 best over 10,000m. Wang Jiali has run nine marathons, but has never competed outside of China. Incidentally, no runner from abroad has won at Nagoya since 1999.
Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
Invited Runners:
Derartu Tulu (ETH) 2:23:30 2005 WC Helsinki
Lyubov Denisova (RUS) 2:25:18 2004 New York
Jiali Wang (CHN) 2:26:34 2008 Zhengzhou
Tatiana Aryasova (RUS) 2:29:09 2008 Los Angeles
Rose Kerubo Nyangacha (KEN) 2:29:22 2007 Hamburg
Japanese
Hiromi Ominami 2:23:26 2004 Berlin
Yuri Kano 2:24:27 2008 Tokyo
Mika Okunaga 2:27:16 2009 Osaka
Yuko Machida 2:29:35 2009 Nagoya
Mayumi Fujita 2:29:56 2009 Nagoya
Akane Wakita 2:31:16 2009 Osaka
Yoko Miyauchi debut 1:09:51 2010 Marugame Half Marathon
Remi Nakazato debut 1:10:03 2009 Corporate team Half Marathon
