Fatuma Roba (ETH) (© Getty Images)
Nagano, JapanMoges Taye and Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia easily won the sixth annual Nagano Marathon, today. Both ran the last part of the course alone, Taye having broken away from the men's leaders around 13.5Km, and Roba doing the same after 30Km in the women's race.
Taye - not bothered by the warm weather
Shigekatsu Kondo (the fastest Japanese runner in the field) initially led the race ahead of a chasing pack of seven runners - Josiah Thugwane, Adam Dobrzynski, Moges Taye, Alemayehu Simretu, Roderic De Highden, Satoshi Watanabe and Manabu Itayama.
By 8Km, the pack had caught Kondo, and this group of leaders stayed together until 10Km, at which point the 1996 Olympic Champion, Thugwane was the first to lose contact and he eventually dropped out around the 20km point.
The real racing started at 13.5Km when Taye started his break-away, and by 15Km the Ethiopian led by five seconds. Remarkably in the next 5Km his lead over Watanabe, Dobrzynski and Itayama grew to 33 seconds.
However, Itayama, a debutante, was the next to lose contact at 24Km.
Running the 5km between the 20Km and 25Km point of the race in 15:16, Taye increased his lead over his pursuers by one minute and 19 seconds, and although Taye started to slow down after 25Km, his lead kept on growing until 35Km, and he won easily in 2:13:09.
“It was a good race for me,” said the winner. “The road condition was also quite good.”
Interestingly Watanabe who finished third and was the first Japanese home, complained about the warm weather, while Taye was not bothered by it. As for the new course, Watanabe said, “It was less undulating (compared to the last year’s course) but because of the number of turns, it was hard to keep the rhythm going.”
Roba takes easy win – women’s race
In stark contrast to the fortunes of men’s 1996 Olympic Champion Thugwane who dropped out of the race, Fatuma Roba the women’s Olympic winner in Atlanta broke away from Russia's Alevtina Ivanova after 30Km and ran alone for the rest of the way to take an easy win in the women’s race in 2:28:05.
The race started with a lead pack of seven runners staying together through 10Km, out of which, eventually three leading runners – Ivanova, Roba and Asami Obi - emerged by 20Km.
By 30Km, Ivanova led with Roba just one step behind, and Obi was 34 seconds behind in third place. However, soon afterwards Roba made her move and broke away from Ivanova, and by 32Km, with 10Km to go in the race, Roba already led by 7 seconds.
Roba ran the rest of the race alone and won easily in 2:28:05 from 1992 Olympic champion Valentina Yegorova (RUS) 2:31:47, who was fifth at 30km and finished strongly. Ivanova faded to fourth 2:33.09.
“I am happy with my race,” said Roba. “The race started with the good weather but the temperature got too high during the race.” Unfortunately, Roba did not believe her time would be fast enough to win an Olympic marathon team berth.
In seventh, Russia’s Madina Biktagirova a former two-time winner failed in her attempt to win the Nagano Marathon for the third time.
Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
with assistance from Akihiro Onishi.
Results (weather partly cloudy 16.9C, 35% humidity, wind 1.1m/s east south east). JPN unless otherwise noted:
Men
1) Moges Taye (ETH) 2:13:09
2) Adam Dobrzynski (POL) 2:14:26
3) Satoshi Watanabe 2:17:33
4) Manabu Itayama 2:21:36
Women
1) Fatuma Roba (ETH) 2:28:05
2) Valentina Yegorova (RUS) 2:31:47
3) Natalya Berkut (UKR) 2:32:49
4) Alevtina Ivanova (RUS) 2:33:09
5) Asami Obi 2:33:34
6) Yoshimi Hoshino 2:37:48
7) Madina Biktagirova (RUS) 2:38:48
8) Shitaye Gemeche (ETH) 2:39:27
