This photo of the week is from the 42 kilometer Nagoya Women’s Marathon held just yesterday (Official site). The winner was Russia’s Albina Mayorova with a time of 2 hours, 23 minutes, 52 seconds; second was Japan’s Yoshimi Ozaki who finished with a time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 14 seconds; and media favourite Mizuki Noguchi finished 6th in 2 hours, 25 minutes and 33 seconds, all boosting their chances to qualify for the London Olympics (source). Japan’s national broadcaster NHK did not report that Mayoroya won the race, but instead reported on only the Japanese competitors.
Despite the temperature reaching only 12 degrees Celsius, it was pleasantly warm in the sun in places where there was no cool breeze. The competition fielded 15,000 entrants, mainly locals, and included some men, starting at Nagoya (sports) Dome running through the centre of Nagoya, passing by the department store shopping district, Nagoya Castle, Nagoya City and Aichi Prefectural government offices, before returning to Nagoya Dome. Also, flags flying at Nagoya City government offices were flying at half mast in commemoration of the victims who died and suffered from the 11th March earthquake this time last year.
For more information about the Nagoya Men and Women’s Marathons (held in different times of the year), see the official webpage: http://womens.marathon-festival.com/en/ See this link for entrants and their bib numbers, and here for their results. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagoya_Marathon See the gallery for more marathon images: http://ablyth.photoshelter.com/gallery/Nagoya-Womens-Marathon/G0000rewkiB7Hu9U
