japan running news

In the early days of the Hakone Ekiden Koreans were the first group from outside Japan to run and make an impact on the event's history . 60 years after the first two Koreans ran Hakone, Kenyan Douglas Wakiihuri became the first Kenyan to come to Japan to run when he joined the S&B corporate team. After he won the 1987 Rome World Championships marathon and took silver a year later in the Seoul Olympics the door was open for Kenyan and other African athletes to follow Wakiihuri's lead to the corporate leagues, to universities, and even to high schools. Tsutomu Akiyama was responsible for bringing the first two Kenyans to Hakone, recruiting Joseph Otwori and Kennedy Manyisa Isena to go to Yamanashi Gakuin University . "I went to Kenya to see what the people and environment were like," he told JRN. "I watched a cross-country race and thought, 'We have to get someone like that to run for Yamanashi Gakuin.'" Yamanashi Gakuin had debuted at Hakon...

https://www.the-star.co.ke/sports/basketball/2023-02-03-why-1987-world-marathon-champ-wakihuri-is-indebted-to-japan/

Former marathon runner Douglas Wakiihuri  has been awarded Japan's Spring Medal of Honor, an award recognizing individuals who have make exceptional contributions to Japanese society and become role models. Japan has produced a lot of distance runners, but Wakiihuri was the first Kenyan to pass through the Japanese development system.  His contributions to the sports and cultural exchange between Japan and Kenya are held in high esteem. Speaking in fluent Japanese from his home in Nairobi, an ebullient Wakiihuri said, "I am very happy. I owe a longstanding debt to everyone in Japan. The joy I feel is not just mine, but belongs to all of them. I am truly grateful."  Wakiihuri joined the S&B corporate team in 1983. "I was just 19 years old," he recalls. "Japan gave me a chance." Under the leadership of the late coach Kiyoshi Nakamura , Wakiihuri won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1987 Rome World Championships and the silver medal at the 1988...

Tsutomu Akiyama is a key figure in the history of both Japanese running and Olympic marathoning. A senior advisor to Yamanashi Gakuin University's ekiden and track and field programs and one half of the partnership responsible for beginning to bring Kenyans to Japan in the wake of Olympic medalist Douglas Wakiihuri 's arrival, Akiyama discovered and has been a mentor to the likes of marathon great Daniel Njenga , World Half Marathon silver medalist Philes Ongori , World Championships marathon medalist Tsuyoshi Ogata , Hakone Ekiden course record breaker  Mekubo Mogusu , corporate league star,  Gideon Ngatuny , multiple world-level medalist  Paul Tanui and Beijing Olympics marathon champion and winner of the legendary 2010 Chicago Marathon, Samuel Wanjiru In 2010 Akiyama gave JRN a one-on-one interview in which he talked about everything, from the human side of his athletes to problems with foreign agents, from picking a teenaged Wanjiru up at the airport during his ...

Stephen Mayaka was the first Kenyan high school runner in Japan and the first to go the complete route from high school to university and on into the corporate running world. Now a Japanese citizen, married to a former World Championships-level Japanese marathoner and head coach of Obirin University’s track and field team, Mayaka is a mentor to Kenyan athletes both across Japan and back in Kenya. JRN interviewed Mayaka just before New Year, 2010 for an article for Running Times magazine. Part One: Discovery, High School and University Could you talk a bit about your personal history? How were you selected to come to Japan? I first came to Japan in 1990, in December. I came here to test myself. When I was in Kenya I ran in the Kenyan Secondary School Championships. I was the top at cross-country. There was a Japanese there, the one who introduced Samuel Wanjiru to Sendai Ikuei [High School], Mr. Kobayashi. He had spotted me, and before, Joseph Otwori , who came from the same...

                                   Seko with the announcement. Click photo to enlarge. http://www.sponichi.co.jp/sports/news/2012/09/01/kiji/K20120901004017610.html http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120831-1009359.html http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120831-1009418.html http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120831-1009427.html http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120831-1009421.html http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120831-1009429.html http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120831-1009436.html translated and edited by Brett Larner S&B greats group photo (c) 2012 Tim Chamberlain, all rights reserved S&B Foods announced Aug. 31 that its men's running team, long the home of Japan's best distance runners, will be disbanded...

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20100312-OYT1T00318.htm translated by Brett Larner Japan's imperial crown prince met on Mar. 11 with the man who for 30 years has been the bridge between Kenya's distance runners and Japan, sports promoter Shuichi Kobayashi, 67. The meeting came during the prince's visit to Kenya as he spoke to a group of 30 Japanese citizens living in Kenya. Kobayashi has brought more than 50 Kenyan runners to Japan school and company teams, among them Beijing Olympics marathon gold medalist Samuel Wanjiru and Erick Wainaina, the bronze medalist in the Atlanta Olympics and silver medalist in the Sydney Olympics. Kobayashi was himself a runner in junior high school and high school. Intrigued by the Kenyan running kingdom, at age 34 he travelled there for the first time. Over time Kobayashi developed a relationship with Rikuren to begin introducing Kenyan runners to Japanese professional and school teams. He currently focuses on discovering young runner...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136217/index.htm A propos of nothing, really, here's a great old article I stumbled across yesterday about pioneering Japan-based Kenyan great Douglas Wakiihuri. I last saw him at the 2006 Ohtawara Marathon near his then-home in Tochigi Prefecture. JRN's Mika Tokairin interviewed him a few months later, describing it as one of the two most interesting she has ever done. After retiring he pursued a music career in Japan and subsequently returned to Kenya where he helped establish the Sotokoto Safari Half Marathon. Strangely enough, if you follow the 'Toshihiko Seko' link in the article it takes you to my YouTube channel to see the videos Mika filmed of Seko playing drums and singing 'Minnie the Moocher' in Japanese at last year's Tokyo Marathon. Update: Here's another SI article from the archives, this one about Toshihiko Seko winning the '87 Boston Marathon. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/...

http://www.eastandard.net/sports/InsidePage.php?id=1144012636&cid=39

The fact that Beijing Olympics men's marathon winner Samuel Wanjiru and previous Kenyan marathon medalists Erick Wainaina and Douglas Wakiihuri all trained under Japanese coaches has gotten a fair amount of press recently. Less well-known is the fact that Chinese runners Chunxiu Zhou, who won the bronze medal in the women's marathon in Beijing and the silver medal at last year's Osaka World Championships marathon, and Xiaolin Zhu, who was 4th in both the Beijing Olympics and Osaka World Championships marathons, are also trained by a Japanese coach, Shinya Takeuchi. I posted an interesting profile of Takeuchi on Aug. 14 and in light of the attention being paid to Wanjiru's Japanese development I thought it worthwhile to bring it back up. Click here to read Takeuchi's profile, including some discussion of Zhou and Zhu's training.