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Fukuoka: A Column By Len Johnson
This is a song about your wavelength
And my wavelength, baby. . .
And my wavelength, baby. . .
You don’t have to be a Van Morrison tragic (no, honestly, you don’t), to pick up that his music is peppered with references to the radio, from listening to music on Radio Luxembourg and the Voice of America as a kid growing up in Belfast, to suggestions that the radio turns him on, as much as vice versa: he’s on the wavelength.
And, technologically, there’s not much similarity between 1950s radio and live streaming on the internet, but I couldn’t help thinking of the one while I engaged in the other last weekend in following the Fukuoka marathon.
There was something about the occasionally pixellated, occasionally lost altogether picture coming in from Japan’s Asahi TV which took me back to an earlier time, back to the days when I listened to Test cricket broadcasts on the radio. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, when I grew up, cricket broadcasts had advanced from the simulation stage, when a sound effects technician would strike two pencils together to mimic the sound of bat on ball while the studio announcers read the descriptions coming in by cable ball-by-ball.
The swirling static evoked further images. If the broadcast was coming from the West indies, what else could it be than the sound of the surf. Of course, when the broadcast was coming in from Lords, Leeds, Manchester or The Oval, it could only be English summer rain!
Anyway, the similarity between then and now is in the isolation and imagination. There I was, hunched over a laptop on the kitchen table, following an international marathon via a dodgy picture, just like as a young kid I used to follow Test matches hunched over a radioset via a dodgy broadcast signal. The more things change, etc, etc.
I’ve watched Fukuoka the past two years, and the Chiba International Ekiden Relay this year, courtesy of the information carried on Brett Larner’s excellent Japan Running News blog (japanrunningnews.blogspot.com) which as well as providing a comprehensive cover of races in this road race-crazy country also helpfully provides instructions on how to download the sof
tware needed to stream the Japanese networks.
tware needed to stream the Japanese networks.Last year, I watched in wonder as Tsegay Kebede blitzed his remaining opponents as soon as the pacemakers got out of the way with a 14:17 5k split from 30 to 35k. This year, the young Ethiopian was only slightly more circumspect, spreading his effort over 10k, not five, with a 29:14 split (two consecutive 14:37’s) between 30 and 40.
Kebede ran 2:05:18, a personal best by two seconds, almost a minute faster than his 2008 time, and the fastest marathon ever run in Japan. The 22-year-old is compiling an impressive career record, though he has yet to impose himself on a championship race in the same manner as he has now twice done at Fukuoka.
In Beijing 2008, Kebede held back off the relentless pace before coming home strongly to pass teammate Deriba Merga in the stadium for the bronze medal; but he was never going to catch Sammy Wanjiru. In London this year, Wanjiru won a man-to-man duel over the closing stages; then, at the Berlin world championships, Kebede was again third as Abel Kirui and Emmanuel Mutai broke away over the second half of the race.
Back to Fukuoka. Australia has a rich record in the race, highlighted of course by Derek Clayton and Robert de Castella, who won in 1967 and 1981, respectively, in world record times.
There’s more: Rod Mackinney in 1966 became the first Australian to run under 2:20 when he recorded 2:19:06 in the first international version of the Fukuoka marathon (for more on Rod Mackinney, see (www.orange.nsw.gov.au/go/our-city/virtual-museums/sporting-hall-of-fame/athletics/rodney-mackinney).
John Farrington’s visit to Fukuoka in 1971 is part of a chapter (Concentrate on the Chrysanthemums) in Kenny Moore’s excellent collection of running writing Best Efforts (you can find it online) and Dave Chettle emerged from nowhere to run 2:10:20 for second place in the 1975 race. You can read an excellent account of that race by Nobby Hashizume at www.lydiardfoundation.org/Blog/EntryDisplay.aspx?EntryID=110.
Moore’s and Hashizume’s stories of Fukuoka convey vividly the attraction this race once held for the world’s top marathoners. It is still one of the world’s best marathons and, despite sticking closely to its traditions (there is still no prizemoney, just negotiated appearance fees, for example), stands comparison with any other world marathon.
We may now be in the age of live streaming, but with recent winners such as Sydney 2000 Olympic champion Gezahegne Abera, Haile Gebrselassie, Wanjiru and Kebede, Fukuoka has regained much of its ‘radio age’ prestige. So, as Van the Man might conclude:
Turn it up, turn it up, little bit higher, radio
Turn it up, that’s enough, so you know, it’s got soul
Radio, radio, turn it up, hum
La, la, la, la . . . .la, la, la
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