japan running news

After 54 years at the Asahi Kasei corporate team, first as athlete and then as coach, Takeshi Soh will retire at the end of this month. Together with his twin brother Shigeru Soh they formed a duo who were icons of the Japanese marathoning world and went all the way to the Olympics. After retiring from competition Takeshi devoted himself to coaching young athletes and came to play a primary role in the leadership of Japanese long distance. His list of achievements is long, and so is the list of those he influenced and inspired. His twin Shigeru was chosen for three Olympic teams in the marathon, Montreal in 1976, Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984. Takeshi was named to the Moscow and Los Angeles teams, placing 4th in L.A. to confirm his position as one of the greatest names in the sport in that era. After becoming a coach the twins helped lead Hiromi Taniguchi to gold at the 1991 Tokyo World Championships, Koichi Morishita to silver a year later at the Barcelona Olympics, and o...

Japan's golden years dream team of Toshihiko Seko and the Soh twins at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Toshihiko Seko against Juma Ikangaa , the Soh twins and Alberto Salazar at the 1983 Fukuoka International Marathon.

Along with Bill Rodgers , Frank Shorter and a small number of others, Bob Hodge is one of the only Americans to ever win a marathon in Japan, earning the lifelong nickname "Hodgie-san." Ahead of this weekend's Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon , Hodge wrote about his win at the famous race's 1982 running. photo: Hodge and 2013 Beppu-Oita winner and course record holder Yuki Kawauchi . I don’t ever look back. Japan is a fantastic place for a racer to run a marathon. Most of the top races there invite a smallish contingent of foreign runners, and I considered myself fortunate and very much honored to be competing in Japan for the second time in just a couple of years. Beppu is a beautiful place on the coastline of the southern island of Kyushu. It's known for its thermal hot springs, and bordered by volcanic mountains rising up from the coast it was a dramatic setting for this race. The race was headed by a couple of busses carrying the media and race offi...

https://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20170515-00000124-sph-spo translated by Brett Larner 今日から新しいチームメイトが旭化成に加わりました！！ 共に世界を目指して頑張ります。 応援よろしくお願いします。 #ケニア #🇰🇪 #左 #アブラハム #右 #ケネス https://t.co/OSMR3UynMN pic.twitter.com/UiuIcQTFUK — 市田 孝 (@TAKA_supra) May 15, 2017 On May 15 ekiden and marathon powerhouse Asahi Kasei welcomed its first-ever foreign-born team members, Kenyans Kenneth Kiprop Kipkemoi , 32, and Abraham Kapsis Kipyatich , 24, to the team's base in Nobeoka, Miyazaki. The highly accomplished Kipkemoi holds a 10000 m best of 26:52.65 far superior to the 27:29.69 Japanese national record held by Asahi Kasei's Kota Murayama , 24, and his 5000 m and half marathon bests of 13:03.07 and 59:01 are likewise better than the Japanese national records. By comparison, Kipyatich is still young with room to grow further in the future. Regarding the reinforcement of the team's strength, an Asahi Kasei spokesperson commented, "The mission of our athletics program ...

http://www.hochi.co.jp/sports/etc/20170408-OHT1T50191.html translated and edited by Brett Larner A long distance and marathon powerhouse, the 2017 New Year Ekiden national champion Asahi Kasei team has recruited Kenyan athletes for the first time. Surpassing even the 10000 m national record of 27:29.69 set by Asahi Kasei's Kota Murayama , 24, the pair of Kenyans includes a 32-year-old veteran who has run sub-27 and a young 23-year-old.  With experience coaching Kenyans at the Aisan Kogyo corporate team through the end of March, Isamu Sennai has also joined the Asahi Kasei staff in preparation for the Kenyans' arrival. At this year's New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships, 30 of the 37 teams in the field featured foreign athletes.  In the midst of such a field, Asahi Kasei scored the first win by a Japanese-only team in 18 years.  Founded in 1946, Asahi Kasei produced greats including twins Shigeru and Takeshi Soh , 1991 World Championships mar...

http://sports.yahoo.co.jp/column/detail/201701140003-spnavi translated by Brett Larner Part three in a three-part series written by Yuki Kawauchi  and published by Sportsnavi . Visit the above link to their original Japanese-language article for more photos. Click here for part one in the series, “The Miracle in Fukuoka,” and here for part two , “Bringing All My Experience Into Play in London.” During his days at Gakushuin University Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Prefectural Government) ran in the Hakone Ekiden as part of the Kanto Region University Select Team. After graduating he chose to take a job as a Saitama Prefecture employee rather than going into the corporate running leagues, and since then he has run countless marathons as an “amateur runner.” By choosing a different road from the elite runners who join the corporate leagues Kawauchi has worked on the marathon under his own power and has put long and serious thought into it. His path has shown the runners to come the...

Currently reading Why Does Japanese Marathoning Suck Now? by Toshimi Oriyama , a newly-published book in which the last seven Japanese men's marathon national record holders, Shigeru Soh (2:09:06, 1978), Toshihiko Seko (2:08:38, 1983), Takeyuki Nakayama (2:08:15, 1985), Taisuke Kodama (2:07:35, 1986), Takayuki Inubushi (2:06:57, 1999), Atsushi Fujita (2:06:51, 2000) and Toshinari Takaoka (2:06:16, 2002), and, in an afterward,  Yuki Kawauchi , talk about their eras, the current situation and its future outlook.  It includes the record holders' training logs for the four months leading up to each of their seven national records.  Essential reading for anyone with Japanese literacy.  A translation would be the definitive English-language work on Japanese distance running, Rashomon to The Last Samurai .  Solid gold.

http://number.bunshun.jp/articles/-/823811 by Takaomi Matsubara translated and edited by Brett Larner Kenta and Kota Murayama were born Feb. 23, 1993 in Miyagi prefecture.  After graduating from Meisei High School Kenta went to Komazawa University, where he played a major role in the team winning four-straight National University Ekiden titles, while Kota went to Josai University where he was coached by one hour run national record holder Seiji Kushibe .  As students both brothers had strong records of achievement outside the ekiden, Kenta breaking the Japanese university student half marathon record in 2014 with a PB of 1:00:50 and going on to run for the Japanese national team at the 2014 World Half Marathon Championships, and Kota running for the Japanese national team at the 2014 Asian Games where he ran a PB to place 5th in the 5000 m close behind four African-born athletes.  After their graduation this spring both twins joined the Asahi Kasei corporate team....