News that a first-year junior high student in Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture had run the 100m in the 10-second range — setting a national record for first-year junior high schoolers — sparked a wide-ranging discussion on 5channel’s entertainment/sports board (Geinou/Sports News+) about the young athlete’s future prospects. His switch from soccer to track drew plenty of praise, with posters calling the decision to spot his talent early “quick and admirable,” while others were more cautious, warning that “speed alone won’t pay the bills” and that “this country hypes up young athletes only to forget them once they hit 20.” Names like Usain Bolt, Shohei Ohtani, and a former sprinter who was once Japan’s top junior-high-schooler in the sprints all came up, fueling the perennial debate over whether baseball or soccer makes better use of natural athletic talent.
In Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture, there’s a first-year junior high student who runs the 100m in the 10-second range. We dug into the secret behind this astonishing 13-year-old’s speed — and the person behind it — after he set the national record for first-year junior high students.
“There’s supposedly the fastest first-year junior high student in Japan in Kurume City, Fukuoka Prefecture.”
Acting on that rumor, staff from the TV program “Asadesu. KBC” began investigating. After asking around, they got testimonies like “I saw him running at the athletics track” and “He’s seriously fast.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
Never made it big in soccer.
Why compare to the women's record?
This thread's bad news.
The fact that he ditched soccer is really inconvenient (for soccer fans).
They get all excited just because he's young, pile on unrealistic expectations, and then treat him like a nobody once he's past 20.
This country hypes kids up way too much just because it has no faith in its current generation of adults.
Being good at soccer and being fast are two different things.
Then again, once AI advances enough, every talent might end up that way.
Speed is useful outside of sports too — the military, police, and fire departments all test for it in their physical exams.
Well, can't deny that.
I haven't even run to catch a train lately, even when I was about to miss it.
No doubt about it — I couldn't even run 25m, let alone 50.
Making that call so early is impressive.
Not sure how true this is, but
apparently in Germany, kids decide by age 12 whether they're headed to university or into other work.
Compulsory education in Japan only goes through junior high anyway, so it's fine to decide your future around that age.
Japanese sprinters never seem to have much room to grow.
I heard that if you held a field day (undokai) among elementary and junior high kids worldwide, Japan would come out on top.
Apparently kids in other countries don't have field days,
so they can't really compete properly.
I ran 50m in 7.8 seconds in first grade, so he's actually slower than first-grade me — though my income's zero now, so I guess I never grew after that.
Well, there's no point playing soccer anyway.
If it's just a hobby, who cares what he plays.
But these days Chinese robots run the 100m in the 8-second range.
way faster than Usain Bolt's record, so
human 100m racing is probably going to get less popular from here on.
There have always been plenty of animals faster than humans.
Even sticking to two-legged animals, an ostrich can run it in 5 seconds.
Even so, it's way more fun than baseball.
Between just running and playing baseball, which would you pick?
There aren't many kids these days who look like they're actually enjoying soccer or baseball.
Unlike the old days when kids got into it through play, now they start straight in as a formal after-school activity.
The real problem is the "bukatsu" (school sports club) system that doesn't let you do more than one at a time.
Background and Talking Points on This Topic
Worth noting: “10-second range” (10秒台) means anywhere from 10.0 to 10.9 seconds, not the 9-second range — the excerpt alone doesn’t reveal his exact time. In Japanese junior high sports, it’s a recurring topic when track, baseball, and soccer end up competing for promising athletes, and the thread brought up a real example: a sprinter who was once Japan’s top junior-high 100m runner and later became a pro baseball player — cross-sport talent movement is a perennial 5ch topic. At the same time, some posters voiced a cynical take on Japan’s media environment, saying it “hypes up young athletes only to forget them once they’re past 20” — this mix of celebration and clear-eyed skepticism about the kid’s future is what defined the thread.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “First 10-Second 100m as a First-Year Junior High Student — The Face Behind the 13-Year-Old Who Switched from Soccer to Track — Kurume, Fukuoka.”
