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Why Aoyama Gakuin University Grads Never Make National Teams


The important thing to ask yourself is, "What comes next?"

On January 10th the organizers of the Feb. 4 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon announced their field for this year's race. Among the general division entrants is Aoi Ota, the Aoyama Gakuin University 3rd-year who ran down leader Komazawa University on the Hakone Ekiden's Third Stage to play a critical role in Aoyama Gakuin's upset win. Head coach Susumu Hara has floated the possibility of Ota running 2:04 at Beppu-Oita. This was the 7th Hakone title in the last ten years for AGU, but what's strange is that not a single member of those champion teams has gone on to make a Japanese national team at the two Olympics or five World Championships that have happened since AGU's era began.

One recent example is Shungo Yokota, now of the JR Higashi Corporate Team. Just before his graduation from AGU last year, Yokota was 4th overall and 2nd Japanese at the 2023 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon in a collegiate record 2:07:47. That qualified him for last October's MGC Race Paris Olympic marathon trials, but at the trials he was only 30th. In contrast, trials runner-up Akira Akasaki, 25 and running for Kyudenko, ran Hakone all four years at the minor Takushoku University team during the period in which AGU scored its third through fifth Hakone wins.

One corporate team coach weighed in on AGU alumni's lack of progress post-graduation. "There are several things to consider. Aoyama Gakuin athletes focus completely on the Hakone Ekiden, and for their four years of university they tailor their bodies according to Hakone's main demand of being ready to run a stage of around 20 km. This year they won half its ten stages. Over 20 km they have better speed and stamina than anyone, but when they enter the corporate leagues and have to refocus that ability on the 42 km full marathon where there isn't the same kind of mass popularity as at Hakone, it can be mentally and physically hard for them to make that transition."

"But in Ota's case, he said when he was a first year that he is going for the Paris Olympics, and he intends to go a different route from those who go on to the corporate leagues, and become a pro athlete. His way of thinking is like that of Suguru Osako, who left the corporate league, went abroad to learn and train, and operated as a pro. It's very interesting." The question is, will that be enough to him to earn the right to wear the Rising Sun?

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translated and edited by Brett Larner

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