{"id":33038,"date":"2014-04-22T18:14:03","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T10:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tribune.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=33038"},"modified":"2014-04-22T18:14:03","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T10:14:03","slug":"8-saipan-runners-make-grade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/8-saipan-runners-make-grade\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Saipan runners make grade"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Florence<\/a>
Florence Antonio raises his arms in triumph after ruling the 50 to 59 age group of the half marathon event in last Saturday\u2019s 2014 Saipan Marathon. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Eight Saipan entries in the half marathon event of the 2014 Saipan Marathon had notable finishes in last Saturday\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n

In the men\u2019s overall ranking, the host\u2019s Jessie James and Peter Prestley made it to the Top 6. James placed fourth after completing the race from Micro Beach to the southern parking lot of Pacific Islands Club and back (21.0975 kilometers) in 1:38:03, while Prestley was ranked fifth after logging 1:41:34. The two Saipan runners finished behind China\u2019s Haikun Zhang (1:23:19) and Wei Zhang (1:24:03) and Japan\u2019s Junichi Yamamoto (1:26:10) and ahead of Japan\u2019s Kazuhiko Fujii (1:44:09).<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s division, Lorie Hutchison took third place behind China\u2019s Zhixuan Li (1:27:03) and Japan\u2019s Erina Okumura (1:39:33) after registering 1:43:06, while fellow Saipan runner Akiko Miller also barged into the Top 6 with a fourth-best time of 1:44:34. Rounding out the Top 6 were Japanese Yoshida Mayumi (1:51:05) and Norie Kosaka (1:51:27).<\/p>\n

In the age group category, Saipan\u2019s Sakiko Eda ruled the 40 to 49 division after cutting the tape at the 1:56:53 mark. She had the fastest time among the age group top finishers in the women\u2019s division. Other top finishers were 20 to 29\u2019s Chigusa Kato (2:08:20), 30 to 39\u2019s Yukiko Inaba (2:15:57), 50 to 59\u2019s Masumi Miyamoto (2:07:51), and over 60\u2019s Etsuko Hirayama (2:09:02).<\/p>\n

In the men\u2019s age group division, Saipan got three top finishes with Ronald Villafria logging the best time at 1:46:39 to win the 40 to 49 category. He came ahead of 15 to 19 champion Jake Lee (1:54:16) and 50-59 winner Florence Antonio (1:54:32). Completing the winners list in the age group division were U14\u2019s Kanaru Shimizu (2:31:29), 20 to 29\u2019s Rufino Aquino Jr. (2:00:21), 30 to 39\u2019s Wataru Takaku (1:49:43), and over 60\u2019s Shoji Tsushima (1:47:39).<\/p>\n

Japanese, Chinese split wins<\/p>\n

In the marathon event (42.195K), Japanese and Chinese runners shared top honors.<\/p>\n

Shoutaro Miwa won it for Japan when he topped the men\u2019s division with his time of 2:36:21. He finished ahead of China\u2019s Shuai Xu (3:01:55), fellow Japanese Yoshiharu Sugimoto (3:03:58), Yukihiro Okada (3:32:27) and Naoki Yamamoto (3:35:29), and Saipan\u2019s Steven Johnson (3:49:38).<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s division, China\u2019s Zhiling Zheng and Kaiquin Zhang had a Top 2 finish after recording 3:04:55 and 3:17:08. Completing the Top 6 were Japan\u2019s Mayumi Uichiyama (3:53:20), Kaoru Mito (3:55:14), Yuri Kimuro (4:05:53), and Chiemi Saito (4:29:51).<\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s age group category, the first place finishers were all Japanese. Shoko Kageyawa ruled the 20 to 29 division after posting 4:52:35; Tomoko Sugimoto (4:44:48) prevailed in the 30 to 39; Wakako Hoshina (4:30:15) won in the 40 to 49; Kiyo Tajima (5:032:23) reigned supreme in the 50 to 59; and Reiko Hirosawa (5:40:51) triumphed in the over 60.<\/p>\n

In the men\u2019s division, the age group champions were 15 to 19\u2019s Terence Leung (5:15:23), 20 to 29\u2019s Sangji Kim (4:19:31), 30 to 39\u2019s Tomoyasu Tominaga (3:51:45), 40 to 49\u2019s Kozo Yamada (3:58:39), 50 to 59\u2019s Hisahi Matsuura (4:11:17), and Saipan and over 60\u2019s Chang Whan Jang (3:57:15).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eight Saipan entries in the half marathon event of the 2014 Saipan Marathon had notable…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":33047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[170,234,491,159],"class_list":["post-33038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-japan","tag-marathon","tag-micro-beach","tag-pacific-islands-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}