Skip to main content

Hokkaido Marathon - Preview

by Brett Larner

The 22nd running of the Hokkaido Marathon takes place on Aug. 31 in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Historically a hot race, this year's event comes just a week after the Beijing Olympics and features a relatively limited field.

In the men's race, last year's champion Julius Gitahi of Team Nissin Shokuhin will return to defend his title. Gitahi, a track Olympian for his native Kenya, won last year's race in his marathon debut, running 2:17:26 in conditions of extreme heat and humidity. He went on to run 2:08:57 and take 3rd in the 2008 Tokyo Marathon. Gitahi's biggest challenger will be his Nissin teammate Yuzo Onishi, who set a personal best of 2:08:54 at the 2008 Biwako Mainichi Marathon. With the nearly identical times run by both athletes this year, the potential is there for a major duel between the two teammates.

Other contenders in the field include 2005 Brecia Marathon winner Richard Maiyo (Kenya), 2006 Warsaw Marathon winner Vitaliy Shafar (Ukraine), and domestic runners Yukinobu Nakazaki (Team Toyota Kyushu), Kensuke Takahashi (Team Toyota Jidosha) and 2007 Osaka World Championships marathon team member Mitsuru Kubota (Team Asahi Kasei).

The women's race will most likely be dominated by Kenya's Alice Chelangat, the 2001 Milan Marathon winner who finished 4th in both the Dubai and Rotterdam Marathons this year. Chelangat's best time of 2:26:36 is almost three minutes superior to that of the next-fastest woman in the field, 1997 Hokkaido Marathon winner Chihiro Tanaka, but with Tanaka long past her best days it will be a race for 2nd behind Chelangat.

In contention for probable runner-up will be 2006 Hokkaido Marathon winner Kaori Yoshida (Second Wind AC), 2007 Tokyo Marathon winner Hitomi Niiya (Team Toyota Jidoshokki), 2007 Hokkaido Marathon 4th place finisher Mika Hikichi (Team Tenmaya) and Portugal's Fatima Cabral.

2008 Hokkaido Marathon Top Contenders

Men
Yuzo Onishi, Team Nissin Shokuhin - PB: 2:08:54 (2008)
Julius Gitahi, Team Nissin Shokuhin - PB: 2:08:57 (2008)
Yukinobu Nakazaki, Team Toyota Kyushu - PB: 2:09:28 (2004)
Richard Maiyo, Kenya - PB: 2:09:47 (2004)
Kensuke Takahashi, Team Toyota Jidosha - PB: 2:11:52 (2007)
Vitaliy Shafar, Ukraine - PB: 2:12:07 (2007)
Yusuke Kataoka, Team Otsuka Seiyaku - PB: 2:12:28 (2007)
Tomoya Shimizu, Team Asahi Kasei - PB: 2:12:31 (2006)
Mitsuru Kubota, Team Asahi Kasei - PB: 2:12:50 (2007)
Masaru Takamisawa, Saku Chosei H.S. Teachers' Club - PB: 2:14:57 (2008)
Kenichiro Kawazu, Team NTN - PB: 2:17:16 (2008)

Women
Alice Chelangat, Kenya - PB: 2:26:36 (2001)
Chihiro Tanaka, Team Daitsu - PB: 2:29:30 (2002)
Kaori Yoshida, Second Wind AC - PB: 2:30:58 (2008)
Hitomi Niiya, Team Toyota Jidoshokki - PB: 2:31:01 (2007)
Mika Hikichi, Team Tenmaya - PB: 2:31:03 (2006)
Fatima Cabral, Portugal - PB: 2:33:02 (2003)
Shigeko Yanagita, Team Nanchiku - PB: 2:39:20 (2007)

A complete listing of the elite field for the 2008 Hokkaido Marathon can be found here.

(c) 2008 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