The Korea Athletic Championship

The “Hiddink of sprinting,” Coach Miyakawa Jiaki (Professor of Tokai University in Japan) is in fashion in Korean sprinting.

Professor Miyakawa is a godfather of track who coached Ito Koji, the Asian record holder in men’s 100m (in 10 seconds flat). He has trained promising sprinters including Cheon Deok-hyoung (Chungnam University) starting from the end of last year, so it is expected that the 25-year-old Korean record (10.34 seconds, set by Seo Mal-gu in 1979 Mexico Universiad) in the men’s 100m will be broken.

Miyakawa is making a complete change by concentrating on running form and building a new trend for Korean sprinters. Korean athletes have run inflexibly with a western form, which requires great strength. However, he is correcting this into a new form which fits Asian figures well. The new running form calls for not lifting the knees too high to reduce dissipation of strength.

As Park Se-hyun (Chungnam University, 400m, 48.54 seconds), Park Chanuri (Kyounggi Athletic High School, Women’s 200m, 25.38 seconds) as well as Cheon Deok-hyoung (10.62 seconds), who are taught by Miyakawa, have all broken personal records or kept records steady, sprint coaches feel that there is something special to his methodology and have started to learn his way. Deajon Athletic High School in particular has changed its entire sprint program into the “Miyakawa Way” since junior Lim Jae-yeol set the best record of the season, including college and the general group, with a time of 21.61 in the men’s 200m at the Athletic Championship. Kwangju Athletic High School and Kyounggi Athletic High School are also following suit. Suwon City Hall’s Moon Yong-gook (100m, 10.69 seconds) has been also coached by Miyakawa starting from a month ago.

“A lot of coaches are looking at Miyakawa’s method even from afar while training or competing for events,” said an associate director of the Korea Amateur Athletic Federation, Kim Young-geun, who is responsible for translating for Professor Miyakawa.

Meanwhile, Miyakawa’s best pupil, Cheon Deok-hyoung, competed with national team coach, Chang Jae-geun’s best pupil, Kang Tae-seok (Ahnyang City Hall), for the first time in the Korea Athletic Championship held at Daegu Universiad Stadium on June 9, but showed a huge gap with Kang. Cheon finished in fifth place with a time of 10.77 seconds and Kang finished in first place with a time of 10.60 seconds.

Lee Yoon-kyoung (Ulsan City Hall) won the women’s 400m with a championship record time of 54.75 seconds, and Lee Yeon-kyoung (Ulsan City Hall) was on top in the women’s 100m hurdles with a championship record time of 13.67 seconds.

Jong-Koo Yang yjongk@donga.com