Osaka Marathon Fast Times and Depth Results Here

6 Japanese Men at 2:06.28 or Faster, 11 Japanese Men under 2:08, 17 Japanese Men at 2:08.37 or Faster, 26 Japanese Men at 2:09.28 or Faster

Tokyo Marathon is Next Week

https://www.marathon.tokyo/en/about/elite/pdf/men_japan.pdf

https://www.marathon.tokyo/en/about/elite/pdf/men_abroad.pdf

Benson Kipruto and Joshua Cheotegei among the international runners. Yohei Ikeda is the fastest Japanese man listed with 2:05:12.

Canadian Ben Preisner, 37th in 2:10+, has a 2:08:57 from Oita, last year. This shows the phenomenal depth of Japanese runners. Canadian Olympian finishes 37th here and I'm guessing there are probably at least 100 Japanese who are faster than Preisner.

Monster depth.

Japan is actually a multi disciplinary sports country. They produce world class baseball players, soccer players, basketball, swimming, table tennis, etc

Matt Fox dnf?

Yes, according to Strava. Made it 14mi.

matt fox is a douchebag lol. think other posters here know about his past...baffled why that got still has so many followers and support

if you are wanting to spend a day angry, listen to the guy's podcast. Complete disconnect from reality.

True in part. They're average in men's soccer and basketball. Cannot make 1/8 finals.

Rory Linkletter posted an interesting video a few weeks back about his time in Japan and in prep for the Magawra (sp.) HM.

He went through the depth of 2:06-2:07 guys in relation to the US and Canada...remarkably disparate!

I bang on how poor our marathonning is all the time, but the Japanese just have an unprecedented number of legit marathon dudes. Crazy

and think that the vast majority are clean.

Japan might have 100 guys sub 210

there is something very wrong with the north american population.

very very wrong.

208 is very rare in usa

japanese guys debut in 205 206,

100 guys can break 208

without PEDs

Seriously. Even with some PEDs, we're just way behind. With our size and college system, we ought to have 100 guys under 2:10 no sweat. I think it just comes down to money and priorities. You get nothing unless you're around the top 3 here. I think a greater focus on prize money *for Americans* at all marathons (not just the majors here) could help a lot. But the race directors aren't really incentivized to award more money because the masses don't care about the top guys anyway. But it would be cool if every <random small city marathon> offered at least like $30,000 prize purses split between men and women. Maybe we need big sponsors to do it.

Yeah but if they’ve got such amazing depth why can’t they ever seem to show up for majors or the olympics? You might say they don’t like to travel but even the top 10 at Tokyo last year were all East African. I’m not trying to be disparaging, this is a legitimate question. They have lots of 2:05-2:07 guys but can’t seem to break through at majors.