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By David Monti with Brendan Reilly
In a widely anticipated announcement made earlier today, officials of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations announced their marathon teams for the Beijing Olymic Games. In Japan, this is big news, on a par with Americans learning which college football player will be drafted first by the NFL.
The men's team will be made up of Tsuyoshi Ogata and Atsushi Sato, both of the Chuugoku Electric Power corporate team, and Satoshi Osaki of NTT. Ogata got the nod by being the top Japanese man at the hot and humid IAAF World Championships in Osaka last August, finishing fifth overall in 2:17:42. Sato, who set the Asian record for the half-marathon at last year's IAAF World Half-Marathon Championships, made the team based on his excellent 2:07:13 (3rd place/top Japanese) at last December's Fukuoka Marathon. Osaki was the top Japanese finisher at the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon earlier this month.
The Chuugoku Electric Power men's team, coached by Yasushi Sakaguchi, has had the top Japanese finisher at the past four World Championships and Olympics.
On the women's side, Reiko Tosa of Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, the bronze medalist from the IAAF World Championships Marathon last August, and Mizuki Noguchi of Sysmex, the reigning Olympic gold medalist who won last November's Tokyo International Women's Marathon in a course record 2:21:37, had already locked in their team berths. The big news today was the selection of the winner of yesterday's Nagoya International Ladies Marathon, debutante Yurika Nakamura, who got the nod over Tenmaya teammate Tomo Morimoto. Nakamura's time of 2:25:51 was actually slower than Morimoto's in Osaka last January (2:25:34), and Morimoto has a faster personal best time (2:24:33 from Vienna in 2006).
The alternates were Arata Fujiwara on the men's side and Morimoto on the women's side.
Japanese women have won the marathons in the last two consecutive Olympic Games, with Naoko Takahashi winning in Sydney in 2000 and Noguchi prevailing in Athens.
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