Japanese Gaku Hoshi surprised a rich elite field as he won his first marathon race took at the combined 10th edition of the Osaka Marathon and 77th Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon that was held on Sunday (27) in Osaka, Japan.
\The 23 year-old stayed with the leading group of ten runners after the last turn. The pacemaker dropped out of at the 30km leaving the race to a three-man contest between Hoshi, Ichitaka Yamashita and Yuhei Urano.
Hoshi broke out of the three-man pack at the 38km mark and ran solo the rest of the way to cut the tape in 2:08.31 which is a record for a first-time marathoner.
“This was my first marathon and I didn’t think I would win so this is a surprise,” Hoshi said.
“It’s too good to be true but I’m super happy. I knew it would come down to the last stages so I went aggressively after the 30-km mark. It went as planned,”Hoshi concluded.
Yamashita finished came home in second place 11 seconds later with Urano closing the first three podium finishes.
The race course record of 2:07.47 that was set in 2019 by Asefa Tefera from Ethiopia still stands.
The 2022 edition involved only elite athletes, with 20,000 mass-event runners excluded due to coronavirus pandemic.
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