The 2018 Tokyo Marathon was the twelfth edition of the annual marathon race in Tokyo and was held on Sunday, 25 February. An IAAF Gold Label Road Race, it was the first World Marathon Majors event to be held that year. The men's race was won by Dickson Chumba in 2:05:30 hours while the women's race was won by Birhane Dibaba in 2:19:51. The men's runner-up Yuta Shitara set a Japanese national record time of 2:06:11 hours. This was also an Asian record. The host nation featured prominently in the men's race, with two runners in the top five and six of the top ten being Japanese. The Japanese women fared less well, with sixth-place Hiroko Yoshitomi being the best national performer. Around 35,500 runners took part in the marathon races, with a further 500 taking part in a 10K run linked to the event. The public section of the race was oversubscribed 9 times over, with nearly 320,000 applications received. From an initial 35,911 starters, a total of 34,542 people finished the marathon distance, 7905 of which were women and 32 wheelchair racers. The event was broadcast live on television by Fuji TV and live radio commentary was provided by Nippon Broadcasting System. An exhibition about the race was held at Tokyo Big Sight in the three days proceeding the race.
Race summary
Though the men's race was not as fast as the previous year, Chumba won the race in the second fastest time ever recorded at the event. Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich returned to attempt a title defence, and also a world record, but this proved too much for the athlete, who dropped out shortly after the 15 km mark. The leading men's group were paced through to the halfway point in 1:02:44. After the pacemakers dropped out, Chumba forged ahead with fellow Kenyans Amos Kipruto and Gideon Kipketer, though the latter two soon fell behind and Yuta Shitara had a late surge to overhaul them. After those four, Hiroto Inoue was the only other man to finish under two hours and seven minutes in fifth place – this was a new record in depth of performances at the race. Shitara's national record brought him a 100 million yen bonus from the Japan Corporate Track and Field Federation as part of their "Project Exceed" initiative to improve performances in the build-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Inoue's sub-2:07 run was also worth a 10 million yen bonus. The standard of the women's race was diminished by the absence of two major runners due to injury, Purity Cherotich Rionoripo and Meseret Defar. The gap in quality showed as five runners had build up a half minute lead by the first 5 km point – Ethiopians Birhane Dibaba, Ruti Aga and Shure Demise, plus American Amy Cragg and Kenya's Helah Kiprop. Kiprop drifted off the pack after 15 km, being 14 seconds in arrears when the other four women passed the halfway point in 1:10:19. Shure Demise was the next to go, falling behind by six seconds in the 25–30 km period of the race. The 30–35 km segment saw Cragg drop eight seconds back and Birhane Dibaba put clear distance between herself and runner-up Ruti Aga, eventually winning with nearly a minute and a half to spare. In the wheelchair races, Hiroyuki Yamamoto and Tomoki Suzuki were dominant in the absence of Marcel Hug and it was Yamamoto who pipped his opponent to take the victory by a margin of one second in 1:26:23. A group of six racers remained in a pack further back, racing tactically some five minutes in arrears to the leaders. A sprint finish between them saw South Africa's Ernst van Dyk edge out Australian Kurt Fearnley by a fraction of a second to take third place. Six was the total number of entrants in the women's wheelchair race: Swiss Manuela Schar led the pace and pulled away from Tatyana McFadden and Amanda McGrory to win in 1:43:25 – over a minute and a half clear. McFadden took the runner-up spot and home athlete Tsubasa Kina pulled ahead of a fading McGrory to claim third.
