The fact that Beijing Olympics men's marathon winner Samuel Wanjiru and previous Kenyan marathon medalists Erick Wainaina and Douglas Wakiihuri all trained under Japanese coaches has gotten a fair amount of press recently. Less well-known is the fact that Chinese runners Chunxiu Zhou, who won the bronze medal in the women's marathon in Beijing and the silver medal at last year's Osaka World Championships marathon, and Xiaolin Zhu, who was 4th in both the Beijing Olympics and Osaka World Championships marathons, are also trained by a Japanese coach, Shinya Takeuchi. I posted an interesting profile of Takeuchi on Aug. 14 and in light of the attention being paid to Wanjiru's Japanese development I thought it worthwhile to bring it back up. Click here to read Takeuchi's profile, including some discussion of Zhou and Zhu's training.
The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...
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