Revered Japanese men run slower than Americans at Chicago

Why?

* Japanese runners do not have three plus generations of consistent living above 5000ft. elevation.

* Japanese T&F athletes often have less than ideal height to inseam ratio. [There have been others with less than ideal height to inseam ratio with Olympic 1500m medals. Japanese are not the only ones.]

* Is it cultural? Japanese T&F athletes have been elite or near elite 100m and 10000m & Marathon. I don't feel like overly analyzing.

Perfect weather in Chicago.

Terrible weather in Tokyo.

Revered? The Japanese literally sent their B squad to Chicago. Naoki Koyama wasn’t even there.

Not talking about the Japanese performance in Chicago, genius.

Oh, so you’re comparing the performances of different courses under different conditions? Then you’re even stupider than I thought.

🥱

All hype no results

The course and weather conditions were as perfect as they possibly could be in Chicago. The Japanese trials were in gusting wind and pouring rain and they still had four guys right around 2:09:00. That's more impressive than what the American squad did at Chicago. It'll be a good head to head at the Olympics with heat and a very hard course

I hope U.S. Marathoners don't play cat & mouse with Marathoners representing Japan. That's unethical point shaving.

Would be the first time in decades other than the one where broken Hall and Abdi quit.

The US men will be no where at the Olympics and then Japanese will also not be within a mile of the winning man or women

If you’re Japanese I don’t think you do your marathon in Chicago

it’s that simple

Kiptum was recruited specifically by the event organizer

A world or Olympic medal is no longer the holy grail it once was for the marathon. World Marathon majors are just so much better.

Anyway, the top American would have been no better than 20th in those absolute nutty conditions in Japan yesterday. There are at least 30-40 Japanese men better than Mantz.

Umm isn’t Chicago IN America. Why the heck would they run a second tier marathon on the other side of the world.

In actuality, Mantz is better than any Japanese. The top Japanese is behind about 70-80 Americans

I'm guessing because their Olympic marathon trials were a week later?

And do many US marathoners dominate big Japanese marathons?

Half of Japanese men work very long hours and the other half are hikikomori. They have no time / too scared to run.

you cannot be serious, conditions were worse than Boston 2018

Top 4 USA men at Chicago:

Mantz, Conner (USA) 02:07:47
Young, Clayton (USA) 02:08:00
Rupp, Galen (USA) 02:08:48
Chelanga, Sam (USA) 2:08:50

Top 4 Japanese men at their trials:

Naoki Koyama 2:08:57
Akira Akasaki 2:09:06
Suguru Osako 2:09:11
Yuki Kawauchi 2:09:18

There were another 4 Japanese men under 2:10 at the trials but only one other USA man under 2:10 at Chicago.

When you consider the conditions it is likely when all racing on the same course that all 8 of those Japanese men would run faster than the fastest American man.