Skip to main content

Hakone Just a Checkpoint Along the Road to the Top for Akinobu Murasawa

http://www.asahi.com/sports/column/TKY200904110148.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The close-cropped haircut Akinobu Murasawa wore during his days at Nagano's Saku Chosei High School has grown out a little. Since February the high school star has been practicing with the Tokai University team ahead of his graduation from Saku Chosei and entrance into Tokai in April. "It feels different from high school," he says at the outset of his university career. "In university I want to learn how to be a competitor."

Last year was a big one for the 18 year old Murasawa. He was on the winning teams in the National High School Ekiden and National Interprefectural Ekiden, set a stage record of 23:55 for the 8.5 km 5th stage in the Interprefectural Ekiden, and ran on both the 2008 and 2009 World Cross Country Championships junior national teams. He also won the national high school 5000 m, his time of 13:50.86 ranking him at all-time 7th on the Japanese high school list. With such achievements behind him Murasawa approached university recruitment ranked number one in the country. He chose Tokai University because, "[Saku Chosei] Coach Morozumi went there, and he's someone I really respect."

In junior high school Murasawa was a no-name. He went to Nagano's Narakawa Junior High, of which he recalls, "There were only 20 students in each grade, so it was too small to have a track and field team." As a result, he played on the soccer team where in practices he found that he was not very fast during sprint drills. "I didn't have a very good impression of running," he says.

The big change came his second year of junior high school. Murasawa's brother, two years his elder, entered high school and joined his school's track team. The younger Murasawa thought his brother looked cool when he headed off to practice and he began tagging along on his days off from soccer. This grew into running on his own after soccer practice, and then on to entering regional track meets despite officially being a member of the soccer team. He grew to love running and was accepted into the powerful Saku Chosei High School. There, his natural talent blossomed and he discovered his great strength as a runner, his smooth, resilient form.

For universities in the Kanto region the Hakone Ekiden is where runners focus all of their attention and energies, but for Murasawa, "Hakone is just a checkpoint. I'm thinking beyond that to my pro career. From there it's up up up." At the end of that staircase lies the world level.

Akinobu Murasawa - born Mar. 28, 1991 in Nagano Prefecture. 166 cm, 51 kg. 5000 m PB: 13:50.86 - all-time Japanese H.S. #7. 2nd place, 2008 National High School 10000 m. 27th, 2009 World Cross Country Championships junior race.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Sprinter Shoji Tomihisa Retires From Athletics at 105

A retirement ceremony for local masters track and field legend Shoji Tomihisa , 105, was held May 13 at his usual training ground at Miyoshi Sports Park Field in Miyoshi, Hiroshima. Tomihisa began competing in athletics at age 97, setting a Japanese national record 16.98 for 60 m in the men's 100~104 age group at the 2017 Chugoku Masters Track and Field meet. Last year Tomihisa was the oldest person in Hiroshima selected to run as a torchbearer in the Tokyo Olympics torch relay. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the relay on public roads was canceled, and while he did take part in related ceremonies his run was ultimately canceled. Tomihisa recently took up the shot put, but in light of his fading physical strength he made the decision to retire from competition. Around 30 members of the Shoji Tomihisa Booster Club attended the retirement ceremony. After receiving a bouquet of flowers from them Tomihisa in turn gave them a colored paper placard on which he had written the characters