Japan’s Yuri Kano to Run the NYC Half

New York, March 18, 2011—Yuri Kano, a top Japanese runner and the winner of the 2010 Nagoya International Ladies Marathon, is a late entry to the NYC Half, having flown from Tokyo to New York on March 17 following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the country on March 11.
 
Kano, 32, a resident of Tokyo, was to have defended her title on March 13 at the Nagoya International Ladies Marathon, a race that she’d hoped would qualify her to represent Japan at the IAAF World Championships Marathon in Daegu, South Korea, this summer. When the race was canceled, NYRR and Kano’s management team began efforts to bring her to New York to compete, and she arrived from Tokyo on Thursday.
 
“It is with open arms that we welcome Yuri at a time when we would like to embrace all of Japan,” said NYRR president and CEO Mary Wittenberg. “Yuri is a tough, gutsy runner whom I fully expect will run strong through it all.”
 
“Monday morning the first request came from Yuri Kano’s coach, Manabu Kawagoe, to see if it might be possible for Yuri to compete in this weekend’s NYC Half,” said her agent, Brendan Reilly. “The response to my e-mail to Mary Wittenberg was nearly instantaneous: ‘Absolutely. We will figure out a way to get Yuri to New York.’”
 
Kano has run the NYC Half three times: 2008 (third, 1:10:31), 2007 (fourth, 1:11:05), and 2006 (fourth, 1:11:44). She has also run the NYRR New York Mini 10K four times, most recently in 2009, and she finished ninth in 2:39:05 in the ING New York City Marathon 2009. She ran her half-marathon career best, 1:08:57, in Sapporo in 2008.