Catherine Ndereba of Kenya - raises winner's trophy after historic fourth Boston victory (© Getty Images)
2003 World champion Catherine Ndereba and three-time winner Lidia Simon lead the field for Sunday’s Osaka Ladies Marathon.
With the personal best of 2:18:47 from the 2001 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, Ndereba is the fastest runner in the field. The Kenyan is one of the most successful Marathon runners in history, having won gold at the 2003 World Championships in Paris, and silver medals in both the 2004 Olympic Games and 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. A fierce competitor, Ndereba won the last two Boston Marathons, and has a slew of solid runner-up performances, including London and New York in 2003, and Chicago and Boston in 2002. Ndereba has not contested a Marathon in Japan yet, but she has run several Half-marathons in the country, winning the three of the last four Sapporo Half-Marathons. Most recently, she was second in the Sanyo Women’s Half Marathon on 23 December, clocking 1:11:13.
The next fastest runner in the field, with the personal of 2:22:54, is the Romanian Simon, the silver medallist at the 2000 Olympic Games and 2001 World Champion. Simon is very familiar with the Osaka course, having won three straight years from 1998 to 2000. Simon once held the course record of 2:22:54 set in 2000, a performance that is still the fifth fastest. Fifth in Osaka last year, the 32-year-old was 13th at the Miyazaki Women’s Half Marathon on 6 January.
The race will start and finish at Nagai stadium, the venue that will host the 2007 World Championships. The Marathon course for those championships is likely to be very similar to the course used for the Osaka Ladies Marathon.
Other invited runners from abroad include Dorota Gruca of Poland, who has a Marathon best of 2:27:46 from last year’s World Championships, where she finished 13th; and Anastasia Ndereba, a younger sister of Catherine’s, who has the Marathon best of 2:29:03 from the 2002 Venice Marathon. The younger Ndereba was ninth in this race last year, with a near personal best of 2:30:45.
The Japanese field may not appear strong on paper, but the field is loaded with runners who have shown high potential.
Kiyomi Ogawa, a relative newcomer to the long distance, has a 2:26:02 to her credit from the 2005 Nagoya Women’s Marathon, the sixth fastest marathon debut performance by a Japanese. Osaka will be her second Marathon. Another Japanese hopeful is Kiyoko Shimahara, who recorded two consecutive Marathon bests, 2:26:43 in the 2004 Tokyo Women’s Marathon and 2:26:14 in the 2005 Hokkaido Marathon. In Miyazaki, whe ran a personal best of 1:10:16 for the Half-Marathon. Both Ogawa and Asoshina are coached by Kunio Omori, considered one of the best distance coaches in Japan,
Kayoko Obata has a Marathon personal best of 2:25:14 from six years ago, but she displayed solid form with a near personal best at the Half-Marathon distance – 1:11:00 – also in the Miyazaki race.
Two invitation list includes a pair of debutantes, Terumi Asoshina and Mika Okunaga. Of the two, Terumi Asoshina is attracting the most attention. She has track bests of 15:22.51 in the 5000m and 31:23.55 in the 10,000m, and was 12th at last fall’s World Half-Marathon Championships in Edmonton. However, in her most recent race, the All-Japan Corporate Women’s Ekiden Championships, Asoshina recorded a modest 32:37 for the 10Km stage.
Okunaga was the winner of the Miyazaki Women’s Half-Marathon on 6 January 6, clocking a personal best 1:09:57, a 24 second improvement. She ran personal bests at both 5000m (15:34.07) and 10,000m (32:08.19) in 2005.
“All eyes will be on Ndereba this Sunday,” said Masatsugu Kaneko of the Sankei Newspaper, the race’s major sponsor. “Furthermore, we are also interested in the Asoshina’s debut as well as Ogawa’s second marathon.” With the World Championships in Osaka coming up in a year and a half, Japan is hoping for young marathon runners to inherit the mantle from likes of Naoko Takahashi and Mizuki Noguchi.
List of Invited Runners:
From abroad:
Name, Personal Best, Venue
Catherine Ndereba, (KEN), 2:18:47, 2001 Chicago
Lidia Simon, (ROM), 2:22:54, 2000 Osaka
Dorota Gruca, (POL), 2:27:46, 2005 World Championships in Helsinki
Anastasia Ndereba, (KEN), 2:29:03, 2002 Venezia
Japanese:
Kiyomi Ogawa, 2:26:02, 2005 Nagoya
Kiyoko Shimahara, 2:26:14, 2005 Hokkaido
Shiho Takai, 2:31:51, 2003 Nagoya
Asami Obi, 2:32:36, 2003 Nagoya
Kaori Oyama, 2:37:56, 2005 Osaka
Kayoko Obata, 2:25:14, 2000 Osaka
Terumi Asoshina, 1:09:54, 2005 All JPN Corporate Half Marathon Championships
Mika Okunaga, 1:10:21, 2003 All JPN Corporate Half Marathon Championships
Pace Makers:
Lidiya Grigoryeva, (RUS), 2:27:01, 2005 Paris
Natalya Berkut, (UKR), 1:10:26, 2003 Den Haag Half Marathon
Alena Samokhvalova, (RUS), 31:12, RUS NC 10000m
Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
