DeNA Corporate Team Disbanded

Thank you for your support of the Yokohama DeNA Running Club. Founded in 2013, the DeNA corporate team will be disbanded at the end of 2020. Beginning in 2021, DeNA will take a new approach toward supporting the activities of individual athletes who aim to compete at the international level. Despite the impact of the coronavirus crisis upon all our sports business, with its new approach DeNA hopes to continue to support competitive running in the medium to long-term future.

Right now we are in the midst of making new contract offers to our existing athletes under the new model. We will continue to keep you informed about each athlete's plans for the next fiscal year and in every case will respect the athlete's wishes, whatever they may be. Head coach Tomoaki Kunichika and other members of the current team's staff will be retiring. We thank them for their contributions to the team's development.

We hope to have your continued support in the future.

Translator's note: Headed by Toshihiko Seko, DeNA was formed from the leftovers of the historic S&B team, which after a long history followed almost an identical trajectory to DeNA's route over the last year. Having already announced it would no longer do ekidens, earlier this year DeNA began to quietly farm out existing athletes, with Bedan Karoki moving to Toyota and David Ngure to GMO, even as it brought in new talent like 1500 m national champion Ryoji Tatezawa in April. Apart from Tatezawa, its most notable current athlete is 2:09:19 marathoner Haruki Minatoya, who joined DeNA in 2019 after graduating as captain of Tokai University's Hakone Ekiden champion team.

source article:
https://running.dena.com/news/2CMMM1FAHX8xuCCqGqIZaj/
translated and edited by Brett Larner