Japan's Kazuto Iizawa runs #2 1500 time in Japanese history - Guess the time (video)

I found his interview. He wants to compete in the Olympics and World Championships in 800 and 1500. Hopefully, he can fend off the pressure to run ekiden.

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【高校生FOCUS】男子中距離・落合晃（滋賀学園高）800mで世界を目指す

@getsuriku

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The best mid-d runners in high school are trained to become half marathon specialists in college. You get so much more recognition and financial reward for being an ekiden runner than becoming the national champion or the national record holder in 1500.

This is a less serious problem for women because the women's collegiate ekiden is not as big as the men's.

I would assume there's a lack of sprint training in Japan. In the US there is a big football culture obviously, and lifting weights and plyometric exercises are common year round training for that. A biproduct of that is really fast sprinters. The same people training the football players also train basketball, soccer, and track athletes in general, and we do a lot of lifting and plyos. I imagine more than a lot of other countries. Maybe it's too much for the marathon and we have too much muscle mass? I have no idea. But I wouldn't be surprised if the typical US track and field athlete lifts more than a lot of other countries.

Almost. I did say genetics, and environment, adaptation, culture, diet, bodyweight, bodyshape, and mentality. This list of factors wasn't exhaustive -- there may be more. This doesn't depend on race nor number of races.

Actually, although you may assume there is one race of humans, there are several different species of humans.

I don't see why you'd conclude that they are genetically better at that distance. Perhaps they just focus on it more.

Using the stats from "All Time Athletics", I see that Japanese men hold the

1369th fastest 5000m time (13:08)

280th fastest 10000m time (27:09)

680th fastest half marathon time (60:00)

170th fastest marathon time (2:04:56)

It don't think genetics can explain why Japanese men aren't that great at the half marathon compared to the 10000m and marathon or why the 5000m is so much worse. Perhaps it's just that they run a crap-ton of marathons and if every person in the country runs marathons and doesn't give a hoot about the shorter distances, you'll get a bunch of people running fast times in the marathon.

For what purpose? In case Australia invades?

It's an international meet and they also show the results on the scoreboard using the Roman alphabet for names. They've always done it that way at this meet but in this respect it's unusual amongst Japanese international meets.

Bro dont let your n@zi viewpoints show. Hitler said sh1t like that all the time. People are different genetically, like every species. We are not different species we just are different, nothing wrong with that.

Maybe they are not much worse in 5000, but rather relatively better in 10000.

There are more high level 10000m races in Japan than in any other country, and the top runners race 10000m more frequently. The rest of the world focuses more on 5000m because that's the distance held in DL meets.

13:08 is by Osako in 2015. Back then, the Japanese NR in 10000m was 27:29. The top 12 performances in 10000 were all recorded since 2020. If the super spikes and pacing lights could improve the 10000 time by 20 seconds, they should be able to improve the 5000m by 10 seconds.

The Japanese do not "love" the 1500. Any kid with distance talent is training for the 10k and 7-8k ekidens at high school, eventually aiming for half marathon distances in college. Kids with speed do sprints. Middle distances get the leftovers. It's not like the US where talented endurance kids are training for the 800/1500/mile.

Wait until you hear that Hitler and other Leftists also breathed air!

Homo sapiens that evolved thousands of miles apart over millennia, adapting to their local weather and topography, developing their own cultures, values, mating strategies, and diets are.... drumroll please... different. It is amazing that modern American culture has programmed so many people with such extreme cognitive dissonance that they can't accept this basic, wholly rational conclusion.

The Japanese may not be the best 1500 meter runners, but they have contributed much in science. Japan's most senior medical oncologist recently said in this interview that the Covid mRNA shots have caused "essentially murder." He points to the rise in "turbo cancers previously unseen by doctors." Though perhaps the senior oncologist in Kenya can dispute his conclusions.

lifesitenews.com

Japan’s most senior cancer doctor: COVID shots are ‘essentially murder’ - LifeSite

LifeSite

Dr. Masanori Fukushima has called on the World Health Organization to lead an investigation of the harmful outcomes of the COVID shots.

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I heard Rojo bring this up again and fall back on his whole "genetics" argument. So let's make this absolutely simple:

1. Genetics DO matter - Grant Fisher is more genetically predisposed to being a 5k runner than me.

2. There is no credible evidence that the genetics that make people good at sprinting, middle, or long distance running are related to any particular race or ethnicity.

Seriously, a reasonably intelligent person should be able to hold these two thoughts in their head.

The more likely explanation for the differences we see will be around culture and opportunity. When you have a sport that is truly inclusive across different cultures, and which has low barriers to entry, you find that the best athletes in that sport come from a wide variety of backgrounds. The best example is football (soccer) which is truly global, doesn't require great facilities, and where the very best players can come from all around the world, from virtually all different ethnicities.

Cool story. Note how Japan, Korea, China, India (insert additional Asian countries here) have never done well in the World Cup despite combining for half the world's population. Japan/Korea even hosted in 2002 and with home field advantage neither country got past the Round of 16.

Ooh, so close. Korea got to the semi-finals in 2002. India and Pakistan are interesting, though football isn't the most popular sport there, it's cricket, same with Australia, which has also not produced many top level footballers. Again, culture, not race/genetics. Indians aren't predisposed to bat and bowl better than people of other ethnicites, it's just that cricket dominates the sporting culture there in a way that isn't replicated anywhere else in the world.

Hanging your hat on Korea losing to Turkey in the consolation game 22 years ago doesn’t do much for your larger point about soccer being global and therefore roughly equal results should be expected. In fact, Asian countries with half the world’s people are pretty bad at soccer relative to the rest of the world. They have plenty of resources and commitment, particularly Japan. But no matter how hard they try, they aren’t world beaters. Just like in running.

A big part of that is coaching. For example, coaches and GMs used to think black players were too dumb, egotistical, hotheaded, etc. to play QB. Now, black QBs are mainstream and win MVPs and Super Bowls relatively frequently.

Also, poor people have a greater incentive to invest in pro sports because their academic and white collar options are more limited. That's why Europe has these top-tier white athletes coming from war-torn and poverty-stricken countries. In America, race is correlated with poverty.

When I was a kid, I used to think Japanese people (or for that matter any East Asians) were not "genetically" suited for sprinting. This was when the best Japanese sprinters were at barely under 10.5.

The first athlete who changed this perception was Susumu Takano, who made the finals of both 1991 World Championships and 1992 Olympics. (His PB was 44.78 in 400.) But he looked more like a unicorn at the time, and 100m sprinters were still slow.

But then, Koji Ito ran 10 flat in 1998. Nobuharu Asahara ran 10.02 in 2001. Japan made the final of 4x1 at 2007 Worlds, and won the bronze in Beijing.

Today, there are four sub-10 sprinters in Japan and four more under 10.05. Only two of the eight are mixed raced. Japanese women are still slow, but now we know it's not because of their genetics.

I don't believe that Canadians are genetically predisposed to being good at hockey, but they have won nearly as many Olympic gold medals (9) as the US has won medals (11) in the men's event and 5 out of 7 golds awarded total in the women's.

A country of just 40 million has won over a third of Olympic gold medals in this event.

That said, I can maaaaaybe buy that there are ethnic factors at work for distance running. Distance running is a very fundamental, mechanical sport with a couple of dials you can turn to improve performance (VO2 max, running efficiency) and it's not impossible that some ethnic groups naturally have some combinations of genes that make their whole population better runners than average.

Maybe.