Nishiyama, Hosoya and Oishi all qualified for the Olympic Trials, bringing the total number of men's qualifiers so far to 10. And Oishi running 2:08:51 marked the first time that 2012 Olympian Arata Fujiwara has managed to coach a Japanese athlete under the 2:10 barrier.
Second across the blue carpet was a jubilant Amanal Petros in 2:04:03, setting a new German record.
Hofu also has a spot for the top Japanese woman if she's under 2:27:00, so in one way at least there's an argument to be made that Hofu is a step ahead.
The oldest athlete registered for the championships is Gibraltar's Maurice Turnock (4/5/1974) in the senior men's race and the youngest is Czechia's Veronika Brizova (2/10/2009) in the women's U20 race.
Asked about his training, Otawa said, "I run about 600 km a month. I usually do 20-25 km in the morning before work. At university we did a lot of group runs, but these days I pretty much train by myself.
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