Currently reading Why Does Japanese Marathoning Suck Now? by Toshimi Oriyama, a newly-published book in which the last seven Japanese men's marathon national record holders, Shigeru Soh (2:09:06, 1978), Toshihiko Seko (2:08:38, 1983), Takeyuki Nakayama (2:08:15, 1985), Taisuke Kodama (2:07:35, 1986), Takayuki Inubushi (2:06:57, 1999), Atsushi Fujita (2:06:51, 2000) and Toshinari Takaoka (2:06:16, 2002), and, in an afterward, Yuki Kawauchi, talk about their eras, the current situation and its future outlook. It includes the record holders' training logs for the four months leading up to each of their seven national records. Essential reading for anyone with Japanese literacy. A translation would be the definitive English-language work on Japanese distance running, Rashomon to The Last Samurai. Solid gold.
The 95th National University Track and Field Championships run Friday through Monday at Nissan Stadium in Yokohama. The complete meet schedule and live results are here . The 10000 m races were already held separately earlier this season. Streaming starts at 9:00 a.m. Saturday Japan time, with separate field event channels and Day 2 and 3 streaming here . Top entries in each event with best performance in the qualifying window: Men 100 m Shoma Yamamoto (Hiroshima Univ.) - 10.04 Fukuto Komuro (Chuo Univ.) - 10.07 Naoki Nishioka (Tsukuba Univ.) - 10.09 Riku Oishi (Toyo Univ.) - 10.13 Kaito Kuroki (Chuo Univ.) - 10.14 Ryunosuke Mizuno (Waseda Univ.) - 10.14 Yugo Haitamataira (Juntendo Univ.) - 10.17 Shun Miyashita (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 10.19 200 m Akira Hayashi (Keio Univ.) - 20.36 Tomoru Funaki (Daito Bunka Univ.) - 20.39 Oma Asai (Tsukuba Univ.) - 20.47 Reishin Yamamoto (Toyo Univ.) - 20.49 Shingo Suzuki (Tokai Univ.) - 20.54 Haruto Nakamura (Fukuoka Univ.) - 20.55 400 m Shinya Hayashi...
Comments
Also, I imagine that if the top U.S. coaches and top Japanese coaches sat down together, and shared ideas, they would both benefit to some degree. I live in Tokyo and was really bummed that the world didnt get to see the true ability of the Japanese in the Olympics.
Thanks