The 2014
Tokyo Marathon (
Japanese: 東京マラソン 2014) was the eighth edition of the annual
marathon race in
Tokyo, Japan and was held on Sunday, 23 February. An
IAAF Gold Label Road Race, it was the first
World Marathon Majors event to be held that year and represented the second occasion that the Tokyo race was part of the elite-level marathon series.
Both elite race winners set new course records:
Dickson Chumba ran a men's record of 2:05:42 and
Tirfi Tsegaye's run of 2:22:23 was a women's record.
Pre-race build up
Following on from the Tokyo Marathon's induction into the World Marathon Majors circuit, high calibre and international fields were invited for the men's and women's elite races. In the men's race, invitees included
Tadese Tola (2013 world medallist),
Abel Kirui (a two-time world champion),
Peter Some (2013
Paris Marathon winner),
Dickson Chumba (2013
Eindhoven Marathon winner), and former Tokyo champion
Michael Kipyego. In total, seven of the invited men's field had personal bests faster than two hours and six minutes.[1]Arata Fujiwara was the most prominent domestic starter.[2]
In the women's division,
Lucy Wangui Kabuu was the fastest entrant with her best of 2:19:34 hours. Second fastest was Japan's
Yoko Shibui (2:19:41) although the 35-year-old was not expected to reach her past performance. A group of Ethiopian women were among the other prominent entrants, including
Tirfi Tsegaye,
Atsede Baysa,
Birhane Dibaba and
Merima Mohammed.[1][2]
Results
Dickson Chumba of Kenya won the men's race in a course record time of 2:05:42 hours. This also made it the fastest time ever recorded in the city, bettering
Gert Thys's record of 2:06:33 set at the defunct
Tokyo International Marathon. In the women's race, Ethiopia's
Tirfi Tsegaye topped the podium with a course record of 2:22:23 hours – an improvement of over three minutes on the previous record.[3][4]
The
wheelchair races had mainly domestic entrants and
Hiroyuki Yamamoto and
Wakako Tsuchida were the best of the men's and women's divisions, respectively.