The fact that Beijing Olympics men's marathon winner Samuel Wanjiru and previous Kenyan marathon medalists Erick Wainaina and Douglas Wakiihuri all trained under Japanese coaches has gotten a fair amount of press recently. Less well-known is the fact that Chinese runners Chunxiu Zhou, who won the bronze medal in the women's marathon in Beijing and the silver medal at last year's Osaka World Championships marathon, and Xiaolin Zhu, who was 4th in both the Beijing Olympics and Osaka World Championships marathons, are also trained by a Japanese coach, Shinya Takeuchi. I posted an interesting profile of Takeuchi on Aug. 14 and in light of the attention being paid to Wanjiru's Japanese development I thought it worthwhile to bring it back up. Click here to read Takeuchi's profile, including some discussion of Zhou and Zhu's training.
The national corporate federation announced on Mar. 16 that beginning with the 71st edition of the New Year Ekiden men's national championship race on Jan. 1, 2027, teams will have a choice of stages that non-Japanese team members are eligible to run. The lengths of some stages will also be changed. Teams competing in the New Year Ekiden are restricted to fielding one non-Japanese athlete, and since 2009 foreign athletes have been restricted to running the event's shortest stage, the so-called "International Stage." Until 2023 that was the race's 2nd leg, but since 2024 it has been on its 7.6 km 4th stage. The federation had already announced the introduction of a seeded bracket like other major ekidens to improve the competition by creating deeper racing for place, not just for the lead, over the 2nd half of the race. Teams will now be able to choose whether to position their non-Japanese athletes on the 4th or 6th legs, increasing the opportunities for Japanese...
Comments