Skip to main content

Mogusu Pulling Himself Together in Wake of Car Accident

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/sports/other/090501/oth0905010946004-n1.htm

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Mogusu in the Hyogo Relay Carnival 10000 m on Apr. 26. Click photo for full-sized version.

A former Hakone Ekiden star during his days at Yamanashi Gakuin University, Mekubo Mogusu (Team Aidem) has begun his comeback after a car accident in his native Kenya in February. Mogusu was 5th in the Apr. 26 Hyogo Relay Carnival 10000 m and 2nd in the Apr. 29 Oda Memorial Track and Field Meet 5000 m in a time just off his best. "I have to just take things bit by bit," he said after the race in Hyogo.

Mogusu was driving the car at the time of the accident which left his new coach Sho Kimura in a coma. Shock and guilt over Kimura's condition prevented Mogusu, who was uninjured, from training in the months following the accident. Now hospitalized in Wakayama, Kimura's condition has improved to the point where he is able to feed himself, but the news doesn't bring back Mogusu's characteristic smile. "I'm still very, very sorry that I was responsible for this," he says.

While Kimura was still comatose, Mogusu's former coach at Yamanashi Gakuin University, Masahito Ueda, tried to encourage Mogusu, telling him, "If Kimura wakes up and sees that you're not running any more it's going to be much worse." Now on the comeback from the stress of the accident and from the time off, Mogusu hopes to make the Kenyan national team for this summer's World Championships in Berlin.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Takeshi Soh Reflects on 54 Years in the Sport on His Retirement as Asahi Kasei Head Coach

After 54 years at the Asahi Kasei corporate team, first as athlete and then as coach, Takeshi Soh will retire at the end of this month. Together with his twin brother Shigeru Soh they formed a duo who were icons of the Japanese marathoning world and went all the way to the Olympics. After retiring from competition Takeshi devoted himself to coaching young athletes and came to play a primary role in the leadership of Japanese long distance. His list of achievements is long, and so is the list of those he influenced and inspired. His twin Shigeru was chosen for three Olympic teams in the marathon, Montreal in 1976, Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984. Takeshi was named to the Moscow and Los Angeles teams, placing 4th in L.A. to confirm his position as one of the greatest names in the sport in that era. After becoming a coach the twins helped lead Hiromi Taniguchi to gold at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships, Koichi Morishita to silver a year later at the Barcelona Olympics, and o...

Japan Names Marathon Teams for Tokyo World Championships

On Mar. 26 the JAAF named its women's and men's marathon teams for September's Tokyo World Championships. On the women's side the team has veterans Sayaka Sato and Yuka Ando off the strength of a runner-up finish for Sato in Nagoya this year and a win in Nagoya last year by Ando, and newcomer Kana Kobayashi , 23, who has risen quickly from being a fun runner at Waseda University last year to a 2nd-place finish in Osaka Women's this year. Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Suzuki was named alternate after finishing 3rd behind Kobayashi in Osaka Women's. On the men's side the team is led by last year's Fukuoka International Marathon CR breaker Yuya Yoshida and this year's Osaka runner-up Ryota Kondo . The 3rd spot on the team is reserved for JMC Series winner Naoki Koyama , who hasn't cleared the 2:06:30 World Championships qualifying standard and has to wait for the May 4 qualifying deadline for confirmation that the 1184 points he has in the Roa...

Evaluating the Japan Marathon Championship Series IV Awards

  The JAAF held the award ceremony for its Japan Marathon Championship Series IV last night in Tokyo, the whole thing streamed live on Youtube. The two-year series, in this case running from April, 2023 to March, 2025, scores marathoners on time and place in domestic races and high-level international races, with athletes' two best performances combining to give them their series rankings. Series winners score guaranteed places on the 2025 Tokyo World Championships team , with the top 8 women and men earning prize money: 1st: Â¥6,000,000 (~$40,000 USD) 2nd: Â¥3,000,000 (~$20,000) 3rd: Â¥1,000,000 (~$6,700) 4th: Â¥800,000 (~$5,300) 5th: Â¥700,000 (~$4,700) 6th: Â¥500,000 (~$3,300) 7th: Â¥300,000 (~$2,000) 8th: Â¥200,000 (~$1,300) Points for time are scored according to World Athletics scoring tables, with placing points based on races' designated level. Given the JAAF's financial interests in the big domestic races and the income stream from their TV broadcasts, the scoring system ...