Skip to main content

24-Year-Old Sano Wins Nobeoka in Marathon Debut

by Brett Larner

Screencap by @Nakajima_LA. Click to enlarge.  Many more screencaps on Nakajima's feed and on the Nobeoka Facebook page.

For the third weekend in a row Japanese audiences were treated to a great marathon broadcast as 24-year-old Hiroaki Sano (Team Honda) made a superlative debut Feb. 10 at the Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon in Miyazaki, outkicking 2009 Ome 30 km winner and fellow debutant Hirokatsu Kurosaki (Team Konica Minolta) over the final kilometer to win in 2:12:14, the 4th-fastest winning time in Nobeoka's 51-year history.

Perfect weather and outstanding mid-2:11 pacing by Ryo Kiname (Team Mitsubishi Juko Nagasaki) kept a large pack together near course record pace until Kiname's departure at 25 km.  Although the pace began to slip, the numbers up front thinned over the next 5 km before a surge at 30 km by full-time-working Sho Matsumoto (Dream AC) dramatically culled the numbers.  Three first-timers, Sano, Kurosaki and Kazuaki Shimizu (Team Yakult), and 2:13 man Etsu Miyata (Team Fujitsu) went with Matsumoto with a smaller pack a few seconds behind.

Sano and Kurosaki began to trade surges, eliminating Matsumoto and Miyata, but the remaining trio soon got company from another first-time marathoner, Tatsunari Hirayama (Team Yasukawa Denki). Sano and Kurosaki continued to trade the lead, but a decisive move from Sano with 1 km to go put him out front for good and he crossed the line 8 seconds ahead of Kurosaki.  Hirayama and Shimizu also broke 2:13, making four 2:12 debuts in the top four to continue the great momentum generated by last weekend's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon.  Of note: Beppu-Oita top two Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref.) and Kentaro Nakamoto (Team Yasukawa Denki) split 6:32 and 6:52 for the final 2.195 km in their duel.  Sano and Kurosaki went 6:31 and 6:40 in theirs.

Matsumoto held on for 5th in 2:13:38, a PB by more than 5 minutes.  A native of Miyazaki, Matsumoto attended a minor running university and ran the Hakone Ekiden once on the Kanto Region Select Team.  Now 27, he lives in Saitama prefecture and works full-time at a company in Shinjuku.  Nobeoka was his fourth marathon in 3 1/2 months following a 2:19:26 PB at the Oct. 28 Oikawa Marathon, a 2:18:59 PB at the Dec. 2 Fukuoka International Marathon, and a training run-effort 2:21:58 two weeks ago at the Jan. 28 Katsuta Marathon. All of which sounds very familiar.  It looks as though Japan may have another self-training, full-time-working independent from Saitama on the rise.

51st Nobeoka Nishi Nippon Marathon
Nobeoka, Miyazaki, 2/10/13
click here for complete results

1. Hiroaki Sano (Team Honda) - 2:12:14 - debut
2. Hirokatsu Kurosaki (Team Konica Minolta) - 2:12:22 - debut
3. Tatsunari Hirayama (Team Yasukawa Denki) - 2:12:38 - debut
4. Kazuaki Shimizu (Team Yakult) - 2:12:49 - debut
5. Sho Matsumoto (Dream AC) - 2:13:38 - PB
6. Etsu Miyata (Team Fujitsu) - 2:14:09
7. Yoshinori Sugimoto (Team Aichi Seiko) - 2:14:11 - debut
8. Keiji Akutsu (Team Subaru) - 2:14:46 - debut
9. Takuya Suzuki (Team Aisan Kogyo) - 2:16:17 - debut
10. Mitsutaka Imura (Komori Corp.) - 2:16:57 - debut
-----
12. Kazuya Deguchi (Team Asahi Kasei) - 2:17:59 - debut
18. Yukihiro Kitaoka (Team NTN) - 2:19:50

(c) 2013 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