Shimoda Qualifies for Paris Olympic Trials at Ottawa Marathon

When Shiferaw attacked, Oishi, coached by 2010 Ottawa winner Arata Fujiwara, instantly dropped off, finally ending eighth in 2:15:50. Shimoda, who ran 2:08:35 at March’s Tokyo Marathon and wanted to run 2:11:25 right here to qualify for the trials, held on to third, overtaken by Abdi Ali Gelchu (Bahrain) and dropping to 4th at one level however working down Leonard Langat (Kenya) simply earlier than the end to retake third.

Yamaguchi went out in a pack of 6 girls that ignored early leaders Juliet Chekwel (Uganda) and Rebecca Chesire (Kenya), each of whom finally dropped out. By midway that group was down to simply Yamaguchi and Kinsey Middleton (Canada), however when Middleton surged on the climb throughout a bridge close to 25 km Yamaguchi misplaced contact. Middleton went on to win in 2:30:09, however Yamaguchi struggled to maintain it collectively and light to fifth in 2:35:57.

In his victory interview Shiferaw mentioned by way of an interpreter, “Except the inconvenience brought on by the visa software course of, the whole lot was nice after I arrived right here in Ottawa.” This yr’s elite race was hard-hit by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s new on-line visa software system, which resulted in not less than 12 males and 13 girls from Mongolia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Bahrain not receiving their visas or visa-containing passports again from the IRCC in time to journey for the race.

Malcolm Anderson, head of the Moyo Sports activities company, mentioned 5 folks from his group, 3 athletes and a pair of pacers, had been affected. “The passports have been within the Addis processing centre with visas accredited, however we couldn’t get them to be launched in time for journey,” Anderson mentioned. “Immensely irritating for all.” Solely 8 African athletes within the two races, not together with pacers, did get their visas in time for the race. Elite athlete coordinator Dylan Wykes had assembled what would have been the strongest elite fields ever on Canadian soil to run within the nation’s capital, however regardless of gladly taking practically $200 per athlete in software and processing charges the IRCC apparently had different priorities than letting that occur.