Irish star Sonia O'Sullivan starts now also for Australia.
Traditional and high class marathons took place in Japan during the winter weeks. The winners in these elite only races all came from Africa. Last Sunday the Ethiopian Ambesse Tolossa won the Tokyo Marathon in 2:08:58 hours. Tolossa, who broke away at 36 kilometers, missed his personal best by just two seconds. Second in Tokyo was Toshinari Takaoka from Japan in 2:09:31. Before the race he had said: “I don’t believe that a 2:09 will be good enough to win this race.” In windy conditions he proved to be correct.
One week before a South African triumphed: Gert Thys won the Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon in 2:09:45 hours. Thys had won this race back in 1996 and is since then holding the course record of 2:08:30. The South African forced the pace at 30 kilometers and won with a winning margin of over two minutes ahead of Japanese Tomoyuki Sato (2:11:46). Kenyan Benjamin Kipchumba finished third in 2:13:11.
At the end of January the marathon world champion from Paris 2003 and Olympic silver medalist Catherine Ndereba (Kenya) had triumphed: In Osaka the 33 year-old Ndereba, who last year had won the Boston Marathon for the fourth time in a row, won with 2:25:05 hours. The Kenyan had a winning margin of 47 seconds. Japanese Kayoko Obata was second and Kiyoko Shimamura, also from Japan, third in 2:26:47. Catherine Ndereba, who with her personal best of 2:18:47 hours is the second fastest marathon runner of all times, was running a Japanese marathon for the first time.
Sonia O’Sullivan Now Australian As Well
In the meantime Ireland’s running star Sonia O’Sullivan finished only second at the Australian Commonwealth Games Trials, but hit the standard for the 5,000 meters. Just two weeks ago O’Sullivan got dual citizenship. Now she is hoping to be nominated for the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne this March. Eloise Wellings won the race in 15:28.72 minutes, while O’Sullivan beat the standard of 15:45.00 by just .74 seconds. Sonia O’Sullivan clarified that she has no intentions to compete at any championships for Australia when Ireland should be involved. In August she hopes to run the European Championships in Gothenburg for Ireland.
