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.
Rino Goshima and Jun Kasai stepped up with PBs to win the 2024 National Championships 10000 m titles Friday at Shizuoka's Ecopa Stadium. In the women's race, Goshima, 4th in last December's 2023 National Championships 10000 m, went out front from the start with Kenyan teammate Judy Jepngetich pacing and 2023 3rd-placer Haruka Kokai in tow. Things were never on track to hit the 30:40.00 Paris Olympics standard, but except for a brief dip to 3:08 at 7000 m Goshima held steady at 3:05 to 3:06/km even as Kokai and Jepngetich fell off. With blood dripping from her left knee after getting spiked by Jepngetich, Goshima closed in 3:03 to take 5 seconds off her best from December's Nationals and win in 30:53.31, moving up to all-time Japanese #6. Jepngetich also PBd at 31:09.42 without counting in the standings, with Kokai 2nd in 31:10.53 and Kazuna Kanetomo 3rd in a PB 31:59.29. The runner-up last time, Yuka Takashima was last in 33:33.27. The men's race went out in a
Comments