Skip to main content

Sagara to Be Named New Head Coach of Waseda University Ekiden Team

http://www.minpo.jp/news/detail/2015020320750

translated by Brett Larner

Waseda University ekiden team assistant coach Yutaka Sagara, 34, a native of Koriyama, Fukushima and a Waseda alumnus, is set to take take over as the team's head coach.  The formal announcement of his inauguration is expected to take place within the current fiscal year.

Yasuyuki Watanabe, 41, has served as head coach of the Waseda ekiden team since 2004, but in December last year he announced that he would retire as coach at the end of the fiscal year in March.  According to a source connected to the team, Sagara was tapped based on favorable evaluations of his co-leadership of the team in tandem with Watanabe.

Sagara was born in Koriyama.  After graduating from Asaka H.S. he entered Waseda University's school of human sciences, scoring some success as an athlete in the 3000 mSC.  His first year he ran the Hakone Ekiden's uphill Fifth Stage, and as a third year he ran the downhill Sixth Stage.  In his senior year he served as the team's captain. 

After graduating he worked at several local high schools in Fukushima before taking a position as assistant long distance coach at Waseda in April, 2005.  At Waseda his duties have focused on developing the team's uphill and downhill specialists and its walk-on athletes.  He has run the Fukushima Ekiden twice, at the ninth running in 1997 and again at the fifteenth running in 2003.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Sprinter Shoji Tomihisa Retires From Athletics at 105

A retirement ceremony for local masters track and field legend Shoji Tomihisa , 105, was held May 13 at his usual training ground at Miyoshi Sports Park Field in Miyoshi, Hiroshima. Tomihisa began competing in athletics at age 97, setting a Japanese national record 16.98 for 60 m in the men's 100~104 age group at the 2017 Chugoku Masters Track and Field meet. Last year Tomihisa was the oldest person in Hiroshima selected to run as a torchbearer in the Tokyo Olympics torch relay. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the relay on public roads was canceled, and while he did take part in related ceremonies his run was ultimately canceled. Tomihisa recently took up the shot put, but in light of his fading physical strength he made the decision to retire from competition. Around 30 members of the Shoji Tomihisa Booster Club attended the retirement ceremony. After receiving a bouquet of flowers from them Tomihisa in turn gave them a colored paper placard on which he had written the characters