Skip to main content

Federation Executives Express Disappointment at Weak Japanese Showing in Fukuoka

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20141207-00000527-sanspo-spo

translated and edited by Brett Larner
photos by Dr. Helmut Winter

Former world record holder Patrick Makau (Kenya) ran 2:08:22 to win the Dec. 7 Fukuoka International Marathon, the first domestic selection race for the Japanese team for next August's Beijing World Championships.  Japanese Federation executives who set the Beijing qualification standard at sub-2:06:30, a time only one Japanese man has ever run, were quick to express their disappointment at the 2:09:06 4th-place finish by 33-year-old Masakazu Fujiwara (Team Honda) being the top Japanese placing.

Executive Director Mitsugi Ogata, 55, expressed concern about the lead-up to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in two years and beyond to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, saying, "We must cultivate true star athletes.  We've still got a harsh road ahead of us."  Ogata praised 3rd place finisher Ser-Od Bat-Ochir (Mongolia/Team NTN), 4th at October's Asian Games marathon, for mixing it up with the Africans.  "He just kept attacking.  I'd like to see aggressive athletes like that appear here too."

Development Committee Director Katsumi Sakai, 54, seethed with chagrin as he commented, "If they don't change their way of thinking they'll never be able to compete with the rest of the world.  I'm utterly disappointed."  The poor showing by Kentaro Nakamoto (32, Team Yasukawa Denki) was another blow to the National Team program Sakai helped establish in April.

Men's Marathoning Director Takeshi Soh, 61, expressed a sense of crisis that the next generation did not rise to the challenge as he said, "I think today was a shame.  I expected to see our young athletes make a breakthrough."  He urged the country's best young athletes to make their marathon debuts early, saying, "If our current university runners move to the marathon when they're at their peak speed it will improve our overall level."

photos (c) 2014 Dr. Helmut Winter
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
IF the Japanese athletes keep doing the same training in the same locations, they will stay at the 2:08-2:09 level forever. You cannot expect to do the same training with the same training partners in the same training venues and expect to improve. Occaisionally they'll have an outlier like Takaoka, but if they want to compete against the top Kenyans and Ethiopians, then why don't they go there and live with them and train alongside them?
December 10, 2014 at 8:01 AM
Pichon said…
2H06'30 it is really unrealistic indeed only athletes of Ethiopia and Kenya realized superior performances this year.
Furthermore some of these performances are suspicious (see the last revelations concerning doping )
December 13, 2014 at 8:43 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ivy League at the Izumo Ekiden in Review

Last week I was contacted by Will Geiken , who I'd met years ago when he was a part of the Ivy League Select Team at the Izumo Ekiden . He was looking for historical results from Izumo and lists of past team members, and I was able to put together a pretty much complete history, only missing the alternates from 1998 to 2010 and a little shaky on the reverse transliterations of some of the names from katakana back into the Western alphabet for the same years. Feel free to send corrections or additions to alternate lists. It's interesting to go back and see some names that went on to be familiar, to see the people who made an impact like Princeton's Paul Morrison , Cornell's Max King , Stanford's Brendan Gregg in one of the years the team opened up beyond the Ivy League, Cornell's Ben de Haan , Princeton's Matt McDonald , and Harvard's Hugo Milner last year, and some of the people who struggled with the format. 1998 Team: 15th of 21 overall, 2:14:10 (43
Post a Comment
Read more

Hirabayashi Runs PB at Shanghai Half, WR Holder Nakata Dominates Fuji Five Lakes - Weekend Road Roundup

Returning to the roads after his 2:06:18 win at February's Osaka Marathon, Kiyoto Hirabayashi (Koku Gakuin University) took 5th at Sunday's Shanghai Half Marathon in a PB 1:01:23, just under a minute behind winner Roncer Kipkorir Konga (Kenya) who clocked a CR 1:00:29. After inexplicably running the equivalent of a sub-59 half marathon to win the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage, Aoi Ota (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) was back to running performances consistent with his other PBs with a 1:02:30 for 8th. His AGU teammate Kyosuke Hiramatsu was 10th in 1:04:00. Women's winner Magdalena Shauri (Tanzania) also set a new CR in 1:09:57. Aoyama Gakuin runners took the top four spots in the men's half marathon at the Aomori Sakura Marathon , with Hakone alternate Kosei Shiraishi getting the win in 1:04:32 and B-team members Shunto Hamakawa and Kei Kitamura 2nd and 3rd in 1:04:45 and 1:04:48. Club runners took the other division titles, Hina Shinozaki winning the women's half
Post a Comment
Read more