Korea has two Olympic golds in the men’s marathon, 1936 (listed as a medal for Japan but came from a Korean runner during Japanese occupation) and 1992, plus a silver in 96
Is it due to cultural differences? Genetic differences? Something else?
Presumably, organization.
I think a better question is why Japan has so many world class marathoners, a few world class sprinters, but almost no (or no) world class runners in the events between those extremes. Has a Japanese man ever run under 1:45, 3:35, 3:55, 13:05, etc.?
In the 80s, I was in Japan for two years and it seemed like everyone, young, middle aged and old, exercised and they did it as groups, mostly as corporate groups. I would be running by myself and get passed by pelotons of Japanese runners. Sweat Elite is actually doing a series on the Japanese running culture:
Sport is one of Japan’s largest passions and is always a fun side of the country’s culture to explore when travelling there. Visitors may be aware that Japan...
Japan has over twice the population of Korea (125MM vs 52MM), so if Japanese and Koreans were roughly equally likely to be good runners on an individual basis (I will completely punt on this question) you'd expect over 2x as many Japanese runners. That might account for part of it.
But China is 10x as populous as Japan, so this reasoning completely fails to explain anything about China.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Is it due to cultural differences? Genetic differences? Something else?
Presumably, organization.
I think a better question is why Japan has so many world class marathoners, a few world class sprinters, but almost no (or no) world class runners in the events between those extremes. Has a Japanese man ever run under 1:45, 3:35, 3:55, 13:05, etc.?
The best mid-d runners in HS are all trained to become half marathon specialists in college.
The difference isn't as pronounced in relation to South Korea, but they do have compulsory military service, which obviously interrupts elite sporting endeavours.
In China, however, where you have a collectivist state - it's very hard to justify an individual pursuit, such as marathon running, which seemingly provides no benefit to anyone beyond the individual.
If financial incentives were permitted (as they are so readily in Japan), I'm certain you'd see many more Chinese marathoners on the world stage.
Is it due to cultural differences? Genetic differences? Something else?
Presumably, organization.
I think a better question is why Japan has so many world class marathoners, a few world class sprinters, but almost no (or no) world class runners in the events between those extremes. Has a Japanese man ever run under 1:45, 3:35, 3:55, 13:05, etc.?
Japanese men fall off a cliff when it comes to middle distance for no real reason. They are simply unable to develop good long sprinters or middle distance runners. Japan only had it's second and third men to ever run under 45 this year.
I actually think part of it is physiology - Asians tend to have shorter legs compared to other races, which suits things like short sprints but really matters in things like the 400.
The Japanese national HS meet is interesting because very few nations have a national u20 meet of this scale, with Japan's population being 127 million and the vast majority of Japanese high schools taking part in the meet/it's preliminary meets.
Because of how developed the meet is historically, I usually compare the year-by-year results to the California CIF state meet (California population: 39 million). It's pretty interesting - Japan is obviously far superior in the long distance events, with 5k times in the 13:40s being normal. I think 14 Japanese boys broke 14 last year, and that's not even counting the Kenyan international students that also compete there. The 1500 and 800 are still a little better than California, with times in the low 3:50s or 1:48s being pretty normal these days, roughly superior or comparable to the California state meet. The 100 is pretty much equal, around 10.2 or so but to wrap back the the start of this post, the 200 and 400 and so unequal it's actually quite bizarre. California regularly has winning times ranging from 20.3 to high 45, yet in Japan the winning time is typically around 20.9 and high 46, an extraordinary difference, especially in the 400.
Interesting to see how this develops at the pro and international level vs the USA. Far superior in the marathon, far inferior in the long sprints and middle distance. Not exactly comparable in the 100 I guess but Japan still does far better than most nations in the event.
The Japanese started being the best distance runners some time after the Chinese started being the best at ping pong. Why would the Chinese want to switch to a 2nd rate sport? It's Japan that needs to cope.
However, if the Chinese do get good at long distance, they could scale up their dominance to regular tennis, i.e. long-distance ping pong.
Japan has an incredible history of marathon running. It goes back a long way. It was really a post-war thing. After the second World War, the country was devastated and they were looking for ways to get everybody back on their feet and they started running ekidens and marathons and it’s been a part of their culture ever since. In the late ‘40s and ‘50s, the Japanese were having a marathon boom. The Japanese were dominating in the ‘50s and into the ‘60s. For example, in 1965, ten of the top eleven fastest marathons in the world were run by Japanese men. In 1966, it was 15 of the top 17. Those are the kind of stats that the Kenyans are running these days.” The Most Prestigious Ekiden is Japan’s Super Bowl. “The ekiden races are long-distance relay races, where each leg is frequently about a half-marathon in distance. The biggest ekiden, the Hakone Ekiden, is the biggest sporting event of the year in Japan—the whole country comes to a standstill. Baseball overall as a sport is bigger, but this one event dwarfs everything else. It’s on January 2nd and 3rd, and everyone in the country sits down to watch. I’d say that, for most runners in Japan, to be on the team that wins that race would be bigger than winning an Olympic medal.”
come now, China doesn’t have a collectivist culture, its state promotes a culture of individual entrepreneurship and glory for the nation through personal achievement.
Great question OP. The answer to all questions of differentiation in sporting excellence is 99% infrastructure.
the difference is that the dictator's in china and korea have different priorities. they ensure as many able bodied citizens are in slave labor factories making as much crap to sell to american's. you know, like running shoes.
come now, China doesn’t have a collectivist culture, its state promotes a culture of individual entrepreneurship and glory for the nation through personal achievement.
Great question OP. The answer to all questions of differentiation in sporting excellence is 99% infrastructure.
The Chinese with stamina heads for table tennis or gymnastics - practice 1500 hours a year from young age.
Additional: Though that begs the question why none of their many gymnast groups have not added pole vaulting to their repertoire - I bet they could have three men and three women in every single world champs final.
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
We all know Ma's army was doped up to the ears and it had nothing to do to turtle blood as Ma explained, lol.Canova once explained why the Chinese aren't good runners. He told it has to do with their system where different regions work solo and no good sponsor system and the Chinese runners often takes long rests from running and so on.
I think a better question is why Japan has so many world class marathoners, a few world class sprinters, but almost no (or no) world class runners in the events between those extremes. Has a Japanese man ever run under 1:45, 3:35, 3:55, 13:05, etc.?
I loosely follow Japanese distance running and I definitely think that the only reason for this is their running culture, which solely focuses on half marathon and marathon running after high school. There are numerous examples of runners who showed talent in shorter events in their earlier years but simply never built on it because, when they went to university, they obviously tried to be good enough for the half marathon stages at the Hakone Ekiden, which is bigger than anything for an athlete of this age. And after they join a corporate team, the goal is to run a fast marathon time or at least be ready for a stage at the New Year Ekiden. There are actually a few non-corporate middle-distance teams nowadays, but honestly, they don't seem to attract enough talent to really change the narrative.
Possibly with the chinese and japanese comparison, Japan just has more of a running culture, same way the east africans run daily from a young age and it's like the national sport. similar in Japan.
I am in Thailand and people here make the comparison with the Japanese because Thai/Japanese is a similar body shape and height but Thais suck at distance running.
with the Thai japan disparity, I'm putting it down to climate. because the two fastest thais that I can think of have lived outside thailand pretty much all their life - Kieran Tuntivate who runs for BTC and the marathon national record holder Tony Payne. In thailand it's just too hot to run as fast and as far, your energy is sapped much quicker. You can only run 75% of the distance at the same intensity so your workouts suffer. And kids in school still do PE lessons but I don't think the same as in western countries or Japan where you basically run a 2 mile race or whatever. They have to be careful about the heat. Whereas both those guys have lived in US and UK forever which have temperate climates for training.