Marathon News - Fukuoka Further Expands Field with NYC Marathon Athletes

Nov-14-2012

Fukuoka Further Expands Field with NYC Marathon Athletes
by David Monti
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

Organizers of the 66th Fukuoka Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, December 2, have further expanded their field with elite athletes who had originally planned to run the ING New York City Marathon. The New York race was cancelled for the first time in history in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Wataru Ogushi, the long-time elite athlete coordinator at Fukoka, said in an e-mail last night that Martin Lel of Kenya; Scott Overall of Great Britain; Ryan Vail, Tim Nelson and Brent Vaughn of the United States; and Simon Bairu of Canada had all been added to the field. Although the athletes will be eligible for prize money, they had find their own funding to travel to the race, Ogushi said. Prize money at Fukuoka is kept confidential.

Although one of the most important marathons in the world from a competitive point of view, the Fukuoka Marathon is actually very small. The race had just 436 finishers in 2011 and 331 finishers in 2010. So, with an invited field numbering 41, the race is the most top-heavy commercial marathon for men in the world. The big names in the field prior to the addition of Lel are Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia, Henryk Szost of Poland, Martin Mathathi of Kenya and Arata Fujiwara of Japan.

The full invited field is listed below:

International Athletes:
Haile GEBRSELASSIE (ETH) 2:03:59
Martin LEL (KEN) 2:05:15
Dmytro BARANOVSKYY (UKR) 2:07:15
Isaac MACHARIA (KEN) 2:07:16
Henryk SZOST (POL) 2:07:39
Scott OVERALL (GBR) 2:10:55
Frank DE ALMEIDA (BRA) 2:12:03
Cutbert NYASANGO (ZIM) 2:12:08
Ryan VAIL (USA) 2:12:43
Tim NELSON (USA) 2:15:06
Simon BAIRU (CAN) 2:19:52
Brent VAUGHN (USA) 1:02:04 HM
Mohamed TRAFEH (USA) 1:00:39 HM (has 2 marathon DNF's) Reid COOLSAET (CAN) 2:10:55 Ryan BAK (USA) 2:15:12 Seung-Ho BAK (KOR) 2:15:20 Jesse CHERRY (USA) 2:16:31 Andrew LEMONCELLO (GBR) 2:13:40

Japanese Athletes:
Arata FUJIWARA (JPN) 2:07:48
Yuki KAWAUCHI (JPN) 2:08:37
Yoshinori ODA (JPN) 2:09:03
Hiroyuki HORIBATA (JPN) 2:09:25
Bunta KUROKI (JPN) 2:12:10
Kota NOGUCHI (JPN) 2:12:28
Satoshi IRIFUNE (JPN) 2:12:34
Chiharu TAKADA (JPN) 2:12:44
Tomoya SHIMIZU (JPN) 2:13:35
Yasuyuki YAMAMOTO (JPN) 2:14:21
Takeshi MAKABE (JPN) 2:14:34
Tomoyuki KAWAKAMI (JPN) 2:15:53
Takuro NAKANISHI (JPN) 2:16:19
Yusei NAKAO (JPN) 2:16:30
Takeshi HAMANO (JPN) 2:16:49
Akiyuki IWANAGA (JPN) 2:17:13
Kenji SAKATA (JPN) 2:18:19
Mahoro IKEDA (JPN) 1:03:56 HM

International Athletes Living in Japan:
James MWANGI (KEN) 2:08:38
Cyrus NJUI (KEN) 2:09:10
Harun NJOROGE (KEN) 2:09:38
Martin MATHATHI (KEN) 59:48 HM
Joseph GITAU (KEN) 1:02:00 HM