Skip to main content

Still in Shock From Car Accident, Mogusu Has No Plans to Restart His Running

http://www.asahi.com/sports/update/0313/TKY200903130293.html
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/news/p-sp-tp0-20090314-470948.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Hakone Ekiden star Mekubo Mogusu (22) and Yamanashi Gakuin University head coach Masahito Ueda held a press conference at the school's Kofu campus on Mar. 13 to discuss the details of the car accident in which Mogusu was involved last month in his native Kenya. On Feb. 9 Mogusu was driving to a practice ground when he struck an oncoming vehicle head-on while pulling out to pass a parked car. Mogusu and fellow runners Daniel Gitau (Nihon Univ.) and Cosmas Ondiba (Yamanashi Gakuin Univ.) were uninjured, but Team Aidem coach Sho Kimura (26), riding in the front passenger seat, struck his head hard and fell unconscious. Kimura is now in a hospital in Wakayama Prefecture where he has regained consciousness and is able to respond to his name.

Mogusu is still suffering from the shock of the accident and is unable to train. Scheduled to join Team Aidem next month following his graduation, he apologized at the press conference, saying, "I can't even think about running right now. Coach Kimura recovering even a day earlier means more to me than that. I am truly sorry."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...
82 comments
Read more

Nat'l University Ekiden Updates Here

Looks like I just went over my update limit on Twitter - sorry, it's the first time I've tried to use it for this. I'll look for another option next time. In the meantime I'll add updates to the comments below. Not sure if that has a max too but I guess we'll find out. Update: Part one of the Nationals commentary can be found here .
77 comments
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
54 comments
Read more