Karoki and Shimizu the winners at Chiba Cross Country

Muchiri Karoki of Kenya and Yuko Shimizu of Japan won their respective senior races at the Chiba Cross Country in Chiba, Japan.

Chiba Cross Country, one of the qualifying races for the upcoming World Cross Country Championships, was held in Showa Woods in Chiba.   Invited runners did not fare well, however, those who ran well last year did so again this year.  In the men’s 12Km, the first invited runner, Hiroyoshi Umegae, was sixth, while in the women’s 6Km the first invited runner, Aya Isomine, was only eighth.

The trend was similar in the junior races.  In the junior women’s 5Km, Erika Ikeda in sixth place was the first invited runner in the race, while in the junior men’s race, the first invited runner was Yutaro Fukushi who finished eighth.  

On the other hand, the defending champion Akinobu Murasawa won the men’s junior race again this year, while Risa Takenaka, who was second in the junior race last year, was second in senior race this year.  Furthermore, Kazuka Wakatsuki, who was third last year in the women’s 6Km moved up a notch to finish second this year.

Men’s 12Km –

Muchiri Karoki, a Kenyan who is attending Sera high school in Hiroshima, won the men’s 12Km race by more than 30 seconds from Julius Gitahi, a 2:08 marathon runner, who was 9th at 5000m in the 2000 Olympic Games.  Karoki is a superb ekiden runner also, for at the 2008 national high school ekiden championships Karoki recorded the stage record in the 8Km stage four. Makoto Fukui, who was second fastest in the 13.7Km third stage at the New Year Ekiden, was third; he was the first Japanese in the race. Fukui was followed by Yuta Takahashi, who won the junior 8Km race in 2006 Chiba Cross Country and then finished 30th in the junior race at the 2006 World Cross Country Championships. Takahashi is also a good track runner, having finished 9th at 10,000m in the 2006 World Junior Championships.  He was followed by Suehiro Ishikawa and then Hiroyoshi Umegae, who was first among the invited runners.

Women’s 6Km –

Yuko Shimizu, who was fifth fastest in the stage 4 of Chiba Ekiden and fourth fastest in the 10Km ninth stage of the 2009 Inter-Prefectural Ekiden, won the women’s 6Km.