Skip to main content

Call Him Silva: Natsuki Terada and a Classic Hakone Finish (updated)

Trying to bring Koku Gakuin University home to its first-ever top ten seeded bracket Hakone Ekiden finish in a four-way sprint for the last three seeded spots, with less than 200 m to go on a 23.1 km stage at the end of a 217.9 km race in front of a live TV audience in the tens of millions freshman anchor Natsuki Terada kicks to the front and.....follows the camera truck off the course. Terada's coach Yasuhiro Maeda told reporters afterward, "I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head." Amazingly, Terada comes back to take the final seeded spot in 10th.

The clip below is from the "Mo Hitotsu no Hakone Ekiden" documentary which aired last weekend. The clip shows coach Maeda following Terada in a car during the last km. I'll try to get time to do a translation of the audio, but it's pretty easy to follow his range of emotions and he is essentially saying what it looks like he is saying all the way through.


Comments

Dusty said…
Do you know of anywhere online where I can find a copy of the entire race? I tried Keyhole TV and it would work for one minute, then stutter, then stop. I want to watch this race so badly!
Brett Larner said…
Dusty--

Sorry to hear Keyhole didn't work out for you. I was in Canada at the time and had the same problem initially. We reloaded the newest version of the player and the streaming improved dramatically, but several thousand people were watching by the last stage on each day and it did get choppy.

As far as the race being available online, no, it's about 14 hours of coverage so I can't imagine it being up for download anywhere. I recorded it, though.
Phil Suh said…
Brett--

Nippon Tele had a couple specials on TV this past Sunday. One was called "もうひとつの箱根駅伝", a one hour special covering some of the behind-the-scenes views of the race.

Evidently they have cameras in the coach's cars -- and of course the best reactions came from Kokugaku University's coach Maeda as he watched his 10th stage runner Terada run off course and then back on. It is absolutely riveting footage.

Did you see it? I recorded it, but I am trying to figure out a way to get it up on Youtube or something now.

P.S. LOVED your coverage of the race. I was down at Shinagawa on Day 2 cheering the racers as they came back through, armed with my 1 seg TV and your twitter feed. Definitely the best Hakone ever.
Phil Suh said…
someone already youtubed it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_UNgXYN48w
Brett Larner said…
Phil--

Thanks, glad my Twitter feed was helpful. I did from the wildlands of northern Vancouver Island. Yes, I did see Mo Hitotsu. Always interesting to see some of the inside stories, like Murasawa not knowing how far up he had advanced. Thanks for the link to the Youtube clip as well. If I have time I'll translate the audio for non-Japanese speakers.
Phil S said…
Brett - here's another video w English annotations. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrKz5QspAuU

Terada's coach cracks me up every time I watch it. I didn't bother trying to translate everything because it really is better just to watch and enjoy what happens.

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis

Saturday at Kanaguri and Nittai

Two big meets happened Saturday, one in Kumamoto and the other in Yokohama. At Kumamoto's Kanaguri Memorial Meet , Benard Koech (Kyudenko) turned in the performance of the day with a 13:13.52 meet record to win the men's 5000 m A-heat by just 0.11 seconds over Emmanuel Kipchirchir (SGH). The top four were all under 13:20, with 10000 m national record holder Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) bouncing back from a DNF at last month's The TEN to take the top Japanese spot at 7th overall in 13:24.57. The B-heat was also decently quick, Shadrack Rono (Subaru) winning in 13:21.55 and Shoya Yonei (JR Higashi Nihon) running a 10-second PB to get under 13:30 for the first time in 13:29.29 for 6th. Paris Olympics marathoner Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) was 9th in 13:30.62. South Sudan's Abraham Guem (Ami AC) also set a meet record in the men's 1500 m A-heat in 3:38.94. 3000 mSC national record holder Ryuji Miura made his debut with the Subaru corporate team, running 3:39.78 for 2n

93-Year-Old Masters Track and Field WR Holder Hiroo Tanaka: "Everyone has Unexplored Intrinsic Abilities"

  In the midst of a lot of talk about how to keep the aging population young, there are people with long lives who are showing extraordinary physical abilities. One of them is Hiroo Tanaka , 93, a multiple world champion in masters track and field. Tanaka began running when he was 60, before which he'd never competed in his adult life. "He's so fast he's world-class." "His running form is so beautiful. It's like he's flying." Tanaka trains at an indoor track in Aomori five days a week. Asked about him, that's the kind of thing the people there say. Tanaka holds multiple masters track and field world records, where age is divided into five-year groups. Last year at the World Masters Track and Field Championships in Poland he set a new world record of 38.79 for 200 m in the M90 class (men's 90-94 age group). People around the world were amazed at the time, which was almost unbelievable for a 92-year-old. After retiring from his job as an el