There were two big surprises at the Nagoya Marathon, the last Japanese selection race for the Olympic Games: Yurika Nakamura came through to win in her debut, while the national heroine Naoko Takahashi had a nightmare experience. Nakamura, just 21, ran 2:25:51 in good conditions and finished well ahead of her compatriots Yoshimi Ozaki (2:26:19) and Yuri Kano (2:26:39). The drama for Japanese marathon fans took place much further down the field of the elite women’s race: Takahashi finished only 27th in 2:44:18.
Nakamura ran a strong race. After the leading group reached halfway in a relatively slow time of 1:14:43, she took the initiative after the 30K mark. The one chance of qualifying for Beijing was to make the race significantly faster, and that’s what the 21-year-old did: “I kept up the pace because I thought, someone else could be coming up behind. I also knew that I had to run under 2:26,” said Nakamura, who now has a good chance of being selected for the Olympics.
Reiko Tosa is already guaranteed selection for Beijing because of her bronze medal at the World Championships in Osaka last summer. Equally sure of selection is the Olympic champion from Athens, Mizuki Noguchi, who won the Tokyo Marathon in November in 2:21:37. The selection committee has to decide now between Nakamura and Tomo Morimoto, who finished second in the Osaka Marathon in 2:25:34, for the third place on the team. She finished as the leading Japanese behind the Briton Mara Yamauchi. In Nakamura’s favor is that she won the race in Nagoya, albeit in a slower time than Morimoto.
The 35-year-old Takahashi was already off the pace after 9K in Nagoya. After her Olympic triumph in 2000 as well as her victories in Berlin 2001 (where she was the first woman under 2:20) and 2002, she suffered repeated injury problems and could never get back to her best form.
Results, Nagoya Marathon (Elite Women’s Race):
1. Yurika Nakamura JPN 2:25:51
2. Yoshimi Ozaki JPN 2:26:19
3. Yuri Kano JPN 2:26:39
4. Yumiko Hara JPN 2:27:14
5. Chika Horie JPN 2:27:16
6. Megumi Oshima JPN 2:29:03
Kastor, Carlson Take Windy Gate River Run
Deena Kastor won her 6th Gate River Run 15K and national title at the distance, while Andrew Carlson won his first national title at any distance, on any surface Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida.
Kastor, prepping for next month’s Olympic Marathon Trials, displayed her usual dominance in American-only fields. She ran 49:36 to finish more than a minute ahead of runner-up Katie McGregor. In essence, Kastor ran a time trial, because the elite women started 5 minutes before the men in the increasingly popular format of a race within a race between the sexes. In Jacksonville, the first to the finish was to win $5,000 in addition to the $12,000 first prize.
Last year, Kastor won the bonus, the first time in the event’s history the lead woman had not been caught by the lead man in the last mile. This year, however, Kastor was too drained from fighting winds that gusted to 40 MPH, and was passed by Carlson in the closing stages. Carlson had the benefit of a pack to fight the wind with, and he waited until late in the race to brave the conditions on his own. He ran 44:12 to defeat Dan Browne by 9 seconds.
How bad was the wind? At one point, Kastor was sprayed by water being blown off the river she was running along. Brain Sell, who will represent the U.S. in the Olympic Marathon this summer, finished fifth with cuts up and down his arms from a thorny bush that blew into him.
