On Mar. 28 the Wacoal women's corporate team announced that women-only marathon national record holder and Tokyo Olympics marathon 8th-placer Mao Ichiyama, 24, and head coach Tadayuki Nagayama, 62, will quit the team at the end of this month. At the same time, 2021 National Corporate Women's Ekiden runner-up Shiseido announced that both Ichiyama and Nagayama will join its lineup beginning in April.
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Born in Izumi, Kagoshima, Ichiyama joined Wacoal in 2016 after graduating from high school. Following the Tokyo Olympics, in December last year Ichiyama announced that she had gotten married with men's marathon national record holder Kengo Suzuki (Fujitsu).
Translator's note: The relocation to the Shiseido team puts Ichiyama close enough to the Fujitsu team's base in Chiba that she and Suzuki would be able to live together. With Wacoal she has been based in Kyoto, a roughly four-hour trip each way. As the women's and men's winners of the first Japan Marathon Championship series, Ichiyama and Suzuki are set to lead Japan's team for this summer's Oregon World Championships marathon. Nagayama's departure follows the retirement of his longtime mentee Kayoko Fukushi in January. His departure leaves Yuka Ando, who has had success under his coaching after moving to Wacoal following her own departure from the Suzuki team, a bit high and dry.
translated and edited by Brett Larner
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