Beppu-Ōita Marathon

Beppu-Ōita Marathon
Beppu Bay, near the turning point of the race between Beppu and Ōita
Date	Early February
Location	Beppu and Ōita, Japan
Event type	Road
Distance	Marathon
Established	1952
Official site	Beppu-Ōita Marathon

The Beppu-Ōita Marathon (別府大分マラソン, Beppu Ōita Marason^?) is an annual men's marathon race that takes place every February between the cities of Beppu and Ōita on the island of Kyushu in Japan. The race has IAAF Silver Label Road Race status and is a listed course of AIMS (Association of International Marathons).

First held in 1952 as a 35 km race, the looped marathon course begins at the bottom of Takasaki Mountain and reaches Beppu's Kankoko International Port before turning back towards the finishing point in the Ōita Municipal Athletic Stadium. The event is sponsored by the The Mainichi Newspapers Co. and is formally known as the Beppu-Ōita Mainichi Marathon. It hosted the Asian Marathon Championship in 1994.

The course is AIMS-certified which means that performances on the course are eligible for national and world records. The course has historically provided fast times: in 1963 Tōru Terasawa's time of 2:15:15.8 was recognised as the marathon world best and fifteen years later Shigeru Sō brought the course its second world best with his winning time of 2:09:05.6 in 1978. Furthermore, Koichi Morishita's win in 1991 was the fastest time recorded that year.Gert Thys of South Africa won the race in 1996 with a time of 2:08:30 and his mark stood for seventeen years until Yuki Kawauchi completed the course in 2:08:15 in 2013.