Mayumi Fujita, who finished seventh among all female runners in Monday’s sweltering 116th edition of the Boston Marathon, hails from Osaka, Japan.

But for a while Monday night and Tuesday morning, she was incorrectly listed on the Boston Athletic Association website as being a U.S. citizen, so media outlets – including the Boston Herald and weei.com – who relied on the online information instead of the official printed results, compounded the error by listing Sheri Piers of Falmouth as the second U.S. woman.

Marc Davis, communications director for the BAA, confirmed Tuesday that Fujita is “officially of Japanese citizenship” and the database has been corrected.

Because Fujita was an elite runner but not one of the 28 specifically recruited by the sponsor, John Hancock, to run Boston, her paperwork was not examined as thoroughly as that of others, Davis said.

Piers, who turns 41 next month, finished 10th among all women in a time of 2 hours, 41 minutes and 55 seconds. Because officials stagger the start by a half-hour to give elite women a clear racecourse, Piers was actually the first American runner across the finish line, even though her time was well behind the 2:14:31 of the top American male, Jason Hartmann of Boulder, Colo.

Hartmann and Piers shared the podium as the top U.S. finishers at a press conference in an ornate ballroom of the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel.

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“That’s not my thing,” Piers said Tuesday of being in front of the bright lights and cameras beneath six glass chandeliers, which preceded a lengthy period of drug testing.

Piers hadn’t heard of the confusion until contacted Tuesday on her way back from Boston, but said it wouldn’t have mattered to her.

The distinction carries no prize money or award. She won two blue crystal bowls, one for finishing among the top 10 women and the other for being the second masters (over-40) woman.

“I’m happy regardless,” she said.

If Fujita indeed were a U.S. citizen, Piers wondered, why hadn’t she taken part in the U.S. Olympic trials in January in Houston?

Nearly all the top U.S. women did so, including Piers, who finished 24th in 2:37:09 and was one of the few who opted to run Boston less than three months later.

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“I don’t even know why I’m here,” Piers said Monday afternoon in Boston, where temperatures climbed as high as 89 degrees along the course. “I have to do Boston. I always do Boston.”

Piers also mentioned a pair of Maine runners who broke 3 hours Monday but were not among the six listed in Tuesday’s Press Herald marathon notebook. Jesse Hugo is a 23-year-old graduate of Falmouth High who finished in 2:38:23 and Colman Hatton is a 24-year-old graduate of Cape Elizabeth High who ran 2:38:05.

Both runners were registered as residents of the state where they attended college, Florida for Hugo and Massachusetts for Hatton.

As for the three Maine men profiled as running in honor of Penobscot Indian Andrew Sockalexis in a Steve Solloway column from the Sunday Telegram, each withstood Monday’s heat and finished in under 5 hours.

Bob Bryant, police chief of Indian Island, Dale Lolar, a substance abuse counselor, and former Penobscot Nation tribal chief Barry Dana ran to raise money for the Penobscot River cleanup. Their times were 4:06:18 for Dana, who’s 53; 4:13:25 for Lolar, 56; and 4:48:22 for Bryant, 50.

Supported by the Nature Conservancy, the three men ran as Team Penobscot.

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Staff Writer Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at: gjordan@pressherald.com

Twitter: GlennJordanPPH

 


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