＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
Two major accidents occurred at the All-Japan Corporate Women’s Ekiden Qualifying Championships (Princess Ekiden), held in Fukuoka Prefecture on Sunday, October 21st.
1. Passing the Tasuki (sash) while injured
The first incident occurred in the second section, when Rei Iida (19) of Iwatani Corporation was unable to run with about 200 meters remaining, and had to crawl on all fours to pass the Tasuki (sash).
While there are voices of praise for Rei Iida’s “crawling” sash-passing, there are also voices saying that the people involved should have stopped the competition before making a promising athlete go that far. After the race, the diagnosis was that “he had a fractured right tibia and would be fully recovered in 3 to 4 months.”
2. Withdrawal due to poor health
The other incident occurred when Harumi Okamoto (20) of Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance was leading the race in the third section, but became dehydrated, lost consciousness, and dropped out due to poor health.
In the case of Harumi Okamoto, she received the sash in first place and was running smoothly at the top, but around the last kilometer, things suddenly started to go wrong and she began to wobble and run in the wrong direction.
Commentator Akemi Masuda also appealed to the audience, saying that Okamoto-san could no longer run, and that it would be better to stop the competition even if the coach had not yet arrived, because she might fall backwards if she continued.
3. The criteria for deciding whether to cancel a competition and the rules for communicating this should be decided in advance
It is difficult to decide at what point to stop the game because of the feelings of the players and the coach, but the results show that the two incidents should have been stopped earlier.
In the case of Rei Iida, the coach told the organizers to stop, but it seems that this was not conveyed to the race site.
4. “Athletes come first” to prevent accidents
Unlike the men’s “Hakone Ekiden” and other races, in this women’s relay race, it seems that the coach was not in the vicinity of his team’s athletes while they were running. This is a problem that remains as an “issue” for preventing future accidents.
As for Harumi Okamoto’s “dehydration symptoms,” I understand because I too have experienced heat stroke or dehydration during golf in the middle of summer, which caused me to go completely blind and feel sick, but in her case, I think she was thinking about the important Ekiden race and tried to keep running even though her consciousness was fading.
5. Learn from past Olympic Games
Perhaps she had in mind the Swiss athlete Andersen, who reached the finish line in the sweltering Los Angeles Olympics on August 5, 1984, dazed and dehydrated.
However, “dehydration” is a terrible and potentially life-threatening condition. Not to change the subject, but I am concerned that tragedies due to “heat stroke” and “dehydration” may occur in the marathon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as well.
Shiso Kanakuri (1891-1983), the protagonist of the 2019 Taiga drama “Idaten: Tokyo Olympic Story,” also participated in the marathon at the Stockholm Olympics in 1912 (Meiji 45), but collapsed from heatstroke midway through the race.
He was taken care of by a nearby farmer and regained consciousness the morning after the race was over. This became a legendary story of the “missing Japanese,” and in 1967, he was invited to the 55th anniversary celebration of the Olympic Games by the Swedish Olympic Committee, where he “finished the race in the slowest time in Olympic history (54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes, 20 seconds, 3 seconds).
On the day of this “Stockholm Olympics” marathon, the temperature reached a record high of 40°C. There was a water station at the turnaround point, but he did not stop. About half of the 68 participants “abandoned” the race. It was a tough situation, with one runner even collapsing during the race and dying the next day. This story makes me a little worried about the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In the Hakone Ekiden, too, athletes often “brake” due to poor physical condition, although not every year. The feeling of the “brake” athlete is that “I don’t want to miss the chance to run in the Hakone Ekiden, even if I am a little out of shape. If I’m in good shape, I’ll probably be fine,” and so they force their way into the race. However, as a result, he was also inconveniencing the team. It is a difficult decision to make…
In any case, future measures that could be considered include having marathon and relay sports federations establish “criteria for deciding whether to cancel a race in the event of an athlete’s injury or poor health,” strengthening the communication system between organizers and coaches, establishing a manual for organizers to follow on-site, and clarifying the standby arrangements for nurses and doctors to provide medical care.
I would like to ask you to take sufficient care not to cut short or shorten the lives of promising young athletes by putting “athletes first”.
“Too much of a good thing is bad.” and “Without life, there is nothing.”