Skip to main content

Coach Koide Regrets Takahashi's Retirement as 'Such a Waste'

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20081029-00000016-dal-spo

translated by Brett Larner

Sydney Olympics women's marathon gold medalist Naoko Takahashi (36, Team Phiten) held a press conference in Tokyo on Oct. 28 to announce her retirement from professional running. Sakura AC head coach Yoshio Koide (69), the man who led her to greatness, still has not 100% accepted the news. "I didn't think she would quit," Koide regretfully told reporters in the arrivals lobby of Tokyo's Narita Airport after returning from a training camp in Kunming, China on Oct. 28. "Maybe she is just worn out. It's such a waste...."

Koide and Takahashi were together for ten years, from her early days with Team Recruit in 1995 until 2005. That year Takahashi, expressing a desire for independence, relocated to Boulder, Colorado in 2005 to continue training without a coach. At the time she commented of Boulder, "I have to admit that I love it there." But the bond between the two remained in place.

At 8:30 on the morning of Oct. 28 Koide received a call on his cell phone. It was Takahashi. "I'm sorry not to have told you earlier," Takahashi said after giving him the news of her retirement. Koide's first reaction was to blurt out, "What happened? Are you getting married?" "No, absolutely not," Takahashi replied levelly. "We'll talk about it later."

"As far as I'm concerned," Koide somewhat wistfully told reporters at Narita, "Q-chan* still has the ability to get another Olympic medal before she's 40. She could still run around 2:20-2:22. She says she's spent everything her body has? She's never known how to train herself, that's why she thinks she's spent."

In terms of her future, Koide hopes that Q-chan will come back to join him in his 'Koide Dojo' training program for recreational runners. "Q-chan and I started the idea that 'The marathon is fun!' I want to give her something now of which she can say, 'Yes, this is a good way to end.' Koide's yearning for a reunion with his star pupil is clear as he waits in hope for her call.

Comments

Anonymous said…
`worn out' and `waste':
I wonder whether he caused that to a certain extent?
Roberto said…
Koide coached a runner who – it always seemed to me – was far from an intellectual giant. As he said, "She's never known how to train herself, that's why she thinks she's spent."

I can't imagine that Koide could reinstill in Takahashi the desire that is such a critical element of world-beating success, and she obviously wasn't up to it herself. But so what? She retires (a bit late, unfortunately, but that's something she has to deal with) as a giant of the sport.

Did he wear her out? As Brett has written, she was one of the greatest marathon runners of all time, and Koide can take a significant amount of credit for that.

We ALL wear out ... she had a better run than most before she did.

Most-Read This Week

Morii Surprises With Second-Ever Japanese Sub-2:10 at Boston

With three sub-2:09 Japanese men in the race and good weather conditions by Boston standards the chances were decent that somebody was going to follow 1981 winner Toshihiko Seko 's 2:09:26 and score a sub-2:10 at the Boston Marathon . But nobody thought it was going to be by a 2:14 amateur. Paris Olympic team member Suguru Osako had taken 3rd in Boston in 2:10:28 in his debut seven years ago, and both he and 2:08 runners Kento Otsu and Ryoma Takeuchi were aiming for spots in the top 10, Otsu after having run a 1:01:43 half marathon PB in February and Takeuchi of a 2:08:40 marathon PB at Hofu last December. A high-level amateur with a 2:14:15 PB who scored a trip to Boston after winning a local race in Japan, Yuma Morii told JRN minutes before the start of the race, "I'm not thinking about time at all. I'm going to make top 10, whatever time it takes." Running Boston for the first time Morii took off with a 4:32 on the downhill opening mile, but after that  Sis

Saturday at Kanaguri and Nittai

Two big meets happened Saturday, one in Kumamoto and the other in Yokohama. At Kumamoto's Kanaguri Memorial Meet , Benard Koech (Kyudenko) turned in the performance of the day with a 13:13.52 meet record to win the men's 5000 m A-heat by just 0.11 seconds over Emmanuel Kipchirchir (SGH). The top four were all under 13:20, with 10000 m national record holder Kazuya Shiojiri (Fujitsu) bouncing back from a DNF at last month's The TEN to take the top Japanese spot at 7th overall in 13:24.57. The B-heat was also decently quick, Shadrack Rono (Subaru) winning in 13:21.55 and Shoya Yonei (JR Higashi Nihon) running a 10-second PB to get under 13:30 for the first time in 13:29.29 for 6th. Paris Olympics marathoner Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) was 9th in 13:30.62. South Sudan's Abraham Guem (Ami AC) also set a meet record in the men's 1500 m A-heat in 3:38.94. 3000 mSC national record holder Ryuji Miura made his debut with the Subaru corporate team, running 3:39.78 for 2n

93-Year-Old Masters Track and Field WR Holder Hiroo Tanaka: "Everyone has Unexplored Intrinsic Abilities"

  In the midst of a lot of talk about how to keep the aging population young, there are people with long lives who are showing extraordinary physical abilities. One of them is Hiroo Tanaka , 93, a multiple world champion in masters track and field. Tanaka began running when he was 60, before which he'd never competed in his adult life. "He's so fast he's world-class." "His running form is so beautiful. It's like he's flying." Tanaka trains at an indoor track in Aomori five days a week. Asked about him, that's the kind of thing the people there say. Tanaka holds multiple masters track and field world records, where age is divided into five-year groups. Last year at the World Masters Track and Field Championships in Poland he set a new world record of 38.79 for 200 m in the M90 class (men's 90-94 age group). People around the world were amazed at the time, which was almost unbelievable for a 92-year-old. After retiring from his job as an el