Posted: February 16, 2005

Athletics: Invited Runners Announced For Lake Biwa Marathon

By David Monti with Ken Nakamura

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

The Lake Biwa Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, 06-Mar in Otsu, Japan, is the last opportunity for Japanese men to qualify for their national marathon team for the 2005 IAAF World Championships in Athletics (the women have one more opportunity at Nagoya one week later), and the field is loaded. There is no doubt that this will be the most competive men's marathon held this winter.

Here is the field:

Invited International Runners: 
Jose Rios (ESP)             2:07:42       2004 Lake Biwa 
Joseph Riri (KEN)           2:06:49       2004 Berlin 
Vincent Kipsos (KEN)        2:06:52       2002 Berlin 
Francisco Cortes (ESP)      2:07:48       2001 Hamburg 
Samson Ramadhani (TAN)      2:08:01       2003 London
Vanderlei Lima (BRA)        2:08:31       1998 Tokyo 
Marilson dos Santos (BRA)   2:08:48       2004 Chicago 
Leonid Shevetsov (RUS)      2:09:16       1997 Praha
Ruggero Pertile (ITA)       2:10:12       2004 Roma
James Wainaina (KEN)        2:11:00       2004 Tokyo  

Invited Japanese Runners
Kazutoshi Takatsuka         2:08:56       2004 Lake Biwa 
Yuko Matsumiya              2:09:25       2004 Lake Biwa 
Yukinobu Nakazaki           2:09:28       2004 Tokyo 
Takeshi Hamano              2:09:18       2002 Lake Biwa 
Shin-ichi Watanabe          2:09:32       2004 Berlin 
Tomoyuki Sato               2:09:43       2004 Tokyo 
Michitane Noda              2:09:58       2003 Fukuoka 
Muneyuki Ojima              2:08:43       1998 Lake Biwa 
Michitaka Hosokawa          2:10:38       2004 Tokyo
Yasuaki Yamamoto            2:10:44       2000 Lake Biwa 
Toshiya Katayama            2:11:05       2004 Tokyo 
Satoshi Watanabe            2:11:18       2003 Lake Biwa 
Tomohiro Seto               1:01:49       half marathon 
Atsushi Fujita              2:06:51       2000 Fukuoka 

Pacers:
Lee Troop (AUS)             2:09:49       2003 Lake Biwa 
Eliud Lagat (KEN)           2:11:21       2002 Hamburg 
Pablo Olmedo (MEX)      

Other Notable Runners:
Kazushi Hara                2:12:11 
Laban Kagika (KEN)          2:10:24 
Yoshimasa Kunitake          2:12:24 
Yukiyasu Nagao              2:12:31 
Hiroyuki Fujii              2:12:39 
Makoto Ogura                2:12:48 
Yuzo Onishi                 2:12:53 
Noriaki Igarashi            2:09:26 
Toshiaki Tezuka             2:14:07 
Tomonori Watanabe           2:09:40 
Takayuki Nishida            2:08:45 
Hideyuki Obinata            2:08:52 
Ombeche Mokamba (KEN) 
Takashi Ohta
Koji Ueoka  
Wataru Okutani              2:11:24 
Masatoshi Ibata             2:13:26
Abdellah Bay (MAR)
Naoki Mishiro               2:10:33 
Masaya Shimizu