CityReads│How Marathon Has Become A National Sport in Japan?

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How Marathon Has Become A National Sport in Japan?

Running has become an important part of the Japanese cultural landscape in the last 150 years. The combination of speedy elite athletes and huge numbers of general-citizen runners means that Japan today is truly a marathon nation.

Thomas R.H. Havens,2015. Marathon Japan: Distance Racing and Civic Culture, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

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I am a marathon runner (I am a mediocre runner, at best). So I like reading books about running, be it novel, biography or academic research. Today I am going to talk about Marathon Japan: Long Distance Running and Civic Culture by Professor Thomas Havens.

Running has become an important part of the Japanese cultural landscape in the last 150 years. Marathon Japan is the first comprehensive English-language chronicle of the history of this important part of Japanese sports culture. It traces the development of distance racing beginning with the Stockholm Olympics of 1912, when the Japanese government used athletics, and above all the marathon, as a means to continue its late nineteenth-century project of winning the respect of Western countries and achieving parity with the world powers. The marathon soon became the first event in a Western-derived sport in which Japanese proved consistently superior to athletes from other countries. During the 1920s and 1930s, Japanese runners regularly produced the fastest times in the world, and twice in the period after World War Two―in the 1960s and late 1970s–1980s―Japanese men again dominated world marathoning. Japanese women likewise emerged as some of the world's fastest in the 1990s and early 2000s. Meanwhile the general public took up distance running with enthusiasm, starting in the 1960s and continuing unabated today.

In this book, Thomas Havens analyzes the origins, development, and significance of Japan's century-long excellence in marathons and long-distance relays (ekiden), as well as the reasons for the explosive growth of distance racing among ordinary citizens in more recent decades. He reveals the key role of commercial media companies in promoting sports, especially marathons and ekidens, from the 1910s to today and explains how running became a consumer commodity beginning in the 1970s as Japanese society matured into an age of capitalist affluence. The public craze for distance racing, both watching and running, has created a shared citizenship of civic participation among young and old, male and female, persons of every social background and level of education. The combination of speedy elite athletes and huge numbers of general-citizen runners means that Japan today is truly a marathon nation.

Running is now a mainstay of civic culture in Japan. Today hundreds of full marathons are held each year in Japan, accompanied by dozens of ultramarathons and numerous marathons for the disabled, visually impaired, and patients with serious diseases.

Two of the world’s seven largest full marathons, at Tokyo (fourth, with 34,656 finishers in 2012) and Osaka (seventh, with 27,157), and five of the top fifteen are held in Japan, virtually matching the United States as the leader in open- entry races

Another perfect example is the extraordinary holiday weekend of November 23– 25, 2012, when Japan hosted six full marathons with 77,772 finishers.

Marathon Japan is a book about distance running in modern Japan, the athletes and coaches who most conspicuously symbolized its glamour and glory, the general public who increasingly took to the streets and raced alongside the country’s elite athletes, and the changing historical and commercial environment that produced infrastructure in the form of publicity , facilities, training, and cash for the best competitors— and support for citizen mobilization and involvement in the sport. Marathon Japan explains how Japanese have excelled at distance running for nearly a century and why the vogue of distance running among ordinary citizens has turned into a national obsession today.

Many Japanese date the origins of the public’s love affair with marathons and long- distance relay races (ekiden) to Tsuburaya’s bronze medal— and to the combination of perseverance and humility he displayed.

Since the 1960s, every year throughout Japan schoolchildren as young as kindergarteners compete in “marathon” (marason) races between 100 and 1,000 meters in length— an obligatory ritual dreaded by some and remembered by all for its ostensible focus on individual competition, regardless of skill or interest,  presumably to build character and inspire accomplishment. Many Japanese of both genders cite their forced exposure to elementary- school “marathons,”held annually since the 1960s, as a key reason for the vast popularity of distance running in Japan today.

Takahashi Naoko,the 2000 Olympic marathon champion thinks that running has gone from a [temporary] boom to becoming a [permanent] part of the culture since the first public-participation Tokyo Marathon was staged in 2007.

Against this history, Havens situates the various institutional forces that have helped to structure the world of modern Japanese running, from government entities to media outlets, and from elite universities to corporate sponsors (including the importance of “company athletic teams,” through which top athletes were recruited to at least notional employment at large corporations, thus retaining their amateur status and trading individual profit for job security).

Distance running as a national project of state formation

The full marathon in Japan was closely connected with the national project of state formation in the Meiji era (1868–1912): asserting national autonomy, winning respect from the West, and competing successfully in a world of contentious international rivalries . Starting with Kanaguri Shizō (1891– 1983) in 1915, both Japanese men and women have ranked first among the world’s fastest marathoners, from time to time

Road racing at the turn of the twentieth century reflected an urban, individualist conception of competitive manhood, often for prize money. The earliest distance races in Japan, the US, and elsewhere drew relatively few entries and were often dominated by unusually well-conditioned laborers, deliverymen, and in the Japanese case, rickshaw drivers. From the start a class divide existed in America and Japan between working-class semiprofessional marathoners and Olympic athletes chosen quadrennially from elite universities through at least the 1920s. Only in the 1970s did the event grow popular among self-confident upper middle-class amateurs.

In reality it was at the elite level that Japanese soon proved their mettle by fielding the world’s fastest marathoners ten times between 1915 and the end of World War Two. In three years during the 1930s colonized Koreans running under the Japanese flag were the world’s fastest. The pre–World War Two era was the first of three golden ages for Japan’s male marathoners, followed by the decade of the 1960s and the period 1978–1988, with occasional peak moments since. Japanese women enjoyed a golden age by placing among the world’s five fastest marathoners quite consistently between 1992 and 2009, a span that includes two Olympic gold medals in 2000 and 2004 and a world’s best time in the latter year.

Noguchi Mizuki crossed the finish line of the 2004 Olympic Marathon in Athens

Distance running as a commodity

Japan entered the 1970s riding the crest of an economic boom unprecedented in its history. Adjusted for inflation, output in the domestic economy rose about 11 percent each year during the era of high-speed growth,1955–1973. Ordinary citizens began to enjoy higher levels of material abundance as family incomes rose. Reflecting global trends dating to the 1960s, the marathon and ekiden community in Japan gradually grew more commercialized in the 1970s and especially the 1980s. Thanks to continued prosperity in an age of sustained moderate growth at about 5 percent annually during 1973–1991, Japanese society achieved a stage of mature affluence that increasingly redefined sport and leisure as commodities for personal benefit— at a price.

The affluent 1980s were the apex of outlays for building new museums , culture centers, and athletic facilities throughout Japan. Local governments welcomed construction funds from Tokyo, intended by the cabinet to “build physical strength”, but prefectural and municipal officials increasingly turned to private capital to complete their projects.

Slowly and by degrees, the power of commercial capital seeped into the cloistered world of distance running, money drawn to the cachet of celebrity conferred on Japan’s star athletes by sportswriters and television broadcasts, which in turn popularized running among ordinary citizens.

For the first time female runners attracted considerable public notice and commercial value soon after the world’s first IAAFsanctioned marathon for women began at Tokyo in 1979. The Shiseidō cosmetics firm became a major sponsor of the Tokyo International Women’s Marathon in 1980, a landmark year for the commodification of distance running. In the transition from material abundance to personalized affluence during the 1970s and 1980s, the allure of distance running thrived at many social levels, for both genders, among elite athletes as well as the general public, and in smaller localities as well as major cities.

In 1987 the first complete live television broadcast of the Hakone Ekiden by NTV, transformed a venerable elite university competition among gentlemanly amateurs into a consumer commodity virtually unsurpassed in Japanese sportscasting history. Statistics from NTV show that the top year was 1995, with an astounding audience of 38.4 percent; despite greater competition for viewers’ attention today,the race continues to be the most watched New Year’s attraction at roughly 30 percent.

Marathons for Women

Japanese women began running marathons at home and abroad in the mid-1970s, most notably Michiko (“Miki”) Suwa Gorman, who was born in China, grew up in Tokyo, moved to the United States, and began entering marathons in 1973. She is the only woman to have won both the Boston and New York City Marathons twice— Boston in 1974 and 1977, New York in 1976 and 1977.

Source:http://www.sportsplanetmag.com/characters_16112317581210731.aspx

Women got their first major chance for a female- only elite marathon when Tokyo International Women’s race was held in 1979. Altogether thirty two Japanese, mainly inexperienced undergraduates, and eighteen international participants started the race. All participants underwent medical checks before and after the event, including blood and urine samples. It was eventually concluded that it was safe for women to run marathons. The success of this event convinced the international running community that Japan, which until then had never held races for women longer than 3,000 meters, was serious about marathons for women.

No Japanese female marathoner finished higher than tenth place at the world championships during the 1980s. Female marathoners in Japan were abundantly supported by corporate and other commercial sponsorships, creating an opportunity for the most talented women runners to outshine their male compatriots in both global competitiveness and media celebrity during the 1990s. From 1992 and 2000, fifteen Japanese women achieved a total of twenty times among the ten best in the world for their respective years. Takahashi Naoko won gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Between 1991 and 2013, Japanese women won medals in the marathon at nine of the thirteen most recent Olympics and world championships.

The world average proportion of women in marathon running is 29.76%. USA has the highest share, 45.15%; Japan, 30.23%; and China, 21.3%.

Source: http://runningmagazine.ca/global-running-day-stats-about-runners-across-the-globe/

Running for everyone

Since the 1980s, there was a marathon fever among the general runners or citizen runners, who refer to ordinary nonelite participants in open- entry races. Young and old, men and women, voluntarily rather than for group discipline, complete the full 42.195- kilometer marathons run. Every year age cohorts for men and women have been concentrated on participants in their thirties (33 percent in 2009) and forties (28 percent), with almost as many in their fifties as twenties, and more than a sprinkling older than sixty.

Ordinary citizens took up running because they had more time for leisure activities, admired Japan’s many medalists in Olympic and world championship marathons, sought fitness and stress reduction, enjoyed the festive atmosphere of local contests, regarded running as stylish, or sought fulfillment through competing against themselves to achieve a personal best time by racing against the clock.

This was the starting point of 2016 Tokyo Marathon. I was among the crowd of runners. The Tokyo Marathon made people aware that, in dependent of winning or losing, everyone has their own race. The atmosphere is good with so many runners with different goals in the same race. 

Ordinary citizens— running, assisting, or watching— were the real starsof the Tokyo Marathon. The spectators were not passive but instead absolutely positive participants in the Tokyo Marathon.” One runner said, “I thought Tokyo was a cold city, but I had no idea it would be this warm.”

At the finish line of 2016 Tokyo Marathon. On average, there was about 5 percent under three hours, 27 percent between three and four, and another 31 percent between four and five hours. Leisurely finishers and outright stragglers accounted for the rest.

No other single activity in the annual calendar brings so many residents of the metropolis together in one space, both live at streetside and electronically via tele vision. The marathon unites young Tokyoites as well as old, men and women, the abled and the disabled in an atmosphere of cheering for athletes, even ones unknown to anyone in the crowd, simply for what they accomplish and what they represent in terms of human achievement in the face of daunting physical and mental challenges. In this way the Tokyo Marathon and its avatars throughout the country help fulfill the dream of running for everyone.

Running has transformed physical culture in society at large while continuing to support high standards of achievement by its best athletes, so Japan today can truly be called a marathon nation.

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