The Yasukawa Denki men's corporate team has announced that four of its members including 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics marathoner Hisanori Kitajima , 38, are retiring. Kitajima won the Hakone Ekiden's Eighth Stage his fourth year at Toyo University . He finished 2nd as the top Japanese man at the 2016 Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon to qualify for the Rio Olympics, where he placed 94th. In comments Kitajima said, "The last few years I've felt my body deteriorating day by day, and it was frustrating not to be able to do the kind of training and aggressive racing I used to. But that made me change the way I approached racing, and to approach it with more thought and craft. I learned new things and changed my way of thinking, and as I got older I found a new kind of enjoyment and satisfaction in racing. Part of that was being called a veteran, which felt like some kind of persona. It made me want to compete with the 'veterans' from other teams, and that came to be a m...
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