Skip to main content

Chanchima and Insermu Win Nagano Marathon

by Brett Larner

Strong winds and off-and-on rain throughout the area made for two of the slowest winning times in the Nagano Marathon's 18-year history as Kenya's Jairus Chanchima and Ethiopia's Shasho Insermu won Sunday's race in 2:15:31 and 2:34:19.

A slow start in the men's race kept a large lead group together for the first 25 km before Chanchima went to work.  Returning to Nagano after dropping out mid-race last year, Chanchima put on a solo surge from 25 to 30 km that put him 38 seconds ahead of the rest of the lead group.  From there Chanchima tucked in and cruised on unthreatened, Japan-based Mongolian national record holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Team NTN) closing the gap slightly but never coming in range of the win.  Chanchima's winning time of 2:15:31 was the slowest in Nagano Marathon history, over a minute behind Yuki Kawauchi's 2013 winning time of 2:14:27 in heavy snow.  Bat-Ochir was 25 seconds back in 2:15:56 for 2nd, with Taiga Ito (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) running 2:16:32 for 3rd and top Japanese honors.

The women's race also started slow, but after just 10 km it quickly evolved in a duel between Isermu and Gladys Tejeda, the Peruvian stripped of her gold medal at last summer's Pan-Am Games for a positive drug test and promptly invited to Nagano by race organizers to make an early post-suspension return to the marathon.  By 15 km the pair was more than 30 seconds ahead of its nearest competition, and over the next 5 km Tejeda broke free of Insermu to go it alone.  By 35 km Tejeda was 58 seconds ahead, but with a combination of too much too soon and a strong finish from Insermu it wasn't to be.  Cutting Tejeda's lead down to 19 seconds by 40 km, Insermu flew by to win in 2:34:19, the second-slowest time in Nagano Marathon history.  Completely spent, Tejeda shuffled in for 2nd in 2:34:54, sparing Nagano organizers the headlines and questions about their laxity in inviting an athlete fresh off a drug suspension that would have happened had she won.  Another athlete with a recent suspension behind her, Japan's own Kaori Yoshida (Runners Pulse) took 3rd in 2:35:14.

18th Nagano Marathon
Nagano, 4/17/16
click here for complete results

Men
1. Jairus Chanchima (Kenya) - 2:15:31
2. Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/NTN) - 2:15:56
3. Taiga Ito (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 2:16:32
4. Laban Mutai (Kenya) - 2:16:53
5. Fabiano Joseph (Tanzania) - 2:17:35
6. Shoji Takada (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) - 2:18:14
7. Kazuya Ishida (Nishitetsu) - 2:18:21
8. Kinya Hashira (Police Dep't) - 2:18:42
-----
DNF - Harry Summers (Australia)

Women
1. Shasho Insermu (Ethiopia) - 2:34:19
2. Gladys Tejeda (Peru) - 2:34:54
3. Kaori Yoshida (Runners Pulse) - 2:35:14
4. Winfreidah Kebaso (Kenya/Nittori) - 2:40:23
5. Hellen Mugo (Kenya) - 2:43:02
6. Seika Iwamura (Edion) - 2:48:20

© 2016 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ivy League at the Izumo Ekiden in Review

Last week I was contacted by Will Geiken , who I'd met years ago when he was a part of the Ivy League Select Team at the Izumo Ekiden . He was looking for historical results from Izumo and lists of past team members, and I was able to put together a pretty much complete history, only missing the alternates from 1998 to 2010 and a little shaky on the reverse transliterations of some of the names from katakana back into the Western alphabet for the same years. Feel free to send corrections or additions to alternate lists. It's interesting to go back and see some names that went on to be familiar, to see the people who made an impact like Princeton's Paul Morrison , Cornell's Max King , Stanford's Brendan Gregg in one of the years the team opened up beyond the Ivy League, Cornell's Ben de Haan , Princeton's Matt McDonald , and Harvard's Hugo Milner last year, and some of the people who struggled with the format. 1998 Team: 15th of 21 overall, 2:14:10 (43
Post a Comment
Read more

Hirabayashi Runs PB at Shanghai Half, WR Holder Nakata Dominates Fuji Five Lakes - Weekend Road Roundup

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half
Post a Comment
Read more