Skip to main content

Atsushi Sato Named Head Coach of Chugoku Denryoku Corporate Team


Beijing Olympic marathoner and former team member Atsushi Sato, 43, has been named head coach of the Chugoku Denryoku men's corporate team as of the beginning of this month. Coming back to the team after 8 years, Sato is a strong choice to succeed Yasushi Sakaguchi and return it to its previous position as a leading producer of top-level athletes. "I'm very happy to be a part of helping the team I belonged to develop," Sato said. "I want it to evolve and grow, not just make a comeback."

Sato is a native of Fukushima. A graduate of Aizu H.S. and Waseda University, he joined Chugoku Denryoku in 2001. With his main focus on the marathon he ran 2:07:13 at the 2007 Fukuoka International Marathon, at the time the 4th-fastest ever by a Japanese man. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics he finished in last place in 76th, but a year later he came back and made 6th at the 2009 Berlin World Championships. He retired following the 2013 Fukuoka International Marathon, and coached the Kyocera corporate women's team from April, 2014 to August, 2020.

Sato was also well-known as a talented ekiden runner, winning his stage at the New Year Ekiden national championships five times. He was a member of Chugoku Denryoku's winning team in both 2004 and 2007. This year Chugoku Denryoku was only 16th at the New Year Ekiden, its 7th year in a row missing the 8-deep podium. "The initial goal is to get the team into the podium range," Sato said of his plans for the team. "In terms of an objective quantifier, that means improving each athlete's performance by 2 seconds per km. As a longer-term goal, I eventually want to put our athletes onto national teams."

Translator's note: Although this article doesn't mention it, Sato's biggest achievement as an athlete was breaking the Japanese national record in the half marathon, running 1:00:25 at the 2007 Udine World Road Running Championships. That time remains the 4th-fastest by a Japanese man even now in the supershoe era, while his marathon time has long since been knocked out of the top 10.

source article:
translated by Brett Larner

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 Hakone Ekiden

The Hakone Ekiden is the world's biggest road race, 2 days of road relay action with Japan's 20 best university teams racing 10 half marathon-scale legs from central Tokyo to the mountains east of Mount Fuji and back. The level just keeps going higher and higher , hitting the point this year where there are teams with 10-runner averages of 13:33.10 for 5000 m, 27:55.98 for 10000 m, and 1:01:20 for the half marathon. It's never been better, and with great weather in the forecast it's safe to say this could be one of the best races in Hakone's 102-year history, especially on Day One. If you've seen it then you know NTV's live broadcast is the best sports broadcast in the world, with the pre-race show kicking off at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on the 2nd and 3rd and the race starting at 8:00 a.m. sharp. If you've got a VPN you should be able to watch it on TVer starting at 7:50 a.m. on the 2nd , and again at 7:50 a.m. on the 3rd . There's even a 2-hour high...
3 comments
Read more

Long Time Coming - Akira Akasaki and Haruka Onodera's Road to the 2022 United Airlines NYC Half

Back in pre-pandemic days Akira Akasaki and Haruka Onodera  were still in college, Akasaki at Takushoku University and Onodera at Teikyo University . At the 2019 Ageo City Half Marathon they frontran most of the race together, dead set on finishing in the top two Japanese collegiate spots to win invitations to the 2020 United Airlines NYC Half. For Akasaki it had already been a year and a half wait. Inspired by Kenta Murayama 's 1:00:57 5th place in finish in New York in 2017 and Kei Katanishi 's 7th-place in 2018, Akasaki went for it his junior year in his debut at the 2018 Ageo Half . "Coming up to 10 km I was in the lead pack and feeling good, so I knew I had a shot at going to New York and got pretty excited," he said. But right after the 10 km turnaround point he tripped and fell, and by the time he was back up the lead group was out of range. He finished 20th in 1:03:07, over a minute and a half behind top Japanese university man Ken Nakayama . "I was f...
1 comment
Read more

My Training for 1:00:44

Hi, I'm Ayumu Kobayashi . Today I'm going to write about this year's National Corporate Half Marathon and the training I did for it. I hope other runners will find it even a little bit helpful. At the Corporate Half on Feb. 13 I was 10th in 1:00:44. My goal had been to run 61 minutes, so I hit that target. My Training Menu In January I ran a total of 681 km. Key workouts: Jan. 11: 1000 m x 5 at 2:50/km Jan. 12: 22.5 km Jan. 15: 9 km variable pace Jan. 17: 25 km Jan. 24: 1000 m x 8 at 2:52/km Jan. 27: 1 km + 4 km + 2 km Jan. 30: 16 km at 3:18/km avg. In January I was tired from the New Year Ekiden and had some knee pain after it, so I just jogged for 10 days until I started doing workouts again on the 11th. That's why I only ran 681 km for the month. But even on the jog days I was aware that I had the Corporate Half coming up, so I was doing around 30 km. It's pretty meat and potatoes, but I think it was really important. February (training for the 10 days before...
2 comments
Read more