Skip to main content

Officer Shibata Takes Step Toward Olympic Dream With Breakthrough Win at Osaka Half

http://www.sankei.com/west/news/170202/wst1702020048-n1.html

translated by Brett Larner

At the Jan. 29 Osaka Half Marathon, Osaka Prefecture police officer Shunsaku Shibata, 23, won the men's division in a course record 1:03:05.  Breaking his PB by more than 3 minutes, Shibata now turns his attention to making his marathon debut.  Interviewed after the race he expressed a strong desire "to make the Tokyo Olympics."

Shibata graduated from Hotoku H.S. and Senshu University, enrolling with the police in April, 2015.  After studying at the Police Academy and undergoing training at the Miyoshima Police Station he was assigned to the Riot Police Company #1 in October last year.  Shibata had run long distance seriously since high school and his third year of university he had the chance to realize his dream of running the Hakone Ekiden, but shortly before the race he strained a ligament and was cut from the team.  Even as a police officer he felt that he "wanted to keep running competitively," and in July last year he joined the police track and field team.  For the first time since university he resumed full-on training, ramping up his monthly mileage to 800~900 km.

The Osaka Half Marathon was his competitive debut for the Police Department.  Amid top-level corporate league competitors who had run as fast as 1:01 for the half marathon, Shibata's best was only 1:06:12 dating back to his university days.  Even so, as he stood on the starting line in Osaka Castle Park, Shibata said, "I was feeling good and had nothing to worry about."  From the side of the course Police Department head coach Naoki Kirikuri repeatedly called out to him to "stay in the race," so Shibata fought to hold on to the lead group.

With 5 km to go he was still there, and, he said, "Starting to think about when to make a break for it was both fun and stressful."  Shibata waited until just before the entrance to Nagai Stadium and the finish line to make his move, kicking away from those behind him to break the tape in 1st, shouting "Aw yeah!" almost by instinct.  Analyzing his winning run post-race he said, "Well, if you're even just 1 second faster than 2nd place then it's a success.  Coach told me to find my competitiveness and to take control of the situation myself, and I was able to put that into play."

Shibata plans to improve his speed on the track and then to tackle the marathon.  With a three-minute improvement to his PB off just a half year's worth of training coach Kirikuri was full of hope for Shibata, saying, "He still has plenty of headroom."  With polite words Shibata was also optimistic, saying, "Step by step, I want to get ready for the marathon.  Someday I will be Japan's top marathoner and run in the Olympics."  A new 'civil servant runner' may be on the way.

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