Tokyo Marathon 2026 Preview – Brett Larner – Japan Running News

In the wheelchair races Switzerland’s Catherine Debrunner and Japan’s Tomoki Suzuki both broke the Tokyo course records last year and are back for more this year. Debrunner could get a race out of British athlete Eden Rainbow-Cooper who she beat by just 1 second in Berlin 3 years ago, and if they go the whole way there could be another new CR. Suzuki won last year in the absence of the great Marcel Hug, but Hug is back this year and is pretty much the only one in the race who could compete against a fully battle-ready Suzuki.

Ethiopian Sutume Asefa Kebede won Tokyo last year in 2:16:31 and set her PB of 2:15:55 here 2 years ago. She said pre-race that her training has been great and that she’s here to PB on the course she knows so well. Who could compete with her? Hawi Feysa was 3rd to Sutume last year in a PB of 2:17:00, then went on to win in Chicago last fall in another big PB of 2:14:57. Last fall’s Berlin winner and past Tokyo champ Rosemary Wanjiru with a PB of 2:16:14 in Tokyo 2024 makes it 3 winners from last year’s AWMM series lining up in Tokyo, and expect to see at least 2:16 women Megertu Alemu and Brigid Kosgei go with them.

With a best of 2:20:31 from Berlin 2024 Ai Hosoda is the top Japanese woman in the race, but she has announced that she is retiring after Tokyo despite having qualified for the Los Angeles Olympics marathon trials. At the pre-race press conference, below, she refused to give a solid time goal, saying only that she would run up to her preparations and target a negative split with special focus on the segment after 40 km. Yumi Yoshikawa is the next-best Japanese woman in the field with a PB of 2:25:20, and to join Hosoda in qualifying for the L.A. trials she needs to run sub-2:27:00 and finish in the top 6 Japanese women, or run sub-2:23:30. Mirai Waku and Yuri Karasawa are really the only other Japanese women who could get under 2:27:00, so that seems like an achievable goal for Yoshikawa, who comes in fresh off a 1:09:14 half marathon PB in Osaka in January.

The men’s race has lost 2 of its top 4 entrants, leaving the field fronted by 6 people at the 2:03 level, led by 2024 London Marathon winner Alexander Mutiso, last year’s 3rd-placer Vincent Ngetich and 2025 winner Tadese Takele. Takele said pre-race that he is going for sub-2:03, and with pacing in place to help make that a reality it’s not out of the picture. Last year’s 6th-placer Geoffrey Toroitich is a potential upset to the big 3, fresh off a 2:03:30 PB for the win in Amsterdam last fall.

Japanese men have basically 3 routes to qualifying for the L.A. trials in Tokyo: being in the first 6 Japanese finishers and sub-2:09:00, running sub-2:06:30, or, to be on the list to bypass the trials and be named directly to the L.A. team, having the fastest time under 2:04:00 at the end of the qualification window this time next year. 2:03:59 is still almost a minute under the JPN NR, but what’s super-interesting here is that we’ve got the 2 fastest Japanese men ever in the marathon, Suguru Osako, 2:04:55 in Valencia in December, and Kengo Suzuki, 2:04:56 at the Miracle at Lake Biwa in 2021, AND they’ve been training for Tokyo together in Boulder the last couple of months. Suzuki ran a 1:00:56 half marathon PB in Houston in January but refused to commit to a time goal at the pre-race press conference, saying only that it’s not as easy to attack, attack, attack now that he’s got older but that that’s the kind of race he’d like to run. Osako likewise acknowledged that it was a short turnaround since Valencia, but said he’d done the same kind of training he had for his NR and is ready to run his best.

There’s going to be pacing for the 2:03:59 L.A. auto-qualifier, but it remains to be seen who would go with that other than Aoi Ota, an excellent ekiden runner who went out with the leaders in his debut in Tokyo last year only to DNF after 30 km. Pending final confirmation at tomorrow’s technical meeting, the next pace group is slated for 2:05-flat, and expect to see the majority of the top-end Japanese men in that group to try for a securing of their Olympic trials places. In this group are likely to be Tokyo World Championships top JPN placer Ryota Kondo, last year’s top-placing Japanese man in Tokyo Tsubasa Ichiyama, Sydney Marathon 6th-placer Masato Arao, 2:07-level runners Riki Nakanishi and Koki Takada, debuting collegians Shinsaku Kudo from Waseda University and Teruki Shimada from Teikyo University, and a ton more.

Tokyo is hosting a lot of men’s marathon NR holders across a range of time and ability levels this year, Osako leading the way and followed by Canadian Cam Levins, Sweden’s Suldan Hussan, Uzbekistan’s Shokhrukh Davlatov, Ireland NR holder Fearghal Curtin fresh off pacing in Daegu last weekend, and Mongolian Olympian Ser-Od Bat-Ochir. Along with Kudo and Shimada, top-tier Japan-based Kenyan first-timer Richard Kimunyan is also potentially in the mix at at least the 2nd group level.