Fukuoka All-Time Top-20

oldoldrunner wrote:

douglas burke wrote:

he was 3rd in the 10k at the world champs in helsinki in 1987 in his personal best of 27:35, and had a marathon best of 2:08.15

1987 Helsinki World Championships 10K:

1. Paul KipKoech Kenya 27:38.68

2. Francesco Panetta Italy 27:48.98

3. Hansjorg Kunce East Germany 27:50.26

Only Japanese runner in that final:

20. Kozo Akutsu Japan 28:45.89

Takeyuki Nakayama was not in that race.

my mistake nakayama ran his 27:35 for 10k in helsinki on july 2nd 1987 at the world games NOT world champs.

I believe that's the result of Rome 1989??? I think Helsinki was won by Cova.

I don't believe any Japanese man had ever won a medal in 10. The only Japanese I can remember ever winning a medal was bronze by Masako Chiba in Athens???

1983 IAAF World ChampionshipsHelsinki, FINMen 10000mMens - 10,000m Final1. Alberto Cova (ITA) 28:01.04 2. Werner Schildhauer (GDR) 28:01.18 3. Hansjorg Kunze (GDR) 28:01.26 4. Martti Vainio (FIN) 28:01.37 5. Gidamis Shahanga (TAN) 28:01.93 6. Carlos Lopes (POR) 28:06.78 7. Nick Rose (GBR) 28:07.53 8. Christoph Herle (FRG) 28:09.05

NobbyH wrote:

The only Japanese I can remember ever winning a medal was bronze by Masako Chiba in Athens???

Don't forget Murofushi.

Sorry, I meant in 10000m. I think Murofushi won silver in the worlds??? Gold in Olympics but other guys failed the drug test. It is sort of amazing what he (Murofushi) did because he won the medal in the weight event! I mean, afterall, we Japanese are supposed to be a little shrimp. He was, in that respect, a jumbo shrimp! ;o)

malmo wrote:

Great stuff Nobby. It's gems like this that makes the message board worthwhile.

Malmo:

Wow! It's almost worthwhile coming to the message board gettig such a praise from you! Thank you!!

Didn't get to go to NY this year; maybe next year, would love to get together and catch up. Did you watch Fukuoka via Brett's webcam stuff? Great race; Kebede all along in 2:05:18--fastest marathon in Japanese soil. He looked strong!

Any news on Jon Brown

Canada wrote:

Any news on Jon Brown

brown was 23rd place in 2:21.41

Any full results available yet?

Race highlights video which should be viewable outside Japan here:

I was thinking about Nakayama and this thread during my ekiden run today.

NobbyH wrote:

I believe that's the result of Rome 1989??? I think Helsinki was won by Cova.

I don't believe any Japanese man had ever won a medal in 10. The only Japanese I can remember ever winning a medal was bronze by Masako Chiba in Athens???

As the young say today, "My Bad." It was Rome 1987. When I was looking up the results I had Helsinki on the brain. Cova did win the 1983 10K in Helsinki.

Some fantastic information and anecdotes on this thread. What with the Bill Rodgers 1975 training and the latest Canova thread, it would appear Christmas has come early on Letsrun.

Brett, I had a dig on your site using the search function and enjoyed reading Nakayama's thoughts on Japan's current marathoners published after their disastrous Beijing campaign:

http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-enough-mentality-can-never-win.html

Great thread. I almost stopped working completely reading and researching said Japanese runner names on any information I can get access to over the internet, haha.

Going to look more into the history of Japanese distance running whenever I get free time since I know very little about the scene there.

Brett in Tokyo, great blog! Keep up the good work.

What's interesting to me abuot Nakayama's splits (and Jones' splits as well) is that it seems as if runners these days aren't any faster, they just don't slow down at the end. I seem to recall a Science of Sport article about this for the 10000m (but I can't find it now). If you compare KB's splits with those of runners from 20 years ago you see that they start off about the same, but the old timers slowed down and Bekele doesn't. It's not that he's faster overall, just that he keeps up his pace for the entire race.

This *might* imply that we are getting close to the limit in the sense that you actually have to run faster to beat the current record - you can't rely on running smarter or holding on longer - and we just aren't getting any faster.

Just a guess but perhaps the quality of modern running shoes has a lot to do with this. Less pounding on the quads and calves definitely helps with freshness in the later miles.

MarathonMind wrote:

Just a guess but perhaps the quality of modern running shoes has a lot to do with this. Less pounding on the quads and calves definitely helps with freshness in the later miles.

Wow ... when I first read this I thought you wree joking or being sarcastic. ARe you really serious? You are not a young guy, do you really believe that racing flats have changed in any productive way since Jones in '84, Lopes in '85 and Nakayama in '87?

I would agree that shoes have gotten "better" and "faster" since the Buddy Edelen and Abebe Bikila days ... but for christ's sake Bikila won the Olympics without shoes at all. How much do you think shoes matter? I realize that he set a WR WITH SHOES ON, but it isn't the shoes that make the difference, but something else that came just after Nakayama's era.

Motorbreath: I thought was a good article too. He hasn't changed much. I'll post something here when I get the interview translated.

Actually I was thinking of Derek Clayton, who said a lot of his training was done in Dunlop tennis shoes.

Post Script:

Nakayama's son, who is a sub-29 minutes 10000m runner, is now a sophomore at Waseda University Running Team, ironically, where Seko had made his mark. Originally he was picked to run prestigeous Hakone Ekiden road relay on January 1 and 2. But, according to their head coach, Watanabe, who was Seko's protoge in his collegiate runner days; his condition is not coming up as expected so he would not be competing. Unfortunate, but, well, he IS a very good runner. Whether he would become a runner like his father or not is yet to be tested...

I have no idea what that means. "not slowing down at the end" and ending up with a faster time than everyone else ='s being "faster." So if I go out and run the first 400 in 52, but can't quite hang on to run a 3:43 mile like El G, can I say:' El G isn't any faster than me, he just doesn't slow down as much as I do' ??

"not faster overall," but just..... FASTER OVERALL ?!!? C'mon, I am not trying to be mean, but this is one of the more ridiculous things I've read in awhile. And 20 years ago, the WR in the 5k was just under 13:00, and the guys attacking the 10k wr (other than Aouita) had 5k PR's of at best 13:05'ish, so with all due respect to "science of the sport", I don't think anyone was going through their 1/2 way in a 10k at about 13:08, which is about what Bekele did. So no, the old runners of yesteryear did not start off "about the same" as Bekele did, unless you mean the first 100m.

And as impressive as Nakayama's and Jones' splits were, Wanjiru and Geb have gone out faster. They went out faster AND (for the most part) held on and did not crash and burn like Nakayama did (and Jones did somewhat).

Um, yes, I do think that one "actually has to run faster to beat the current record." WHAT? Wait, did I just "feed the troll" ???

Dammit! (please tell me you were trolling me. I'd much prefer to think that than to think you were trying to make some sort of rationale argument)