japan running news

On Sept. 12 Nittai University announced that it will fire ekiden team head coach Masaaki Watanabe, 55, over the current power harassment scandal surrounding him. According to the university's public relations office, interviews by the alumni association with five current and one former team member reported multiple acts of violence by Watanabe including kicking athletes' legs and grabbing them by the chest.

The interviews also reported that Watanabe verbally abused and threatened student athletes and attacked their character. When runners fell off pace during workouts he was reported to have shouted, "Get the hell out of this university!" and, following the runners in a car, "I am going to f*cking run you over and kill you." Injured team members were also reported to have been subject to verbal humiliation by Watanabe, including, "Look at this f*cking cripple," and "You f*cking deserve it." Watanabe admitted the accusations but said tha…

Following revelations of power harassment in scandals involving the Nihon University football team coaching staff, the amateur boxing and gymnastics association and other bodies of authority across the Japanese sports world, on Sept. 7 the tabloid magazine Friday reported accusations of power harassment abuse by Masaaki Watanabe, 55, head coach of Hakone Ekiden powerhouse Nittai University. "I never want to see that guy's face again," the magazine quoted one former team member as saying. "As long as he's the head coach I can't run for this team. I really wanted to run Hakone one more time. If anyone would hire me I wanted to keep running for a corporate team. But instead I've come to hate running itself."

On Sept. 7 Nittai University responded to the abuse allegations against Watanabe, 55. According to the university's Public Relations department, the school is currently in the process of verifying the facts of the situation and plans to questi…

https://twitter.com/kun304/status/646833692770332672/photo/1

translated and edited by Brett Larner

2014 Hakone Ekiden First Stage winner Hideto Yamanaka, a fourth-year at 2013 Hakone Ekiden champion Nittai University, has quit the school's ekiden team.  Left without its star runner, Nittai will shoot for its 68th-straight Hakone Ekiden appearance when it runs the Oct. 17 Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race.

Yamanaka ran the Third Stage at the 2013 Hakone Ekiden as a first-year, playing a key role in Nittai's first overall Hakone win in 30 years.  As a second-year he won the 21.4 km First Stage in 1:01:25, with a 1:02:09 course record win two months later at the National University Half Marathon Championships cementing his position as a top-class collegiate athlete.  Shortly afterward, however, he suffered a long-lasting string of injuries that kept him out of competition throughout his third year until a surprise return at the start of his fourth year to win the 10000 m at M…

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20140401-00000062-mai-spo

translated by Brett Larner

Having led Aichi prefecture's Toyokawa Kogyo H.S. boys to the National High School Ekiden Championships for fourteen straight years through 2011, former head coach Masaaki Watanabe, 51, became the new head coach and a health and physical education teacher at Tokyo's Nittai Ebara H.S. as of the start of the academic year on April 1.  Along with Watanabe, eight students including five members of Toyokawa Kogyo's team at last December's National High School Ekiden transferred to Nittai Ebara.  Past instances of large numbers of top-class athletes transferring en masse include the 2012 transfer of ten students from Sendai Ikuei H.S. to Toyokawa H.S., but it is safe to say it is unusual.

Watanabe became head coach at Toyokawa Kogyo in 1993 and developed it into one of the country's most powerful high school ekiden teams.  In January last year his use of corporal punishment against stud…