Skip to main content

Miyuki Uehara Ends 2017 Ranked #1 in Japan

After becoming only the second Japanese in woman in history to make an Olympic 5000 m final last year in Rio Miyuki Uehara (Daiichi Seimei) was a slow burner in 2017, absent any flashes of particular brilliance but putting together a string of strong performances capped by a year-leading half marathon in late December that put her atop the women’s rankings.


Uehara took 3rd in the 10000 m at June’s National Championships in 31:48.81, qualifying for the London World Championships where she was 24th in 32:31.58. In between she dropped her best 5000 m of the year, a 15:32.25 in Abashiri. During ekiden season she was only OK, finishing 5th on her stage at the National Corporate Women’s Ekiden Championships.

In her last race of the year, the Dec. 23 Sanyo Ladies Road Race half marathon, Uehara sat back behind frontrunning Japanese women Rei Ohara (Tenmaya) and Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal), craftily running them down in the final stages to finish in 1:09:13, the fastest time of the year by a Japanese woman and one that put her at all-time Japanese #14. For her efforts Uehara will lead the Japanese team at next year’s Valencia World Half Marathon Championships.


Sanyo was Uehara’s best run of the year, but there were other highlights from others. JRN readers rightfully picked the 2:21:36 marathon debut of Yuka Ando (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) in Nagoya as the Japanese women’s performance of the year, a time that ranked her at #4 in the Japanese history books. Riko Matsuzaki (Sekisui Kagaku) placed even higher, running 8:49.61 in a near-miss on the 3000 m national record in Kitami. 16-year-old Shuri Ogasawara (Yamanashi Gakuin Prep H.S.) ran 15:23.56 for 4th in the 5000 m at the National Championships, just missing the London team but breaking the U18 national record and just missing the high school national record. Another high schooler, Nozomi Tanaka (Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.), ran the 2nd-fastest time ever by a Japanese high school girl over 3000 m, 8:54.27, while winning October’s National Sports Festival.

But like the men, when it really counted the Japanese women couldn’t run up to ability. In London Ayuko Suzuki (Japan Post) just cracked the top 10 in the 10000 m but in the marathon Ando was a non-factor, her teammate Mao Kiyota (Suzuki Hamamatsu AC) taking the top Japanese spot at only 16th in 2:30:36. Compare them to American women. On average time of the ten fastest performances of the year Japan still leads the U.S. as #3 in the world, but the margin this year was the slimmest in modern history, 2:25:53 to 2:25:58. American women had a time inside the ten fastest worldwide for the year, a World Marathon Majors win and a World Championships medal, all by different athletes. Japanese women had none of that. It was clear this year that American women are passing them by as relevant on the world stage, that American women are becoming what Japan once was and what it fantasizes itself still to be: smart, competitive and fast. While they may be almost equal in ability Americans have the mental edge that Japan’s best of today simply don’t.

It’s not all grim. Young runners like Ando, Kiyota and others are stepping up to fill a gap left by the last two generations. Sanyo was a big race for Japanese women, whose performances at the half marathon distance have declined noticeably in the last ten years. Prior to Sanyo not a single Japanese woman had broken 70 minutes this year, but in Sanyo Uehara, Ichiyama, Ohara and the debuting Azusa Sumi (Univ. Ent.), all but Ohara under age 23, broke 1:09:30, a solid step back in the right direction. That’s a long way from the level of performance American women brought to the half this year, maybe not entirely a coincidence, but still a source of encouragement for Japan’s marathon prospects, late as they may be before Tokyo 2020.


text © 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr