"If I Could Tell the Younger Me What I've Accomplished He'd Cry" - Okinawa Record Holder Tatsunori Hamasaki

Running through driving cold rain, the pride of Okinawan long distance, Tatsunori Hamasaki, pushed on. The race was the Tokyo Marathon. The date, Mar. 3, 2019, was the culmination of 18 years of competitive life. At 5˚C he was chilled to the core and his eyes blurred. Runners ahead of him dropped out, the second-worst finisher rate in Tokyo history. Hamasaki's legs stiffened and he had trouble moving. "I knew my time would be laughable, but I kept going," he said. "I didn't want it to end in a DNF." That time was far from what he'd hoped, but still he made it to the finish line.

The Tokyo Marathon was his chance to qualify for the Marathon Grand Championship Tokyo Olympic Games marathon trials. He finished 81st in 2:23:57. Telling himself, "I'm not going to give up until it's over," Hamasaki doubled back and ran the Apr. 21 Nagano Marathon, his absolute chance. He finished 9:22 off the time he needed to qualify. With no more chances to make the trials, his Olympic dream was at an end.

Hamasaki graduated from Okinawa Kogyo H.S. After attending Asia University he joined the Komori Corporation team. Retiring in 2017 and returning home to Okinawa, he took a position working at Nanjo city hall in April the same year. At the time he told himself his running career was over, but he decided to give December's Hofu Marathon a shot. There he ran an Okinawa prefecture record PB of 2:11:26. That race rekindled his dream of making an Olympic team and inspired him to keep competing domestically and internationally as a civil servant runner. Ever since he's been the leading light of Okinawa long distance.

When he first started running Hamasaki often finished last in races, and sometimes he was beaten by girls. He didn't start to show any improvement until his last year of junior high school, and his teachers told him he was a fool to think about choosing a high school based on its track team. But Hamasaki ignored them and kept focused on developing his own plan for his life and making it onto a corporate team, and his unwavering belief in himself opened the door for it to happen. "The life I've had is one the people around me said was impossible," he said. "If I could tell the younger me what I've accomplished I think he would start crying."

Now that his Olympic ambitions have come to an end, Hamasaki is focusing on helping younger athletes develop through the Nanji AC club that he founded in Nanjo. He hopes to raise the level of track and field in Okinawa and make it one of the prefecture's major sports. "I want to show them that running is cool, simple, and something where you're the one responsible for your own success," he said. "Whether it's 10 years from now, or 20, I hope to see an amateur runner come up here in Okinawa where there aren't any corporate teams and develop into an athlete who can go out and compete with the best. I didn't pull it off perfectly, but I think that the two years I spent chasing the Olympic trials showed that it can be done. 20 years from now if someone else follows their own vision and succeeds where I couldn't, I'll be happier than anybody."

source article:
https://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/articles/-/595000
translated by Brett Larner