NCAA XC is nice and all.....

this is something ive wondered about myself. could the japanese compete with americans on grass? we know that the kids here would get trounced over 20k there, but does it matter? It seems like Japan at the highest level is fairly bad at speed oriented races on the track, and even the half marathon, so is it really working for them? The runners in these U.S. cross races like Pre Nats obviously have super fast PBs on the track and could run fast on the roads. Do you honestly think these Japanese who can run 59:x for 20k would dominate american xc? i dont. just somehow, i dont. uhhhh ibpeople saying xc isnt about pace.

So if their university system is so great, what is happening to them AFTER the college days? They send over some of their best pro guys to race in the US every year on the track and they do pretty good but nothing that indicates their system produces better runners than ours. And in your particular example: roads are a lot different than grass, especially a soft course. Check the times and team averages from last year when the course wasn't soggy.

So how many of these "Rising Sons" have run sub-13:30 at age 18?

Yeah.

Brett can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't necessarily think that the lack of relatively fast middle distance runners in Japan is applicable, given the disproportionate emphasis placed on road racing and the marathon in Japan, compared to the US.

True, not many high schoolers here are running 13:30, although the number isn't zero, but they do have high schoolers running 28 for 10000, and university guys running 27 and 1:01 for the half marathon. As far as what happens to them afterwards, compare the number of Americans and Japanese who have gone sub 1:02 for the half or sub 2:09 for the full marathon and you'll get the answer.

Somebody linked this on another thread, but here's more data on the comparison and video of the 20 km.

http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2009/10/university-mens-weekend-in-review-ncaa.html

The Japanese and U.S. systems are set up to produce different outcomes. Consequently the Japanese produce far superior marathoners and the Americans produce far superior middle distance runners. Comparing the two is as silly and pointless as comparing road race and cross-country times and no one would be dumb enough to do that, would they?

Brett, how to the NCAA XC and Japanese University systems compare in terms of total number of participants? A comparison based on results has to take this into account. I have this feeling that the Japanese system is culling the best from its entire college age population. The US situation is obviously not the same.

cmon wrote:

I have this feeling that the Japanese system is culling the best from its entire college age population. The US situation is obviously not the same.

???

How is the US system any different in that regard, unless

you mean fat football players don't go out for cross country.

X Little wrote:

The Japanese and U.S. systems are set up to produce different outcomes. Consequently the Japanese produce far superior marathoners ...

I do not think that this is the case any more. Looking at both major marathons and the Olympics the US runners have performed pretty well vis a vis all of those not from the Rift Valley and similar locales.

J.R. wrote:

???

How is the US system any different in that regard, unless

you mean fat football players don't go out for cross country.

Only a fraction of US high schoolers fit for XC actually go out for XC, and then only a fraction of them decide to pursue it further in college. Distance running is not really an obsession in the US. Personally I think that for every German there are 2 more out there (in the US) with the same talent that never even consider XC or track. I'd like to hear Brett's input on this but I get the impression that in Japan they do a better job of finding their running talent early on.

mr obvious wrote:

So how many of these "Rising Sons" have run sub-13:30 at age 18?

Yeah.

I thought this was an interesting question, so I did a little research on the last 5 years' U.S. and Japanese results. I expanded it to look at college-aged guys, everyone 22 and under, then looked at sub-1:02:30 half marathon results for the same time period and ages.

5000m

18 years old - 2 U.S., 0 Japan

German Fernandez - 13:25.46

Chris Derrick - 13:29.98

19 years old - 1 U.S., 2 Japan

Kensuke Takezawa - 13:22.36

Yuki Sato - 13:23.57

Hassan Mead - 13:28.45

20 years old - 1 U.S., 1 Japan

Kensuke Takezawa - 13:19.00

Evan Jager - 13:22.18

21 years old - 2 U.S., 1 Japan

Josh McDougal - 13:20.43

Yuichiro Ueno - 13:21.49

Chris Solinsky - 13:27.94

22 years old - 5 U.S., 2 Japan

Alan Webb - 13:10.86

Chris Solinsky - 13:12.24

Ryan Hall - 13:16.03

Yu Mitsuya - 13:18.32

Dathan Ritzenhein - 13:22.23

Radwan Koborsi - 13:26.65

Kensuke Takezawa - 13:26.90

Half-marathon

18 years old - none

19 years old - 1 Japan, 0 U.S.

Kensuke Takezawa - 1:02:26

20 years old - 1 Japan, 0 U.S.

Masato Kihara - 1:01:50

21 years old - 2 Japan, 0 U.S.

Masato Kihara - 1:02:07

Soji Ikeda - 1:02:10

22 years old - 3 Japan, 0 U.S.

Terumasu Okamura - 1:02:19

Satoru Kitamura - 1:02:26

Hiromichi Ueki - 1:02:29

Pretty interesting. Thanks for asking the question. Fernandez and Derrick are definitely off to a good start, but it's surprising how even things are in the 5000 up to age 22, wouldn't you say? The half results are pretty interesting too, and help explain the 5000 m results for age 22.

Whoops, add Brandon Bethke's 13:27.79 onto the bottom of that 22 yr old 5000 list.

The half results aren't interesting because only the Japaneese compete in the event at those ages. Your only set of data comes from one half of the sample group.

How many elite American 18-22 year-olds run a half marathon? Maybe 1 a year, as a joke in between track and XC? Not a fair comparison at all. Not saying they would be faster, but we have no real way of knowing.

You missed:

22 years old - 5[6] U.S., 2 Japan

Alan Webb - 13:10.86

Chris Solinsky - 13:12.24

Ryan Hall - 13:16.03

[ Galen Rupp - 13:18.12i (indoor AR) ]

Yu Mitsuya - 13:18.32

Dathan Ritzenhein - 13:22.23

Radwan Koborsi - 13:26.65

Kensuke Takezawa - 13:26.90

IAAF XC Championships Juniors Team Results

2009

5 United States 104

11 270 German Fernandez 11

15 268 Chris Derrick 15

30 276 Luke Puskedra 30

48 269 Patrick Dupont 48

52 272 Ryan Hill (52)

62 274 Francisco Medrano (62)

8 Japan 153

27 151 Akinobu Murasawa 27

40 155 Wataru Ueno 40

42 148 Shota Hattori 42

44 152 Kazuto Nishiike 44

45 145 Kenta Chiba (45)

73 147 Yutaro Fukushi (73)

2008

4 JPN 119

20 204 Hirotaka Tamura 20

32 198 Shun Kurihara 32

33 201 Hiroyuki Sasaki 33

34 196 Ryuji Kashiwabara 34

37 199 Akinobu Murasawa (37)

44 194 Kenta Chiba (44)

6 USA 138

25 348 German Fernandez 25

26 349 Emil Heineking 26

35 359 Kevin Williams 35

52 356 Ryan Sheridan 52

72 350 Benjamin Johnson (72)

86 352 Robert Moldovan (86)

2006

7 JPN 110

22 198 Tsuyoshi Ugachi 22

27 183 Takuya Fukatsu 27

28 193 Yuta Takahashi 28

33 200 Takafumi Yanase 33

35 189 Kodai Matsumoto (35)

42 187 Harutomo Kawano (42)

9 USA 170

34 349 Kiel Uhl 34

39 332 Andrew Bumbalough 39

47 345 Scott MacPherson 47

50 346 Jordan McDougal 50

58 334 Michael Eaton (58)

2005

7 USA 154

20 309 Galen Rupp 20

38 306 Stuart Eagon 38

46 307 Christopher Landry 46

50 305 Hakon DeVries 50

68 308 Jeremy Mineau (68)

77 310 Ryan Vail (77)

9 JPN 186

32 249 Satoru Kitamura 32

47 253 Yuki Sato 47

52 251 Hiroyuki Ono 52

55 250 Takahiro Mori 55

57 252 Hidekazu Sato (57)

63 248 Harutomo Kawano (63)

2004

5 JPN 105

17 65 Hidekazu Sato 17

24 63 Satoru Kitamura 24

28 64 Yuki Matsuoka 28

36 67 Yuichiro Ueno 36

40 62 Hideaki Date (40)

46 66 Yuki Sato (46)

7 USA 175

34 125 Ryan Deak 34

37 129 Forrest Tahdooahnippah 37

49 128 Joshua McDougal 49

55 127 John Janson 55

60 126 Trent Hoerr (60)

81 124 Ian Burrell (81)