The winner of the first Marathon Grand Championships Olympic trials race is starting down a new road leading back to the Hakone Ekiden. Set to retire at the end of March, 2021 Tokyo Olympics marathon team member Shogo Nakamura (33, Fujitsu) will take over as head coach at Meiji Gakuin University in April in a quest for its first-ever Hakone appearance.
According to a source involved in the situation, Nakamura has been hired to lead Meiji Gakuin to Hakone by the 2028-29 academic year. Nakamura's career as an athlete garnered great respect, especially his serious attitude toward competition and the patience and endurance he developed through marathon running. Still on the cusp of retirement, Nakamura is unproven as a leader. But last year he entered the Waseda University Graduate School of Sport Science with the aim of becoming a professional coach. While balancing his academic work with his racing he studied top sports management at the same place Susumu Hara, head coach of 9-time Hakone winner Aoyama Gakuin University, learned his trade.
Meiji Gakuin has no experience with Hakone, but the school believes Nakamura's lack of experience as a coach will appeal to young athletes looking for a leader with an open and flexible mindset. Its track and field program was founded in 1924, and it was one of the schools to compete at the first National University Ekiden in 1970, where it finished 19th.
The university began putting more emphasis into its sports programs in 2005, with a boost to its track team in 2008 with the goal of competing at Hakone. In 2020 it launched a dedicated program to strengthen its ekiden team ahead of the school's 100th anniversary, and while that has yet to produce success at the team level 4 individual team members have been named to the Kanto Student Alliance select team. Meiji Gakuin has competed at every Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race since 2009, with its best placing being 19th in 2024. Based in Yokohama, the track program includes 45 male and female athletes.
During his time at Komazawa University Nakamura was coached by its executive head coach Hiroaki Oyagi. As captain at Komazawa his 4th year Nakamura won Hakone's First Stage. Oyagi continued to coach Nakamura after he graduated and joined Fujitsu, guiding him to become the winner of Japan's first Olympic marathon trials race in the fall of 2019 with a memorable last kick.
Not many athletes go straight to becoming head coach of a university team without prior coaching experience, one notable success story being former collegiate marathon record holder Masakazu University who took over at Chuo University in 2016. But it's an unusual thing to happen with a school that has never made it to Hakone. After a long time under one of Japan's most legendary college coaches Nakamura now steps into the same shoes with a fresh program of his own.
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translated and edited by Brett Larner
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