I read that in Japan they use a marathon relay instead of a traditional cross country race to determine the top team in the country. This is pretty cool and innovative. But what's impressive is the splits that are put up. 8k has been run under 23 minutes, this year 5k was 14:11, and 10k was around 29:30. These are high school kids! My question is, what happens to all these top blue chippers that causes them to not be elite world class runners contending for Olympic medals?