A day on from the Marathon Grand Championship, Japan's 2020 Olympic marathon trials event, JAAF marathon development project team leader Toshihiko Seko, 63, spoke to media about the race, which broke from the tradition of the JAAF choosing national team members from multiple races to at last have the contenders all race head to head in a single competition. "It takes at least six months to prepare for the Olympics," he said. "If you don't know whether you're on the team it creates a lot of uncertainty and worry. That's not going to be the case this time. The MGC was perfect. We came together in humility to put it together." With a laugh he added, "I want a 100 million yen [~$925,000 USD] bonus for it. All we got was the burden of responsibility."
Seko, who in his prime earned the reputation of being the nation's "TV ratings generator marathon man," eagerly anticipates a resurgence of popularity for the marathon thanks to the MGC's dream lineup. "We've never had so many of our best runners all together racing each other before," he said. "It was way beyond anything from back in my day." The men's race was broadcast on TBS, with the women's race starting 20 minutes later and shown commercial-free on NHK, a first-ever simultaneous broadcast. "I can't wait to see the ratings," Seko said. "It had to have been around 40% for the two races combined."
Marathons used to be a major national focus. When Seko ran the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics the broadcast of the men's marathon earned ratings of 48.8%. Known in his time as the strongest marathoner in the world, when Seko ran domestic selection races the TV broadcasts regularly earned 35-40% ratings. But after the peak glory days of two-straight Olympic women's marathon gold medals by Naoko Takahashi and Mizuki Noguchi Japanese marathoning entered a period of stagnation, and ratings declined. For that reason, expectations for the MGC race were tremendously high.
The groundbreaking joint NHK and TBS broadcast was widely praised on social media, earning comments such as, "It's great to be able to see both races in their entirety," and "The commentary on both broadcasts was great and made them really easy to follow." Both networks shared footage and commentators in their broadcasts so that people watching the men's marathon could follow key progress in the women's race and vice versa. At the start of the joint program popular musician Masanori Aiba, who did commentary on NHK, and TBS announcer Shinichiro Yasuzumi appeared together. For four minutes the two networks shared the same camera feed.
In producing the men's race broadcast TBS employed 200 staff members, with two camera trucks and three camera motorcycles to convey the action in the all-important Olympic selection race in the detail it deserved. A producer expressed satisfaction with the broadcast, saying, "The cooperation between our networks and smooth switching between video feeds was really nice." NHK also had 200 staff members at work on its broadcast. Both NHK and NTV will broadcast the Rugby World Cup starting Sept. 20. An NHK producer echoed their TBS colleague's satisfaction and suggested the success of the MGC race could set a precedent for the future. "This was a great test run. If we collaborate with NTV on the Rugby World Cup I think the experience gained here will live on."
Up to now, the selection of national team marathoners from among multiple races has from time to time caused controversy. In breaking from that practice, the MGC system helped produce two men's marathon national records. The actual race itself was likewise expected to be stellar, and it lived up to that expectation. "This has given us a foothold," Seko nodded. "But you can't say we're really back on our feet until we have an Olympic medal in our hands. I think the signs are there, though."
source articles:
https://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20190916/ath19091615390013-n1.html
https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20190914-00000111-dal-spo
https://news.nifty.com/article/entame/showbizd/12278-405801/
translated and edited by Brett Larner
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