Around 200 athletes who had been recruited by Toyo University 's famed scout Hisashi Sato , 65, gathered at a hotel in Kawagoe, Saitama on Mar. 23 to celebrate Sato's retirement from his position as assistant coach at Toyo at the end of this month. Of the 30 men to have qualified for the Sept. 15 MGC Race 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon trials, 4 are Toyo alumni, more than any other university. Hiroyuki Yamamoto (32, Konica Minolta), who qualified for the MGC race at the Mar. 10 Lake Biwa Marathon, and former marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara (27, Honda), were among the attendees. Since it first won the Hakone Ekiden in 2009 to this year's 3rd-place finish Toyo has shown extraordinary consistency, finishing in the top 3 at Hakone all 11 years. Sato worked alongside head coach Toshiyuki Sakai , 42, to help develop that kind of stability. Where he showed exceptional ability in his 25 years with the team was in scouting. Sato famously discovered future Hakone ...
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