Start of the new Tokyo Marathon © www.photorun.net
Daniel Njenga has won the new Tokyo Marathon. The 30-year-old Kenyan crossed the line in 2:09:45, well ahead of Tomoyuki Sato of Japan, who ran 2:11:22. Another Japanese, Satoshi Irifune (2:12:44), took third place. In wet weather conditions, Njenga, who has a personal best of 2:06:16, broke away from the leading group at 25K.
The Tokyo Marathon has been run every year since 1981. But until now the race, as with so many marathons in Japan, consisted of an elite men’s competition. Now the organizers have turned it into a mass event which, with 25,000 participants, has become not only the biggest Japanese marathon, but one of the biggest in the world. The course passes plenty of notable landmarks in Japan’s capital city. Certainly the new Tokyo Marathon can’t yet be fully compared with the major international marathons. As far as the elite field was concerned, there were only men on the start line. The reason for this was that there is still a Tokyo Marathon for elite women every November. This race is, moreover, put together by other organizers. Nonetheless, the fastest woman on Sunday was far from slow: Japan’s Hitomi Niiya ran her debut and clocked 2:31:02.
For the best Japanese men, Sunday in Tokyo was also about qualifying for the World Championships in Osaka. Because Sato has not met the required time of 2:09:30, it is not yet decided if he will be nominated for the World Championships.
Kenenisa Bekele runs World Indoor Record for 2,000m in Birmingham
Kenenisa Bekele has broken another world record held by the man in whose footsteps he’s following: the 24-year-old Ethiopian ran at a high-quality meeting in Birmingham, where the European Indoor Championships will take place in two weeks, 4:49.99 for the rarely run distance of 2,000m. That made Bekele almost three seconds faster than his well-known compatriot Haile Gebrselassie, who ran 4:52.86 in Birmingham nine years ago.
“I knew beforehand that I would break the record because I had trained very well,” explained the Olympic 10,000m champion, who will be racing over 3,000m in Stockholm on Tuesday. There he’ll try to break the world indoor record of the Kenyan Daniel Komen (7:24.90).
Bernard Lagat also showed he was in top form in Birmingham. The former Kenyan, now running for the U.S., broke the American record for 3,000m with 7:32.43. That made him the fourth fastest runner of all-time indoors for the distance.
Jo Pavey missed by a long way the announced attempt on the world two-mile record. The 33-year-old Brit won the race in 9:32.00, which was nonetheless a Commonwealth record. Regina Jacobs (U.S.) still holds the record for the distance with 9:23.38.
