Kenichi Takahashi wins the 2001 Tokyo Marathon, Naoko Takahashi sets a 30Km
national record.
K. Ken Nakamura for IAAF
18 February 2001 - Ken-ichi Takahashi won the 2001 Tokyo marathon with 2:10:51. In the 9th marathon of his career, Takahashi improved his Personal Best by over four minutes from 2:15:27, but he was visibly disappointed after the race.
Athough Takahashi is superb at shorter distances of half marathon (1:00:30) and 10 miles (45:48), he had yet to fulfil his potential at the marathon distance. His marathon best was only 2:15:27 from the1998 Lake Biwa marathon. Two years ago, in the 1999 Tokyo marathon, he led from 7.5Km to 31Km in very fast pace (1:01:46 for the half marathon, 1:29:39 for the 30Km) only to drop out before 35Km.
The annual Tokyo marathon is actually two separate biennial races. The race is run on the same course, but sponsored by two different set of sponsors and televised by two different TV stations, depending on even or odd year. This year’s race featured the Olympic marathon silver and bronze medallist - Eric Wainaina of Kenya and Tesfaye Tola of Ethiopia. They were joined by Tesfaye Jifar, another 2:06 marathon runner from Ethiopia. The 1999 Boston and New York marathon champion Joseph Chebet was scheduled to run, but he withdrew at the last minute with an ankle injury.
Among the Japanese, Ken-ichi Takahashi was anticipated to make a major marathon breakthrough. A few days before the race, Takahashi through e-mail said: "Two years ago in the 1999 Tokyo marathon, my problem was basically a lack of endurance. To remedy this shortcoming, I have increased my training volume without sacrificing the quality of my training.
I think that high volume training helped me in shorter road races earlier this year (at Marugame half marathon where he ran 1:02:29 as a training run and at the new year ekiden where he set a stage best of 1:01:36 for the 22Km stage). My goal for the Sunday’s marathon is 2:06." To further elaborate about his training, he said: "I have been pointing toward this race for over half a year. During the period I have been very careful with training. When I was tired, I did not push myself. I decreased my training load to facilitate recovery." Finally, discussing his race tactics for Sunday, he said: " I do not like running in the lead pack. If someone is in front, I have an urge to pass him. But for the Sunday race I will try to be patient and stay with the pack until 30Km."
Other top Japanese were Tsuyoshi Ogata and Tomonori Watanabe. Ogata who finished third in Marugame half marthon with 1:02:51 two weeks ago told Chugoku newspaper that he is in superb shape, and feel confident about his chance. "I want to go to Edmonton," concluded Ogata. In his third marathon, Ogata was expected to make huge improvement in his personal best which stood at 2:11:43 from the 2000 Rotterdam marathon. Watanabe who is coached by Soh brothers at the Asahi Kasei track team, recorded a marathon best of 2:09:40 at the 1999 Hofu marathon. He was reported to have completed 25Km training run in 15:12 5Km pace on February 7.
The race started fast under near ideal condition of 10°C, reports Toshiro Tazaki, a Japanese marathon expert. Elijah Lagat of Kenya covered the first 5Km in 14:47, and three Japanese - Ken-ichi Takahashi, Tsuyoshi Ogata, and Tomonori Watanabe were 7 seconds behind. However, although Eric Wainaina, Tesfaye Tola and Tesfaye Jifar all talked about lofty goals of running 2:05 and 2:04 marathon in pre-race interviews, they did not even attempt to match stride with the three Japanese runners. Wainaina reluctanly led the second pack most of the time with Jifar and Tola behind him. Lagat and three Japanese runners continued to run fast and was pulling away from the second pack. Lagat and Ogata passed 10Km in 29:33 while Takahashi and Watanabe was 12 seconds behind. Four runners passed 20Km in 59:42.
By the half way (1:02:58), the second pack was nearly two minute behind Lagat, Takahashi and Ogata. Of the three Japanese, Watanabe was the first to lose contact with the leader at 23Km. After passing 30Km in 1:30:02, Lagat dropped out of the race, thus leaving Takahashi and Ogata in the lead. At this point of the race, both Takahashi and Ogata were running strongly; 2:08 was a definite possibility. Takahashi as promised before the race, started his surging tactics in his attempt to leave Ogata behind. Ogata valiantly tried to stay with Takahashi; Ogata lost contact several times only to regain contact with Takahashi each time. But by 32Km, Takahashi was alone. Both Ogata and Watanabe paid dearly for the aggressive tactics, and dropped out of the race. It looked as if Takahashi was finally going to break a 2:10 barrier. Unfortunately for Takahashi, the last 5Km of the course is the toughest, because of the 30m climb from 36Km to 39Km. On the uphill Takahashi slowed down dramatically (30-35Km in 17:25), and by the time Takahashi returned to the stadium, his lead over second place Jifar was down to less than 200m. At the end, bitterly disappointed Takahashi won the race by only 100m.
Although he won one of the qualifying races for the World Championships in Edmonton, because Takahashi did not break 2:10 for the marathon, he was not selected automatically for the marathon team. He must wait until the Lake Biwa marathon on March 4, the final qualifying race for the World Championships marathon team.
Results: JPN unless otherwise indicated.
1) Ken-ichi Takahashi 2:10:51
2) Tesfaye Jifar (ETH) 2:11:07
3) Dmitriy Kapitonov (RUS) 2:11:09
4) Zebedayo Bayo (TAN) 2:11:12
5) Tesfaye Tola (ETH) 2:12:05
6) Kazuo Ietani 2:12:37
7) Artur Osman (POL) 2:13:22
8) Shinobu Minami 2:13:23
9) Michael Buchleitner (AUT) 2:13:28
10) Eric Wainaina (KEN) 2:13:38
On the same day in the 35th Ome road race in suburb of Tokyo, Olympic marathon champion Naoko Takahashi ran her second race since her gold medal run at the Olympic marathon. After finishing 8th in the Marugame half marathon (1:12:40) on February 4th, she went to Tokunoshima to train for ten days. Tokunoshima is where she trained to prepare for the 2000 Nagoya women’s marathon, an Olympic qualifying race last year.
Although she is still short on training, having only started training in late January, Naoko Takahashi set a new national 30Km road best of 1:41:57, far exceeding the expectations of her coach Yoshio Koide which was 1:50 for the 30Km. Although she improved official 30Km best of 1:43:26 by Eriko Asai, she was still far short of 1:39:02 she recorded during the marathon race in the 1998 Asian Games where she finished in 2:21:47.
Toshinari Takaoka wins Kumanichi 30Km
Also on the same day, another 30Km race was held in Kumamoto. In the 45th Kumanichi 30Km road race, Toshinari Takaoka who was 7th in the Olympic 10,000m in Sydney made his debut at the 30Km distance. After breaking away from Tomoo Tsubota, his final challenger at 28Km, he went on to win in 1:29:23. It was the third fastest time, behind a national record of 1:28:46 by Kazuya Nishimoto. His coach Kunimitsu Ito also recorded 1:29:12 in 1980.
Cloudy, 7C, 78% humidity
1) Toshinari Takaoka 1:29:23
2) Tomoo Tsubota 1:29:34
3) Satoshi Watanabe 1:30:02
4) Masayoshi Koide 1:30:55
5) Kanji Moriso 1:30:58
6) Shigeru Okada 1:30:59
