Kentaro Nakamoto

Kentaro Nakamoto

Kentaro Nakamoto in the marathon at the 2012 Olympics in London
Personal information
Born	(1982-12-07) December 7, 1982 (age 34) Shimonoseki, Japan
Height	1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	58 kg (128 lb)
Sport
Country	Japan
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	Marathon

Kentaro Nakamoto (Japanese: 中本 健太郎, Hepburn: Nakamoto Kentarō^?, born 7 December 1982) is a Japanese long-distance runner who competes in marathon races. He represented Japan in the marathon at the 2012 Summer Olympics and the 2011 and 2013 World Championships in Athletics, finishing in the top ten on all three occasions. His personal best for the distance is 2:08:35 hours.

Born in Kikugawa in Japan's Yamaguchi Prefecture (now part of Shimonoseki), he attended Yamaguchi Prefectural City West High School. He began to feature in high level races while attending Takushoku University and ran at the 2005 Hakone Ekiden. After graduation he joined the Yaskawa Electric Corporation and the athletic director there encouraged him to move towards being a marathon specialist. Nakamoto made his debut over that distance in 2008 and came third at the Nobeoka Marathon with a time of 2:13:54 hours and also took second place at that year's Hokkaido Marathon.

Nakamoto set a half marathon best of 1:02:29 hours at the Kagawa Marugame Half Marathon in 2009, He knocked one second off his marathon best with a top ten finish at the Tokyo Marathon in March. He went under that time twice in his two marathon outings in 2010, running 2:11:42 at the Beppu-Ōita Marathon and 2:12:38 at the Amsterdam Marathon.