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Deki Announces Retirement at 25: "The Hakone Ekiden Meant the Most" - translated by Brett Larner - Japan Running News ©Brett Larner
Deki Announces Retirement at 25: \“The Hakone Ekiden Meant the Most\“ – translated by Brett Larner – Japan Running News
With a record of achievement at Aoyama Gakuin University and Team Chugoku Denryoku that made him Nagasaki's star long distance runner, Takehiro Deki, 25, announced on Mar. 8 that last month's Tokyo Marathon was his final race and that he is retiring.
Deki starting running during the winter of his first year at Hokuyodai H.S. and grew to become the star runner at Aoyama Gakuin, leading the team to new heights. His third year at AGU he won the 2012 Hakone Ekiden's most competitive stage, the 23.2 km Second Stage, following up just over a month later with a marathon debut at the Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon where he ran 2:10:02, the third-best ever by a Japanese university runner. Aiming for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics at the Tokyo Marathon last month he finished 26th.
Deki commented, "After entering the corporate leagues I gave my absolute best every single day, but I found that the Olympics just didn't mean that much to me. The Hakone Ekiden meant the most. That's what I came to feel. I want to sincerely thank everybody, especially the people of Nagasaki, who supported me. I'm truly grateful. I have no regrets."
Translator's note: Sad news. Four days before his marathon debut in 2012 JRN interviewed Deki and AGU head coach Susumu Hara. Read the interview here. Deki gets a great deal of credit from fans and fellow runners alike for being the key catalyst in helping Hara transform AGU from nothing to the best in the country. The other runner who helped Deki lead AGU to the top, Ryotaro Otani, 25, was fired from the Toyota Boshoku corporate team last month after asking about the possibility of relocating his training base to Tokyo. Today Otani tweeted about Deki leaving the sport.
His comments:
I never thought Deki and I'd be leaving the sport at the same time, no way. It seems like these days the public is going crazy over the Aoyama Gakuin University team's two-straight Hakone Ekiden wins. I really respect how hard the guys who have come after us have worked, and what they've done is really, truly incredible. It's definitely the result of everything they put into it.
This is kind of talk about old times, but when Deki and I decided to enroll in AGU it was a team that wasn't at a level where it could make the Hakone Ekiden. We said to each other, "Let's try to win the Hakone Ekiden together!" Saying that when we were just a couple of cheeky first-years gave us the drive to work hard for four years. We couldn't pull off the Hakone Ekiden win, and we ended up unloading that on the younger guys.
But even so, what Deki accomplished was amazing. His junior year he won the Second Stage at the National University Ekiden Championships, won the Second Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and ran the all-time university #3 2:10:02 at the Lake Biwa Marathon. He really was the best runner in the university scene. We were all just talentless baggage riding on his back, but he carried us all in a truly amazing way.
I wanted to become a runner like Deki. A colleague, a close friend, a rival, what I dreamed of becoming. It really was my dream.
For the two of us, our lives as runners ends here. They were lives that had helping hands from a lot of people.
translated by Brett Larner – Japan Running News
