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Noguchi dominates Sendai International Half-Marathon

Posted May 15th, 2007 at 2:00 AM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: News & Results, Marathons

Sendai International Half Marathon Olympic champion Mizuki Noguchi showed she has fully recovered from the Achilles injury that forced her out of the Flora London Marathon by running away from the field to a 68:54 victory here.

Three-time World Half/Road Running Championships medalist, Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania, also ran more than a minute under the existing course record with a solid 70:23, but could not keep up with Noguchi’s steady servings of 3:12-3:15 kilometers in the opening half of the race.

Over the weekend, Noguchi revealed her recent training:

“With the Achilles injury, I really could not train much until mid-March. I did some training in Kumamoto, then from mid-April to early May I did several weeks of about 170 kilometers in Kanazawa and added some good speedwork. I don’t really have a time goal on Sunday, but will concentrate on competition.”

Afterwards, Noguchi reiterated her position that she will not run even the 10,000m at the Osaka World Championships, and is likely to compete in the Sapporo Half-Marathon in early July, all the while focusing on November’s Tokyo International Ladies’ Marathon as her qualifying race for selection to the 2008 Japanese Olympic team.

Tomescu-Dita, just three weeks off of her 3rd-place running in London, said her legs felt fine but she felt a bit short of breath with Noguchi’s aggressive early pace, which included 76 seconds for the opening 400m (the race starts on a track) and 16:03 for the opening 5K.

“Already by 3K, I had to let her go,” said Tomescu Dita. “I felt strong, but for the three weeks since London, I have not done any anaerobic speed work. But with 70:23 on this course today, I am happy. As you know, three or four times I have done the world half-marathon and then just 1-2 weeks later run Chicago, with good results in both races. I thought this would be an opportunity to try the reverse, a marathon first and then a half-marathon. The experience should help me in the autumn, when I am considering to run either Chicago or New York after the world championships, but my main goal is to win a medal in Osaka on September 2nd.”

In the men’s race, unheralded Ombeche Mokamba blasted from the gates with an opening 5K of 14:09, quickly putting 35 seconds between himself and the field. The former student of Yamanashi Gakuin in Japan, who now competes for the Aidem track club in Japan, built up his lead to 49 seconds by the 10K mark and even slowing in the headwinds and slight uphill sections over 15K to 20K, was able to take the race in 62:29, the second-fastest time in the four year history of Sendai’s “new” course, behind only Samuel Wanjiru’s staggering 59:43 from 2005.

Pre-race favorite Daniel Njenga ran 63:31 for 7th place, revealing afterwards that he missed a significant amount of training time recently during his annual vacation to Kenya, during which his father suffered a heart attack, and passed away. Njenga also noted at dinner on race day that he was that day also marking the 15th anniversary of his arrival in Japan, when he came to attend Sendai’s Ikuei High School as a 15-year old school boy.

MEN -
1. Ombeche Mokamba, Aidem (KEN) 1:02:29
2. John Kanyi, Toyota (KEN) 1:03:00
3. Kenji Noguchi, Shikoku Electric Power 1:03:04
4. Yuki Abe, Mitsubishi Juko 1:03:07
5. Tetsuo Nishimura, YKK 1:03:13
…
7. Daniel Njenga, KEN 1:03:31

WOMEN -
1. Mizuki Noguchi, Sysmex 1:08:54 CR*
2. Constantina Tomescu-Dita, Asics (ROM) 1:10:24
3. Yuko Machida, Nihon Chemicon 1:12:30
4. Anastasia Padarinskaya, Asics (BLR) 1:14:17
5. Harumi Hiroyama, Shiseido 1:14:22
*Course record; previous 1:11:27, Kayoko Fukushi, 2006; event record remains 1:07:59, Esther Wanjiru (KEN), 1999 on a different course; this course was introduced in 2004