Skip to main content

Fujiwara Announces Retirement and New Role as Chuo University Head Coach

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/1614520.html
http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/feature/hakone/20160309-OHT1T50065.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

Historical Hakone Ekiden powerhouse Chuo University held a press conference on Mar. 9 to announce the retirement of three-time World Championships marathon team member and Chuo alumnus Masakazu Fujiwara, 35, from competition and his naming as new head coach of its ekiden team.  Chuo holds multiple Hakone records including 6-straight wins, 14 wins overall, 87-straight and 90 total Hakone appearances, but under former head coach Haruo Urata, 54, for the last four years it failed to make the seeded top ten.  Fujiwara commented, "I want to get us back into the seeded bracket within two or three years," showing his enthusiasm for returning Chuo to its glory days.

As a first-year at Chuo Fujiwara won the Hakone Ekiden's famed uphill Fifth Stage, placing 2nd and 3rd on the same stage as a second-year and third-year.  As a third-year he also won the gold medal in the 2001 World University Games half marathon, and as a fourth-year he won Hakone's most competitive stage, the Second Stage.  Just before his graduation he set the still-standing debut and collegiate marathon national records of 2:08:12 at the 2003 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon, qualifying for the 2003 Paris World Championships team.

Fujiwara and Honda teammate Suehiro Ishikawa at the 2013 Great Manchester Run.

After graduating he joined the Honda corporate team.  Injuries prevented him from running in Paris and continued to hamper his pro career, but in 2010 he became the only Japanese man to win the Tokyo Marathon, following up with marathon national team appearances at the 2013 Moscow and 2015 Beijing World Championships.  He planned to run last weekend's Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon to try to make his Olympic debut but suffered a stress fracture in his right shin that forced him to withdraw.  Missing out on his Olympic dream, he decided to retire. 

Fujiwara will leave Honda at the end of March to take over at his alma mater Chuo University in a new leadership capacity at the start of the 2016-17 academic year in April.  He departs with lifetime bests of 13:49.33 for 5000 m, 28:17.38 for 10000 m, 1:02:23 for the half marathon and 2:08:12 for the marathon.  "The Rio Olympics were my goal," he said.  "It's a shame that my dream as an athlete ended with just the World Championships, but now I want to help rebuild a powerful Chuo University and someday take the overall Hakone win."


Translator's note: JRN supported Fujiwara at the 2013 Great Manchester Run where he set his road 10 km PB of 29:32.  Among his many accomplishments, Fujiwara holds the world record for the longest time between consecutive sub-2:09, and probably sub-2:10, marathons, 10 years and 1 day, with his 2:08:12 debut at Lake Biwa on March 2, 2003 and a 2:08:51 at Lake Biwa on March 3, 2013.  It's a testament to what kind of person Fujiwara is that he never gave up hope that entire time, much of it lost to injury, when most other people would have thrown in the towel long before.

These and other articles caused a lot of hilarity on Japanese Twitter due to their use of the phrase "藤原新監督," literally "New Head Coach Fujiwara."  "新監督," new head coach, is the normal way to refer to someone in Fujiwara's position, but the character for new, 新, "shin," also has the alternate reading "arata."  This means the characters 藤原新監督 can be read as "Head Coach Arata Fujiwara."  藤原新, Arata Fujiwara, is a 2:07 Olympian still active as an athlete.  Reached for comment, Arata Fujiwara told JRN dryly, "I'll do my best."  The first article has since been edited to refer to Masakazu Fujiwara simply as "藤原," Fujiwara. 

photos © 2013 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Ninja Runner Yuka Ando Leads Japanese Women's Marathon Team in London: "I Want to Go For It"

Her form has been dubbed "ninja running." Both arms held straight down with almost no movement. That idiosyncratic style carried Yuka Ando , 23, to the fastest-ever marathon debut by a Japanese woman, 2:21:36, at March's Nagoya Women's Marathon to land at #4 on the all-time Japanese lists. All at once Ando found herself catapulted to the top level of women's marathoning, a candidate for Japan's next great marathoner. When she was younger Ando ran moving her arms like other runners, but she had a bad habit of moving robotically, her upper body and lower body not working in sync. The turning point came in 2014 when she joined Suzuki Hamamatsu AC . Working there with coach Masayuki Satouchi to eliminate the faults in her form, the pair arrived at the ninja running style that let her run relaxed. "Other people keep asking me, "Isn't it hard to run like that?" but for me it's comfortable," she said. The efficient form helped her mai

Yamaguchi 10th at United Airlines NYC Half - Weekend Overseas Results

2024 national cross-country champion Tomonori Yamaguchi was the top Japanese finisher in the men's race at the United Airlines NYC Half , taking 10th in 1:04:36. A 2nd-year at Waseda University , Yamaguchi was one of three collegiate runners running New York in the 11th year of JRN's development program collaboration between the Ageo City Half Marathon and the New York Road Runners, a program that has seen people like future half marathon and marathon NR breaker Yuta Shitara and Paris Olympic team member Akira Akasaki make their international debuts. Yamaguchi's Waseda teammate Taishi Ito started fast, going with the leaders through 5 km in 14:29 before losing touch. Hosei University senior Rei Matsunaga went through in 14:42 in his last race before joining the JR Higashi Nihon corporate team in April. Yamaguchi, who caught COVID after winning last month's National Cross-Country Championships, started more conservatively with a 15:11 first 5km. But where both Ito

Rui Aoki Wins National University Men's Half Marathon - Weekend Results

Yuka Ando 's win at the Nagoya Women's Marathon was the big news of the weekend, but there were other high-level races happening, even in Nagoya. Held in parallel with the marathon, the Nagoya City Half Marathon saw Australians Natalie Rule and Ed Goddard take easy wins by about 2.5 minutes each, Rule in 1:13:57 and Goddard in 1:04:01. The new Biwako Marathon also had a non-Japanese winner, China's Yousheng Guan scoring 1st in 2:14:58 with Japan's Hirohito Sugai next in 2:16:40. Mikiko Ota won the women's race in 2:50:44. The Shizuoka Marathon returned for its first running in five years, with club runner Shumpei Oda leading the top 7 men under 2:20 in 2:15:36. Women's winner Remi Tanaka ran 2:41:23, beating runner-up Ayumi Sano by exactly 7 minutes. And in Tokyo, Rui Aoki continued what has been a great season so far for Koku Gakuin University with a win at the National University Men's Half Marathon . Aoki and Hiro Konda of Chuo Gakuin Unive