20 Japanese men just broke 2:10 at the 2022 Tokyo Marathon

One of the worse posts I've read in a long time. You think we easily could have a crowd of sub-2:05s if we wanted to? No we could not. Not unless we naturalize a lot of Kenyan and Ethiopian born guys.

The Japanese are much better suited to the marathon than they are for the track. Take the average Japanese runner's 10k time and convert it to the marathon. Do the same with an American. The Japanese is going to be a much lower multiple.

I don't get this is even debatable.

I get your point, and admittedly there are probably more (less critical) factors at play than simply genetics. But FWIW, the Japanese-American population is ~1.5 million, compared to a Japanese population of ~126 million.

They are usually about 2-5% out of the medals across the board from 100m to the marathon.

There is no money in middle distance. The sprinters are glamours, the marathoners are courageous, the middle distance guys look like robots running around the track with minimal grace so are just weird to watch. Like who wants to sleep with them? Nobody right, so that's like the exclusion zone. No money. No sex appeal.

They all lose by about the same %, though.

Of course it's debatable. US does not try that hard - simple as that. OK maybe not a crowd of sub 2:05's, but I believe that our, say, top 50 could be way better than Japan's if we applied ourselves.

Ethiopia has 126 runners under 208 in the marathon on the all-time list. With regard to Ethiopia, because they travel a lot less, that number would be significantly higher if they were given more opportunities to travel for marathons throughout the world. Would they have as much depth as Kenya? Probably not, but I don’t think they would be far away.

The average height of a Japanese male is around 5‘7“ tall or 1 m 71. Interestingly their average weight is around 62 kg. So right from the onset they are ideally built for distance running. This is a huge advantage from the go. There are other countries with “small people” like the Japanese, but they do not have a Japanese distance running culture and other factors. The Japanese are already pre-formatted to be distance runners. The Japanese diet also helps, being very healthy and mostly devoid of junk food (although the latter is still available for those who want it). You can add to this, the Japanese inherent adherence to discipline and group culture. Training in large groups, I think, is a significant advantage, and this is common not only to Japan but also to Kenya and Ethiopia. In many Western countries elite groups are much smaller and you even have elite runners who train on their own (!) which I think would be almost unheard of in Japan, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Not lining everybody up on a fast course on a good weather day with pacers.

& not giving up on the track at 10k & under.

The Marathon Project wasn't even that deep & 7 guys broke 2:10 at that race. Look at The Ten & Boston start lists (throw in the 15k champs too). If all of those runners had been training for Tokyo instead, the US all of a sudden produces something similar.

Japan is good in the 4 x100 because their handoffs are the best. Handoffs are not as important in the 4 x 400 and you don't see them excel in the open 100. The marathon suits their culture of discipline and they have unreal depth. The people support this sport.

It is absolutely fall down, roll on the floor hilarious that most commenters here have zero problem talking about the genetic predispositions of Japanese people, but the exact same people would shriek in vein popping, eye bulging, white knuckled horror about an honest discussion of the genetic predispositions of East Africans toward distance running and North Americans of West African descent to sprinting.

IMHO:

1. Americans tend to run Boston and NY- two tough courses

2. We have a lot of other marathons that potential 2:10 guys run.

3. We don't put that many guys in a world class race on a fast course.

It's pretty recent that the Japanese found they could produce sprinters. That's probably not all that relevant to their distance running. The big difference between them and us is that they prioritize the marathon. If you're a promising young distance runner there you head straight for the marathon. Our top guys don't. They stay at the 5 and 10 until the late bits of their careers when they've passed their prime. So for us, the marathon is the domain of really good guys who are a bit over the hill and younger guys whose track times aren't good enough to make national teams and who moved to the marathon.

If you read the interview with Grant Fisher that was here a few days ago you saw that he was asked if he had plans to run a marathon. His answer was a definite maybe, but he said if he did it wasn't going to happen for a while, if at all. In Japan he'd have already run one and probably more.

I don't know about your discipline statement. I cannot say elite 100m sprinters are not disciplined but a lot of 2:07 Marathoners are disciplined. If more citizens of Japan attempted to be great sprinters there certainly would not be fewer good sprinters and maybe there would be more? If more citizens of Japan go out for sprints, maybe more 21.25 to 22.0 200m guys who could possibly be elite middle distance guys.

How would your top 50 U.S. marathoners make any money? Most wouldn’t have sponsors and it would be super competitive to win any prize money.

You clearly have, at best, a pop-science understanding of genetics.

I think the Japanese need to get out of their home country more often. Every year they should be sending ten guys to London, ten guys to Boston, ten guys to New York, ten guys to Chicago and ten guys to Berlin.

Volume and support I would imagine.

This has been discussed before. Over the last couple of decades.

Alan

Is Japan good at a single other sport besides running? I guess Sumo, which probably isn't stealing a lot of marathon talent. Running is actually popular there and they have a lot of athlete participating, plus a better system for sponsoring a lot of pros. In the US running is a minor sport, most of the top talent is going to other sports. That is the difference. If you're the 50th best US soccer player you probably make a lot more annually than Galen Rupp.

a lot of depth in marathoning with 80 Japanese under 2:20---as you say a lot of financial support--for years big corporations in Japan support distance running ie. with their Ekiden relays:

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