Korea, Japan Take Aim at 100m Sprint

A project to break the 27-year old Korean men’s 100m record within the year is in the works. Korea and Japan’s best in short distance running will train together.

Korean short distance hope Jeon Deok-hyung (22, Chungnam University) and Lim Hee-nam (22, Korea Armed Forces Athletic Corps.) went to Japan on October 28, and are practicing with Japanese champion Sukahara Naoki (21, Tokai University). Miyakawa Jiaki (59), professor at Tokai University, is currently in charge of Korea’s track and field representative team. He is the godfather of Japan’s short distance running, and brought up Asia’s record holder Koji Ito (10 sec F) and Shingo Suetsugu (10sec 10). In 1979, he set up a united practice to win the record set up by Seo Mal-gu (currently professor at Naval Academy). It was planned to stimulate motivation by setting up a Korea-Japan match, and give confidence by letting the athletes compete with those in the 10-second range.

As Miyakawa’s student, Tsukahara is became Japan’s champion by finishing in 10 sec 25 in September, and is receiving Japan’s expectations. He is a step ahead of Jeon Deok-hyung and Lim Hee-nam, whose best scores are each 10 sec 51 and 10 sec 45, respectively. They will train together and run in contests. The contest being held in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka is the first test. The results of a week’s practice will be shown here.

Professor Miyakawa said, “There are many athletes in Japan who can run in the early to mid 10-something seconds. If they run with such athletes, they will be able to get the confidence that they can run over 10 sec 34.”

yjongk@donga.com