Japan - a total of one athletics medal. What are they doing wrong?

Hikikomori

no doping

Loved Suzuki in women marathon, inspired of dropped down she chased the best marathoner and if you notice in last 5km she maintained the 20sec gap. She gave it all. And ran a PR in the race. And as Jakob says that’s the honourable way to race.

Let me share a few thoughts
here.
1. I think you first
need to look at the US. The US got the lion's share of the athletic
medals. It only leaves so much for the other countries.
2. Japanese, because
of their culture, lack genetic diversity, which means that have to draw each
time in nearly the same genetic pool in terms of athlete profiles, for sprinter
and shot putter. Countries which rely on immigration and enjoy a more
diverse population enjoyed a relative success across Olympic disciplines, like
US, UK, France, etc. even though it is not always true (for instance how would
you then explain NZ and Australian huge success)?
3. The US is a country
where being very good in some sport is nearly equal to having a PhD in terms of
access to universities. This is unique. In other countries it always comes
AFTER. So, the US has the ability to filter a huge number of students and
develop the very best with the best training methods, labs and coaches in the
world. Which, in a way, is incredible, as nobody cares about athletics in the
US (as opposed to Europe) and all the parents of the said athletes look like
obese potatoes.
4. Athletics are
universal. It is not like horsing, modern pentathlon, kayak, etc.
Competition comes from everywhere, and talent IS everywhere. It is so so
hard to be the best...Look at Gressier who was so happy to finish in like 13th?
in the 10 000m in 26'58" National Record...Can you imagine that in
Judo or hockey? In any country outside the US, reaching the final in athletics
is an achievement. Imagine toeing the line of the women marathon and thinking:
"ok great, we have H. Obiri who is a freak track talent who just won
hilly NY and Boston marathons, Assefa who has run 10 min faster that
nearly anyone in this field and Hassan who is the running GOAT, and if by an
utter miracle I end up third it will only be a bronze medal."

So could the trillions spent arming "allies" to fight never ending proxy wars for us.

Many years ago "The Lydiard Gang" dominated these threads. Are they still here? I would have expected a big discussion on Lydiard Principles And How Japan Has Abandoned Them To Their Collective Detriment.

Do not put a purely judged athletic event in the same category as an objective event. Gymnastics are as lame as can be, athletic or not. I prefer the beauty of "first person to the finish line wins."

The main thing they do wrong is that they're doing everything right.

Kenny Moore wrote a Sports Illustrated article about running the 1971 Fukuoka Marathon in which he recounted a conversation with someone who was part of Japan's sports bureaucracy. Essentially this guy told Kenny that because Japanese were physically smaller than most other nations they emphasized the marathon because being small was often advantageous. (And yet Sumo wrestling is big there.)

I think this explains a lot. Japanese have gotten physically bigger since then but they've created an athletic legacy where the marathon is still their most valued athletic event. Whereas talented high school distance runners in the US and similar places focus on track events for years in Japan the best ones usually move directly to the marathon. Track races are really just preparation for marathons.

What this means in terms of international championships is that they've aimed all of their top people at three medals per gender. Successful or not, the US, Britain, Norway, etc., are aiming their top people at a range of events in which there are eighteen possible medals to be won. I think that if we ever see Japan consistently producing big games medallists it will be in non distance events where the best talent has no chance of moving to the marathon.

The second part of this is that even in the marathon when they leave Japan and race in majors they usually don't produce the kinds of performances that they do in domestic races, with some very notable exceptions. One reason for that is that it's probably easier to run well close to home with a familiar environment in the lead up to a race no matter the country. But I also think the structure of the sport in Japan is such that the corporations that sponsor nearly all of their best runners do so for the advertising and PR benefits of having someone in a vest with their name on it finishing well and fast in their big, televised, marathons and Eikedens. Yes, it's probably a really big thing in Japan when a Seko or a Kawauchi win the Boston Marathon but that's partly due to there being a tradition of Japanese runners at Boston. I'm not sure those sponsors are as interested in the other, newer, majors.

Not doping?

Seems very plausible

Japan has university athletics too. They treat it very seriously and the athletes put up times comparable to or better than NCAA runners. Yet that seems to their ceiling. An a larger stage they can never compete as well as they do in the Japanese road races.

USA isn't putting resources into track and field. Most 'pro' runners are poor and working regular jobs, and then the ones who are making a living are paid by corporate running apparel/shoe companies and win prize money. I'm pretty sure Japan has lots of 'pro' runners. Japan actually offered big money to distance running for a Japanese record, USA doesn't do anything like that. So the governments aren't the ones getting the results. If anything, the fact that it's 'easy' to make money in the United States and allows for enough excess to have a bunch of athletes training to be good athletes instead of making the world go 'round is why we're good at sports. If we were a struggling country everyone would be working long hours just to put food on the table and no one would be buying athletic apparel to make it worth paying athletes.

Have you checked out their debt to GDP ratio lately? Their debt is eroding their standard of living. That affects their athletics as well.

Just a reminder that US males failed to win a single gold medal in wrestling this time (1st time since 1968) despite the absence of Russia, a major contender.

Japan topped the medal table in wrestling, despite their wrestlers bring 2nd rate judokas.

Why?

The Japanese didn't "choke" at the Paris Olympics, nor did they do anything "wrong." They're performing at the limits of their genetic potentials and did the best they could given the hands they were dealt; I'd say they even over-achieved. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

Yes Japan has incredible depth domestically -run a 1:10 half-marathon there and you might finish in 700th- and they have numerous runners, both male and female, capable of reaching world-class level, but they currently have no one capable of winning at the global level...at least not consistently. And unless another outlier like Toshihiko Seko or Naoko Takahashi comes along, that's not going to change.

No drugs, yes. Japanese record in the marathon is probably the clean World Record.

Ever since they are in high school, they are trained to peak in winter. Their high school ekiden is in late December, the college ekiden is early January, so is the ekiden for corporate teams.

The track races in summer are treated as secondary "off-season" events. It's hard to switch that pattern late in their career. There are some mavericks like Osako and Tanaka, who have prioritized their individual races. But you need to be really good to justify that choice. If less successful runners did they same, they would be heavily criticized for being selfish.

I think we can stop being impressed, rojo, (or wejo, I forget which of you has the ekiden fetish?) by their probably mis-measured ekiden times at this point. Fool me once shame on you. Fool rojo 832 times, shame on him.