Japan Running News: Japanese college teams are faster and not over-aged and have no foreigners like US NCAA teams

blah blah blah 123 wrote:

lets just face the facts that the japanese people are inferior in genetics. they are not bad at developing athletes. they developed wanjiru....which is arguably the best of all time

I don't think that's quite right. I think the Japanese system is actually pretty bad at developing their middle-distance talent.

This year a Japanese high-school kid ran 1:46.xx for 800 in the HS championships (i.e., he ran it in a real HS race, not while being sucked along in a open race). And yet the Japanese national OPEN record is only 1:46 low. That just shouldn't be.

I've seen some of the middle-distance talent Japan has at the middle- and high-school level, and it's superb. It just gets neglected later in favor of the longer stuff.

I think that's what's keeping them from being even stronger in the longer races. It's no coincidence that Takaoka still holds the NR in the 10,000 as well as the marathon.

And so 'short end of the spectrum" Japanese news (Junior competitor, ahead of Blake's mark??) :

Yoshihide Kiryu 10.19

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48321&p=801466&hilit=kiryu#p801466

Video here:

http://www.adriansprints.com/2012/11/yo

... video.html

It's interesting that the Japanese records are pretty comparable to the Canadian records from 3000m to Half Marathon. They're actually quite close to Jeff Schiebler's bests (7:43.42, 13:13.96, 27:36.01, 1:01:28). I believe all of those were Canadian records. Some of them still are. Schiebler was part of a Japanese corporate team for a while - in the early 2000s? I'm not sure how long he was there or whether he ran his PBs after he left or not.

Kevin Sullivan broke the 3000m record in 2008 (7:41.61), and Simon Bairu broke the 10000m record in 2010 (27:23.63), with Levins and Ahmed also breaking the old one last year. But Schiebler's 5000m and half marathon times still stand as Canadian records. And the Canadian marathon record is still 2:10:09 from 1975 (run in Japan!), compared to the Japanese 2:06:16. If Bairu gets it right at Fukuoka he might finally break the marathon record, but it's pretty doubtful he goes 2:06. The Japanese appear to be about equal to Canada on the track aside from middle distance, but disproportionately good at the marathon in comparison.

I would have thought with their apparent depth they would have more of a gap on Canada than they do.

Bob Dobbs wrote:

This year a Japanese high-school kid ran 1:46.xx for 800 . . .

Oops. That should have been 1:48.62. Sorry.

But my point stands. The Japanese junior record is 1:47.13, yet the Japanese open record is just a second faster than that.

The overemphasis on longer distances causes them to neglect their talent at the shorter distances. But that's an old story. Lydiard was saying that about Japanese training methods years ago.

This thread has a lot of good comments and some near misses. Japanese love the sport of distance running, but beyond high school, the sport moves in a different vector, and in my opinion, that accounts for the difficulty in comparing the USA and Japan. Contributing factors: Japan's under-30 population is merely 1/4 of the USA (not 1/2). Foreign athletes and athletes older than 18 (high school) and 22 (college) are very rare. The love of ekiden pulls athletes away from what Westerners consider to be traditional middle distance competition.

Japanese do funnel athletes (by free choice) to high schools with highly effective coaches. And Japanese HS track athletes do achieve great marks in all events, but especially middle distances. But after that, the sports-in-college system is very different from the USA. Only a few colleges have full-scale track teams; more have ekiden teams, and the best ones are in a few universities in the Tokyo area. In either case, few have track or ekiden programs for women. The inverted funnel narrows dramatically.

So, unless you are male and already very accomplished at long distances by age 18, the number of opportunities to train and compete in a wide range of track events nearly disappears after high school. The best option for girls is to get on with a professional ekiden team. Having moved up from high school, professional women runners and male college (and corporate) runners shift their focus to ekidens, half marathons and non-traditional distances, in pursuit of regional and national championships.

These are factors why Japanese collegiate and professional athletes, then, are conspicuously absent from world statistics and Olympics, etc.. High-school burnout and excessive over-distance training in college are also factors. At least, that is my opinion, from teaching and coaching/officiating in Japan for many years.