Interesting article about the Japanese experience at WC

Pretty interesting...

Also this...

At least part of the responsibility for preparing the athletes for international competition lies with the coaches and managers, and I'm beginning to think the coaching is actually pretty awful in Japan.

For example, why was Takase, Japan's fastest healthy sprinter over 100m (10.09 this season), not in the 4 x 100m prelim? That was basically their final. I didn't hear anything about his being injured, so I can't imagine any reason for leaving him out.

Osako, who trains under Salazar, didn't make the 5,000 final, but at least he was competitive in his semi, finishing within a second of the winner.

I may be waaaaaaay off base so feel free to flame away.

I'm just wondering how comfortable the Japanese athletes felt as a whole in China. Japan and China has a long history of conflict and they are not exactly friends. Perhaps the atmosphere just wasn't conducive to allowing the Japanese to perform their best.

I am sure that being in China was one of the least comfortable places they could be, but I would argue that anytime they are out of Japan they are uncomfortable because of their feelings toward non-Japanese.

Disagree.

Someone forgot to tell the Japanese men in the 50K racewalk.

disagreer wrote:

Disagree.

Someone forgot to tell the Japanese men in the 50K racewalk.

Umm, that was a walk in the park even for the Japs.

zatopek3210 wrote:

I am sure that being in China was one of the least comfortable places they could be, but I would argue that anytime they are out of Japan they are uncomfortable because of their feelings toward non-Japanese.

Interesting thought but if you go back a couple decades you have Japanese runners doing very well in races out of Japan. Do you think something has changed in the comfort level of this generation?

I will say that I think lots of people underestimate the difficulty of racing in distant locations. Look at how Salazar owned US road races and then went down in flames at Rotterdam in '83. I always thought the reason Kiwis and Aussies did better proportionally than a lot of other countries's runners did was because they were so far from any major competitions that they were forced to adapt to racing well in strange surroundings.

Japanese athletes were the cleanest in the competition. Kinda hard to sweep the events when USA, Jamaica, Kenya, Ethiopia are allowed to dope without consequence.

Subtract the dopers and Japan would be all over that medal stand.

Yes, let's extrapolate what this one Japanese runner says to every Japanese.

Doubtful. Osako trains with NOP and he had a disappointing WCs.

Yes, In the past Japanese women did well at times, and of course Seko was at times successful. I think that Japanese women are more adaptable then men and that is why internationally they have been more successful. But I think in general what is holding them back on the international level is their general feeling of unease around non-Japanese.

1. I think that in Japan there is a very clear group-think, They are trained from an early age to have very similar opinions. Not that every one does have the same opinion, but if you talk to many Japanese you are not going to get a wide range of opinions. A giant part of their educational system is to train them to think and act Japanese.

2. After having lived in Japan for 20+ years I would say that his opinion, though a bit extreme, is not unusual at all. The only unusual thing is that he said it publicly. My guess is it is because he was talking to the Japanese press.

This is typical letsrun ignorance and generalization at play. To think that the political climate of 30+ years ago some how interferes in the day to day lives of Japanese runners trying to compete at the world level is ludicrous.The likelihood Japanese runners are in some way deeply intertwined with their country's government is similar to the probability that someone in the White House would even know who Evan Jager is. As far as China is concerned, dynastic old military hawks are still among traditional political parties but the groups who put on things like the world championships and olympics are very modern and democratic. Beijing and Shanghai are global cities like Tokyo, London and New York.

zatopek3210 wrote:

I am sure that being in China was one of the least comfortable places they could be, but I would argue that anytime they are out of Japan they are uncomfortable because of their feelings toward non-Japanese.

No, actually this is an example of the interesting things you can learn on Letsrun.

1. Nowhere did I say that Japanese runners are intertwined with their government. I said that because of their feelings toward non-Japanese, especially Chinese, in general Japanese runners are uncomfortable competing with/against them.

2. Two quick and easy examples. In the below pew report it states that only 7% of Japanese people have a favorable view of China.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/chapter-4-how-asians-view-each-other

Secondly there was an article in the Japan Times last week saying that Japanese residents of Shanghai and Beijing will be staying inside/incognito this week because of the big military parade happening this week. There clearly is current tension between Japanese and Chinese.

Lastly, though I am not sure of your point here, Beijing especially is very different from other international cities.

30 years is an eternity to a culture that has been around 2+ centuries, not so much for cultures that go back 2+ *millennia*. Schisms run deep and long in Asia.

This book should provide some satisfactory answers for you. It would appear that they work too hard from a young age, are obsessed with the ekiden thing, are resistant to new training ideas, and a lot of them lack basic speed. Those that do have it, are discouraged from mid-d and/or developing that aspect, to pursue glory at the longer ekiden distances. The woman, are, apparently, encouraged to adopt that characteristic shuffling gait, as it is more 'efficient'.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Runner-Journey-Japanese/dp/0571303161

Salazar was on the way down in 1983. He wasn't running so well anywhere.

Salazar finished 1 sec behind the lead trio at the World XC Championships 2-3 weeks before Rotterdam.

Other athletes using drugs would not explain why the Japanese ran so far from their own best times.