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Haru Tsuburaya, A Relative of 1964 Olympic Marathon Bronze Medalist Kokichi Tsuburaya, Makes First Nationals


At the 68th Fukushima Prefecture Junior High School Track and Field Championships, Haru Tsuburaya won the boys' 800 m to qualify for his first National Junior High School Championships. Kokichi Tsuburaya, 1964 Tokyo Olympics marathon bronze medalist and a native of Sukagawa, was the younger brother of Haru's great-grandfather. Haru admits that he "doesn't really know much" about his famed relative, but was enthusiastic about his own performance, saying, "I ran a PB of 1:59.43 at the Prefectural Championships, and I want to run about 1:56 at Nationals to go for the win."

Haru started running with the Kagamiishi Sports Club track team his first year of elementary school. In junior high he joined the basketball team in addition to running track. He started running the 800 m last fall, and even though he started off in only 2:07~09 range he trained steadily with the goal of making Nationals. As a result of that diligent training his times got better.

"My biggest strength is my last kick," he says proudly. With Nationals fast approaching, Haru says one thing he needs to work on is, "being able to start fast and sustain it without slowing down." Nationals start Aug. 17 in Okinawa, and to tune up for that he hopes to build momentum with a win at the Tohoku Region meet starting Aug. 6 in Fukushima.

People in Sukagawa involved with track and field look forward to Haru's success, recognizing his talent and seeing him as the successor to former 10000 m national record holder and 2021 Tokyo Olympian Akira Aizawa (Asahi Kasei), who was nicknamed "Kokichi Tsuburaya II." Haru cites 800 m NR holder and national champion Ko Ochiai (Komazawa Univ.) as his favorite athlete. Asked about the future, he says, "I want to work in a job involved with track and field."

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