Japanese standout bolsters Honolulu field

By Pat Bigold
Star-Bulletin

The 25th Honolulu Marathon has added the 12th fastest marathoner of all time to its elite field for the Dec. 14 race.

Hiromi Taniguchi, who clocked 2 hours, 7 minutes and 40 seconds at the 1988 Beijing International Marathon, is the fastest Japanese runner to enter the race.

His Beijing time is the second fastest in the country's history.

In the 1990s, Japanese have made up most of the Honolulu Marathon field, but there have been no Japanese contenders of Taniguchi's stature.

Taniguchi ran a poor 2:17:26 for 19th place in the 1996 Summer Olympics marathon, but he rebounded to finish fourth in 2:11:23 in the Tokyo International Marathon in February.

He has a 10,000-meter personal best of 28:34:18 and a 5,000-meter best of 13:49:17.

Taniguchi joins a field headed by Kenya's Eric Kimaiyo, who clocked 2:07:43 in the recent Berlin Marathon, the 14th fastest time on record.

The men's field also includes Sammy Nyangincha, a Kenyan who clocked 2:08:50 in Berlin in 1994, and Chinese national champion marathoner Ganjun Hu, who has clocked 2:09:18.

For the first time, the women's field has two runners with personal bests in the 2-hour, 26-minute range: Japan's Mitsuyo Yoshida, who ran a 2:26:26 in the 1994 Osaka International Ladies Marathon, and China's Jinhong Pan, who had a 2:26:39 at this year's Beijing International Marathon.

According to entry figures released by marathon officials, the field is 19.7 percent larger than last year - 31,141 entries compared with 26,072 last year at this time.

Sign-ups from Hawaii and the rest of the world are up 24 percent over last year (11,600 to 14,400) and Japanese entries are up 17 percent (14,342 to 16,741).