Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview

The Nagoya Women’s Marathon, the world’s largest women-only marathon and the last race in the selection cycle for September’s Tokyo World Championships, happens Sunday. Weather conditions are looking better than what they had in Tokyo and Osaka the last two weekends, 7˚ at the start and rising to 12˚ with sunny skies. The wind looks a bit stronger than ideal, but it could be worse. Fuji TV has the live broadcast starting at 9:00 a.m. Sunday local time, and if you’ve got a VPN you should be able to watch the TVer streaming. One option for a leaderboard is here, and another here. We’ll have some coverage on @JRNLive.

Just like last time around there are three Ethiopian and Kenyan-born athletes at the top list, this time it being sub-2:20 women Sheila Chepkirui, winner in NYC last year, and Ruti Aga, winner in Xiamen in January, and last year’s Nagoya runner-up Eunice Chebichii Chumba. But last year Yuka Ando still pulled off the win, so there’s a chance that Rika Kaseda, 2:21:55 in Berlin in 2022, 4th last year in 2:22:11, and fresh off a 1:07:53 PB at the Marugame Half in February, could step up.

She’s not alone in that, though. Australia’s Isobel Batt-Doyle beat Kaseda in Marugame with a 1:07:17 NR, suggesting she’s got something under 2:21:30 in store. Ando won last year in 2:21:18. And lurking in the background after a conservative 2:31:04 debut in Hokkaido last summer is 1:06:56 half marathoner Pauline Kamulu.

Kaseda is the only Japanese woman in the race under the 2:23:30 World Championships standard, but #2-ranked Sayaka Sato is also qualified via placing at last year’s Osaka International Women’s Marathon. They’re the best bets to pick up a place on the Worlds team, with Mao Uesugi a little more distant an outlier. There’s a lot of excitement, though, about the debut of mixed road 10 km and women-only half marathon NR holder Rino Goshima. Outside of ekidens Goshima hasn’t raced since the Paris Olympics 10000 m, but if she’s on then she should be in contention for the top Japanese spot.

What do they need to do to make the Tokyo team? The only clear route is to make it to the top of the JMC Series IV rankings, currently occupied by Ando after her 2:23:37 for top Japanese in Tokyo last weekend. Goshima can’t do that off one race, but Kaseda needs to be the top Japanese in 2:19:47 to pass Ando by. Sato and others would need to be a bit faster than that. The other two members of the Tokyo team will be chosen through the black box of the JAAF’s evaluation of performances here, in the Osaka Women’s Marathon, and elsewhere. They don’t like putting people on national teams off a debut marathon, so Goshima would have to do something really special to have a shot.