Race Conditions
By all accounts, IM Japan had a great, hard course, and the results reflect that: An adjustment of -12:29 makes it one of the slower races. This was mainly caused by a hilly bike course (adjustment of -18:12) and apparently some rain and wind in the second half. These adjustments fit the descriptions I’ve heard from the race, but the number of finishers is relatively small, so the numbers aren’t very reliable.
Male Race Results
Martin Jensen was the race favorite, and he almost led the race from start to finish. There was a little hiccup though: Apparently four swimmers cut the course and came out of the water in front of him, but were then slapped with a four-minute penalty. (I’ve removed the swim times for these athletes, but I’m not sure if the penalty is included in their bike times.) Martin is the first athlete scoring points under the new KPR system – if my earlier KPR simulations prove to be correct, he will “only” need about 900 more points from his remaining four races. Petr Vabrousek had an early start to the 2014 season and managed to come in second. (His 1.600 points are already better than all of his 2013 results – so he’s in a pretty good position to return to Kona even with the new KPR point scheme.)
| Rank | Name | Nation | Swim | Bike | Run | Time | Diff to expected |
| 1 | Martin Jensen | DEN | 00:49:22 | 04:52:28 | 03:01:09 | 08:47:53 | -01:08 |
| 2 | Petr Vabrousek | CZE | 00:55:06 | 05:12:10 | 03:05:57 | 09:19:52 | 12:37 |
| 3 | Tohara Kaito | JAP | 05:19:13 | 03:10:15 | 09:27:30 | n/a | |
| 4 | Daiki Masuda | JPN | 05:22:00 | 03:19:21 | 09:33:57 | -57:58 | |
| 5 | Byung Hoon Park | KOR | 01:06:50 | 05:11:02 | 03:10:02 | 09:34:21 | 29:08 |
| 6 | Kodo Hiramatsu | JPN | 05:35:24 | 03:11:52 | 09:40:36 | -27:54 | |
| 7 | Shinya Suganuma | JPN | 05:34:49 | 03:18:47 | 09:46:38 | 16:48 | |
| 8 | Jon Woods | NZL | 00:55:25 | 05:24:27 | 03:24:24 | 09:50:17 | -21:05 |
| 9 | Tadashi Iida | JPN | 00:54:58 | 05:35:33 | 03:14:10 | 09:50:48 | -01:00 |
| 10 | Danny Soper | USA | 01:02:37 | 05:24:24 | 03:33:31 | 10:05:53 | n/a |
| 11 | Josef Svoboda | CZE | 01:06:51 | 06:27:20 | 04:44:57 | 12:28:58 | 34:23 |
Female Race Results
Disappointingly, the female field was very small again: I could only find four Pro finishers (and as far as I can see no DNFs). It is still very early in the qualifying season, a lot of ladies in Kona contention were still focusing on Kona 2013 and IM Japan might not be the cheapest race to do – but it seems that these smaller races will be a great chance to score decent KPR points.
The race was won by Iron-rookie Shiao-yu Li. Her winning time of 10:12 underscores the fact that this would have been a great chance to snatch some early KPR points.
| Rank | Name | Nation | Swim | Bike | Run | Time | Diff to expected |
| 1 | Shiao-yu Li | TWN | 01:12:47 | 05:39:36 | 03:13:20 | 10:12:42 | n/a |
| 2 | Michelle Wu | AUS | 00:57:45 | 05:57:07 | 03:16:06 | 10:19:24 | n/a |
| 3 | Emi Sakai | JPN | 01:05:45 | 05:39:01 | 03:33:12 | 10:24:19 | -07:15 |
| 4 | Megumi Shigaki | JPN | 00:57:57 | 06:09:21 | 05:08:07 | 12:26:57 | 17:54 |