Yuki Kawauchi

Early years

Born in Setagaya, Tokyo, Kawauchi began running from a young age: first he practised with his mother and later with the track teams at high school. While there, the combination of an injury and the premature death of his father meant that his running suffered. Nevertheless, he continued to enjoy the sport at a lower level while studying at Gakushuin University. After university, he did not receive much interest from corporate running teams – the typical route to professional running in Japan. He decided to continue running for pleasure, entering races and paying his own expenses.

He came third at the 2008 Ageo Half Marathon with a time of 63:22 minutes and began competing in marathons the following year. He gradually improved his times in 2009. His debut at the Beppu-Ōita Marathon saw him come 20th with a time of 2:19:26 hours. He bettered this with a showing of 2:18:18 for 19th at the Tokyo Marathon a month later, then managed 13th at the Fukuoka Marathon in December with a run of 2:17:33 hours. He began to break into the upper echelons of the national scene at the 2010 Tokyo Marathon, where he claimed fourth place with a personal best time of 2:12:36 hours. Despite this improvement he was further down the field at the Fukuoka race, finishing tenth with 2:17:54 hours.

Rise to the top level

Kawauchi improved his half marathon best to 1:02:40 at the Kagawa Marugame Half Marathon in February 2011, finishing inside the top ten. He set his sights on a top eight finish at the Tokyo Marathon later that month but exceeded his own expectations by running a time of 2:08:37 hours and taking third place. As the best Japanese performer, he earned selection for the 2011 World Championships in Athletics. In June he entered the Okinoshima Ultramarathon and led the 50 km race right up to the last 600 metres, at which point he collapsed due to heat stroke and failed to finish the race. At the World Championship Marathon held in Daegu he finished in 18th place – a performance which helped the Japanese team including Hiroyuki Horibata and Kentaro Nakamoto to a silver medal in the 2011 World Marathon Cup. He competed extensively towards the end of the year and his form held well: he managed fourth at the Osaka Marathon, then took third at the Fukuoka Marathon. The latter was an Olympic qualifying race and he was the first placed Japanese. The Japan Association of Athletics Federations played down his selection choices, saying his time of 2:09:57 was not fast enough, but Kawauchi upturned tradition by saying the race was a warm-up for the second qualifier in Tokyo – Japanese runners rarely enter both selection races due to their proximity in the running calendar. Only two weeks later Kawauchi entered the Hofu Marathon and was runner-up behind Mongolia's Serod Bat-Ochir. He remarked that the fatigue from the previous race had hurt his chances of winning the race.

At the start of 2012 he ran a half marathon best of 1:02:18 hours in Marugame, but his unorthodox decision to race frequently ruined his chances of Olympic selection, as he finished fourteenth with a time of 2:12:51 hours at February's Tokyo Marathon. He called his own performance "disgraceful" and shaved his head to make amends for disappointing his supporters. This did not deter Kawauchi from following his own running narrative, however, and he entered nine marathons that year, winning five of them. He took the top honours at the Kasumigaura Marathon, Hokkaido Marathon, Sydney Marathon, Chiba Aqualine Marathon and Hofu Marathon. Kawauchi's return to Okinoshima produced a course record victory of 2:51:45 at the 50 km race. On top of his marathon running, Kawauchi ran six half marathons, including top three finishes in Shizuoka and Ageo as well as 21st place at the 2012 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships. Following the advice of New Zealand running coach Arthur Lydiard he said that focusing on distance work would improve his speed, rather than the inverse speed training favoured by his contemporaries. Demonstrating this philosophy, he ran personal bests for the 1500 metres and the 5000 metres in September, timing 3:50.51 minutes and 13:58.62 minutes at a Nittai University meeting.

His fastest marathon race of the year was 2:10:29 hours for sixth place at the Fukuoka Marathon. Repeating his schedule from the previous year, he ran in Hofu two weeks later and this time he took first place. His run of 2:10:46 was a record for the shortest period of time between two sub 2:11 marathons by any runner. Responding to questions about his frequent racing, he said that he wanted "to find out whether the common sense of the running world is really any kind of sense at all".

The organisers of the 2013 Egyptian Marathon agreed to pay his travel expenses for the January race, but Kawauchi missed his flight after arriving at the airport without his passport. He decided to pay 800,000 yen (US$9,000) for a replacement flight – an amount that equated to a quarter of his yearly salary. The decision paid off as he reached the starting line for the marathon and won with a time of 2:12:24 – the fastest ever for a race in Egypt. Less than three weeks later he ran at the Beppu-Ōita Marathon and he reached the top of the Japanese rankings by winning the race in a personal best of 2:08:15 hours, breaking Gert Thys's 17-year course record in the process. In spite of the lengthy races, his passion was not dimmed: "after 21 Marathon runs, I can now say with confidence how fun Marathon running can be". He saw off a number of professional runners at the Kumanichi 30 km Road Race two weeks later, finishing in 1:29:31 hours – another course record and personal best time. The race organisers said a 30,000 increase in spectators that year was due to Kawauchi's popularity with the Japanese public – the runner had received invitations to over 100 races.

He broke his personal best by one second with a fourth-place finish at the Seoul International Marathon. Cold conditions at the Nagano Marathon put a stop to an attempt to be the first person to run three sub-2:09 marathons in consecutive months, but he still managed to win the race – the first Japanese winner since 1999. He equalled Nicholas Manza's course record to win the Gold Coast Marathon in July.

Achievements

Personal bests