Skip to main content

Kawauchi Leaves for Oslo After Trying 100 m Time Trial

The civil servant runner admits to being shocked. 2017 London World Championships marathoner and men's captain Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) left from Tokyo's Narita Airport for Norway the evening of Sept. 13 to run the Sept. 16 BMW Oslo Marathon.

On Sept. 9 at the National University Track and Field Championships, Yoshihide Kiryu (Toyo Univ.) became the first Japanese man to break 10 seconds in the 100 m when he set a new national record of 9.98. The news has been the talk of the nation ever since. Kawauchi said, "It's pretty amazing. It took up the front page of every newspaper." What can he run for 100 m? "My PB is 13.1, but right now, 13.9," he admitted.

Kawauchi ran that time, "in the morning the day before yesterday," he said. "I did two time trials. I even wore spikes. I ran them for real and only did 13.9. To be honest, it was pretty shocking." Although short sprints are well outside his area of expertise it seemed that he felt a sense of inadequacy at running just barely under 14 seconds, 4 seconds slower than Kiryu's and the kind of mark second-tier high school boys might run.

Following last month's World Championships Kawauchi went through a post-London slump, not training seriously for two weeks. "My weight rebounded back up to 66 kg, and my body fat is up to 13.2%," he said. "Now it's time to get back into it." Mentally refreshed and renewed, Kawauchi set off for Norway's foreign shores to make his comeback to racing.

source articles:
http://m.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2017/09/13/kiji/20170913s00057000279000c.html
http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/etc/20170913-OHT1T50202.html
translated and edited by Brett Larner
photo © 2017 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

On the Loss of the ARRS Database

At some point in the last few months I discovered that both versions of the ARRS database, the static one and the searchable version , are gone. Last week David Monti posted a link to the ARRS history of an event he covered in Race Results Weekly, I guess copying and pasting a link from last year without looking at it, and that reminded me to write something about the loss of the database. The Association of Road Racing Statisticians was basically a one-man show operated from the remote Northern California shores by Ken Young . When the site existed its intro read: The Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyses and publishes results and statistics regarding elite distance running at distances 3000m and longer...The data of ARRS is stored in the ARRS database, which has more than 1.3 million performances from more than 240,000 races by more than 95,000 elite and sub-elite distance runners worldwide...This website ...
1 comment
Read more

Multiple National Records This Weekend

Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest. U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back. Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3...
Post a Comment
Read more

Japan's Team Lineup in Copenhagen

Re-upping an earlier post on Japan's team lineup for this weekend's  Copenhagen World Road Running Championships . The JAAF chose not to name any women to the team in the mile. Women 5 km Kana Mizumoto (Edion) - 15:06.98 Rina Kusu (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:10.91 Half Marathon Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon) - 1:09:14 Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:09:20 Rina Shimizu (Noritz) - 1:09:22 Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:09:23 Men Mile Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.) - 3:37.53 (1500 m) Tomoki Nakano (Toenec) - 3:37.92 (1500 m) 5 km Yota Mashiko (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.35 Rui Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.64 Half Marathon Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 1:00:22 Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:26 Neo Namiki (Subaru) - 1:00:29 Daisuke Sato (Chuo Univ.) - 1:00:40 © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved
2 comments
Read more