Hiroaki Oyagi (General Manager, Komazawa University Track and Field Club| Ggoat Project Representative)|Beyond the Japanese record. 〈GOAT〉 that can compete against the world

“An charismatic person appears…”
Reforms to make athletes’ dreams come true

――What made you become the coach of the track and field team at your alma mater, Komazawa University, in 1995?

Oyagi　At that time, the head coach of the track and field team contacted me and said, “Komazawa University may not be able to participate in the Hakone Ekiden, so I would like you to cooperate with me.” I was hesitant because I was a coach at Yakult, but I was indebted to my alma mater, so I decided to take the offer. At that time, Komazawa University dropped out of their seeded position in the Hakone Ekiden and participated in the preliminary round every year. In the previous year’s qualifying round, we barely finished 6th (at that time, only 6th place qualified for the main race), and the next time they would be in a dangerous position.
At first, I thought it would be better to enter after failing the qualifying round. If we were to fail right after my appointment, I would be told that it was my fault, and I would feel reluctant (bitter smile). But I couldn’t say that, so I prepared myself for the worst. In the year I was appointed, we also finished sixth in the preliminary round, but the following year, we passed the top and won the return leg and secured a seeded spot in the main round. Two or three years after I became a coach at the age of 36, we were able to get out of the crisis of not being able to participate in the Hakone Ekiden.

――So you were appointed at the most difficult time. From there, you won your first championship at the Hakone Ekiden in 2000, and won four consecutive championships in 2004, when you transferred from coach to general manager. What has been important to you in turning a sluggish team into a regular winning team?

Oyagi　Most of the students who joined the track and field club at Komazawa University wanted to run the Hakone Ekiden. How can we make the team stronger and make the athletes’ dream come true? I thought that what was important was to have a regular life as a sportsman. Until then, the students practiced in the morning on and off or ate cup ramen when they cooked their own meals in the dormitory. After that, some students did not go to class and slept until the afternoon practice. You can’t win a championship if you live like that. That’s why I rewrote all the rules of the dormitory and tried to rebuild it thoroughly. We wake up at 5:30 a.m., practice in the morning, and eat breakfast at 7:30 a.m. After that, we go to school, take classes, and have a proper lunch. We have a practice session at 4 p.m. and have dinner. Lights out at 10 p.m. It may have been a bit of a one-man show, but I was thorough in my daily lifestyle. I asked my wife to make breakfast and dinner for the 20 people who were living in the dormitory at the time.

――Suddenly a young coach comes who changes your lifestyle completely. Did you have clashes with the students…?

Oyagi　Yes, I did. I was quite strict in terms of training and life, so they must have thought, “Wow, a charismatic person has appeared…”(laughs). At that time, I was also active in running, so I was leading at the front in the morning training hard. I was like, “Follow me!” and I think the athletes felt I was like a “tough big brother”. There were times when the seniors complained about the strict rules of practice and the dormitory. But it’s all about winning the Hakone Ekiden. I kept telling the athletes, “Believe in yourself and do your best.” Looking back, I didn’t often praise the athletes, and I almost never had a kind word for them. I think I scolded 80% and praised 20%. Even if you have a good record, if you are satisfied, it is over. I was always conscious of aiming higher. After doing this for a year or two, the results started to come more and more. The athletes themselves learned firsthand that if you work hard to correct your mind and body, you will always get results.

 

Hakone or the world?

――After that, after 2008, there was another period when you were away from winning the Hakone Ekiden, but what happened during this time?

Oyagi　I began to wonder if it would be enough to just winning at the Hakone Ekiden. Shortly after winning four consecutive titles at the Hakone Ekiden, top-level high school athletes such as Tsuyoshi Ugachi (current coach of Konica Minolta), Yusuke Takabayashi (current coach of Rikkyo University), and Takuya Fukatsu (current coach of the Asahi Kasei Athletics Club) joined the team. These kids should have aimed at the world not only in the Hakone Ekiden, but also in the 5,000m and 10,000m on the track. That’s why I changed my teaching policy to strengthen speed. It was worth it, and the track got stronger and stronger.
However, we started to neglect running the half marathon and was unable to create a layer of depth for Hakone. In the 12 years since 2008, when we continued trial and error, we were able to win other university Ekiden, but not Hakone. It was a time when I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t achieve a balance between aiming for the world.

――After that period, in 2022, you became the fifth university in history to win the Triple Crown of the Three Major University Ekiden. What prompted this change?

Oyagi　Ren Tazawa joined the team in 2019. When I saw Tazawa, I switched to wanting to make both Hakone and the world successful again. Training specialized for long distances to win in Hakone and strengthening speed to compete on the world stage. I put my mind and soul into striking a good balance between the two, and in 2022, we won the Hakone Ekiden and was able to get Tazawa to compete in the World Athletics Championships. As for the Triple Crown, it seems that there was a strong feeling among the students that “he will retire as a coach, so let’s do it.”

 

Raising athletes who can compete on the world stage
Encouraging children to have dreams

――In 2023, you retired as the head coach of the Komazawa University track and field Club and became the general manager. The following year, in 2024, you established the athlete project “Ggoat” aiming for the world, but when did you start wanting to create such a team?

Oyagi　It has been around for about five years. It was right after Tazawa entered the school. He himself wanted to aim for the world, and I was thinking of retiring from coaching when I turned 65 and leaving it to my successor, Atsushi Fujita. After Tazawa, strong athletes such as Mebuki Suzuki, Kotaro Shinohara, and Keita Sato joined the team, so I wanted to put them on the world stage and raise them to a level where they could compete on an equal footing with overseas players.

――You have both corporate athletes and students, but how do you usually practice?

Oyagi　Ggoat currently has five members: Ren Tazawa, Mebuki Suzuki, Kotaro Shinohara, Keita Sato, and Akira Ochiai. Three of them, Tazawa, Mebuki, and Shinohara, have graduated from university and are practicing while belonging to a business group, and two of them, Keita and Ochiai, are still students. In the mornings, the four of us (Tazawa, Mebuki, Shinohara, and Keita) often practice. Keita is still in his fourth year, but he has completed all his credits in his third year, so I have been taking him more and more to overseas training camps. Ochiai is still a first-year student, so he has classes during the day, and there are no athletes who are fast enough to practice with him, so he is the only one I watch the practice by myself in the afternoon.

――Having been teaching long distances for many years, did you have any hesitation about teaching a new 800m?

Oyagi　To be honest, there was at first. I was confident that I could teach the 1500m because I had coaching experience, but this is my first time in the 800m. However, a teacher at Shiga Gakuen, Ochiai’s alma mater, asked me to teach Ochiai, so I decided to accept the offer saying if it was okay for me to teach. I thought it might be the “last gift” of my coaching career, and I wanted to make a Japanese record together again on my own. I’ve only been teaching for about three months, but I have discovered a lot of things every time I teach. He is an athlete who motivates me to study more and aim for records. In the future, I would like to raise him into a top-level athlete in Japan in the 1500m, but I am not considering participating in the 5000m or Ekiden at the moment.

――At Ggoat, Japanese athletes aim to become the top athletes in the world, but what are the biggest barriers in competing against the world right now, and how can you compensate for them to get closer to your goal?

Oyagi　I think it’s about how the Japanese athletes can do the training that the world’s top athletes are doing right now. I’ve been able to build up their stamina to a certain extent, so I need to improve their speed. I feel that the persistence of speed and the ability to produce speed instantaneously are still a work in progress, even when I look at our athletes. Whether it’s the 800, 5000 or 10,000m when you enter the final spurt, there is a difference between top overseas athletes. We are focusing on improving our speed in our regular training, but the challenge for Japan is how we can improve our training for that purpose. To that end, we are focusing on intensified training overseas such as Albuquerque and Park City in the United States and St. Moritz in Switzerland. While doing high-altitude training overseas, I would like to learn the training methods of medalists from around the world and improve our challenges.

――I think this is different from the position of aiming for the world, but how did the “Ggoat Running Team (RT)” come to launch in April?

Oyagi　RT mainly reached out to Komazawa University alumni who had retired from the business group. I launched it with the intention of passing on the know-how of the Komazawa University Track and Field Club to the children of the future, and for the purpose of a second career for students who still want to run. When the staff who organized RT approached me, it seemed that many members gathered saying they “want to return the favor to the general manager.” I was very happy. In the future, it will be interesting again if we can participate in Ekiden as a club team.

――While aiming for the world, the entire long-distance world will be excited again with the launch of RT.

Oyagi　That’s right. I am leading the global project team, but RT has another staff member to teach. Rather than being a professional, it is an initiative that has a strong meaning of social contribution activities. In parallel with participating in races, I would like to convey the joy of running and athletics to children, junior high and high school students, and working adults. We are also planning to hold running classes by members who have been active in Hakone Ekiden, so I would be happy if children could have dreams.

 

80% to scold: 20% to praise → 60% to praise: 40% to scold

――After more than 30 years of coaching, what is the moment when you feel that it is a great honor to become a leader?

Oyagi　It was when I was able to lead the athletes whom I had taught. A recent example is Shogo Nakamura, a graduate of Komazawa University who belongs to Fujitsu. After graduating, he continued to train with me, won the MGC (Marathon Grand Championship) in 2019, and was selected as a member of the marathon team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. I couldn’t have been more moved, and it was very emotional for me. In order to participate in the Olympics, he worked on intensified training overseas, and as a result, he was able to face his target race with the best peak. For Nakamura, it was also a moment when he was convinced that he had not made a mistake in practice.
At the Japan Championships in April this year, Mebuki won the 10,000m. Even at that time, she prepared herself well for this race, and took on the challenge with a strong feeling, and won the championship just as she had envisioned. The athletes are training hard every day. Of course, the results are the same, but I am the happiest and most rewarded when I see their happy faces.

――What kind of leader do you want to be?

Oyagi　Since my students became Generation Z, I myself have changed a lot. While providing guidance tailored to the students of today’s era, I would like to emphasize the importance of being strict in what I teach. In the past, I used to be like an “instant water heater” and yell at the ground, “If you don’t feel like you want to do it, go home,” but that’s not the case now. The previous students still had a rebellious spirit, but if you do the same thing to the current children, they will feel discouraged without saying anything back. That’s why even though you wouldn’t have imagined this back in the day, I try to explain the reason properly after returning to the dormitory, even if I scold them on the field, so that they can deepen their understanding of each other and work on their practice in a positive way. Right now, I praise 60% and scold 40%. I praise them a lot these days. I communicate frankly with my students, so my previous students say to me, “If we talked like that, you would yell at us, but you seemed to have become softer” (bitter smile).

It’s great to see people like the current Ggoat members who want to practice with me even after they graduate from university. It doesn’t make sense if it becomes an imposition, so I don’t dare to ask them to work with me after graduation. I’m going to teach the athletes who have told me that they want to work with me. Only then can the relationship between the athletes and the coaches work well, and they can compete together for a long time. I would like to continue to cherish a good relationship of trust.

 

For work, study, housework, practice…
I still wanted to run Hakone Ekiden

――What were your childhood days like?

Oyagi　I was naughty. I think I was really selfish, or I was the kind of kid who only did what I liked. I didn’t start track and field until I was in junior high school. I did a lot of things like baseball and table tennis, but when I won the school marathon, I devoted myself to running, and I took first place in Fukushima Prefecture. When I was in the third year of junior high school, I finished 5th in the 3000m at the junior championships. That’s why I was determined to compete in the inter-high school championship in high school, but I couldn’t run for three years because of a stress fracture. But I couldn’t give up on track and field, so I consulted with my high school teacher and got a job at Komori Printing (now Komori Corporation), which had a track and field club. From there, I got stronger.

――You also run the Hakone Ekiden, didn’t you?

Oyagi　That’s right. Actually, I wanted to go to university when I graduated from high school, but due to family circumstances, I got a job. However, I had always wanted to run the Hakone Ekiden, so after working for Komori Printing for about five years, I enrolled in the evening division at Komazawa University at the age of 24 while working at Kawasaki City Hall during the day. When I think about it, I have always been selfish about what I wanted to do, or rather, I had a tendency to feel like I had to stick to it since I was a child.
My wish came true, and I was able to run the Hakone Ekiden three times, but those four years were the hardest I’ve ever been in my life. When I wake up in the morning, I cook and eat a meal, and then I practice. After that, I went to work and practiced again in the afternoon. In the evening, I went to the university, took classes, and then came home to cook and eat. I repeat the same every day. I spent my time practicing, working, studying, and doing housework without a break. However, this experience has been a great source of inspiration for me, and I still think, “I overcame that, so I can do anything if I feel like it!” In addition, I learned the importance of planning and scheduling a regular life. I think that’s why I was in a position to coach at Komazawa University, and I was able to live my life well.

――It must have been an intense four years. Did you meet your wife when you were a student?

Oyagi　Yes, my wife was a classmate of mine at Komzawa University and the manager of the track and field club. I was already a member of society, so I wasn’t aware of it at all. I think she was just like, “There’s a strong, older college student” (laughs). That’s why I didn’t make any progress until I graduated from university. We met again at an alumni party, and we were both still single.

 

Take a break with saunas and Korean dramas

――Is there anyone who has influenced you the most since you have been running?

Oyagi　That would be Katsuya Nomura, who also contributed to the baseball world as an athlete and coach. In the end, he achieved great success, but there were many difficulties and failures along the way. Still, he immersed himself in baseball for the rest of his life. Reading his books makes me want to live my athletics life to the end. I also use it as a reference for how to interact with the athletes and how to raise them.

―――Do you often read books by your predecessors?

Oyagi　It wasn’t like that in the past, but after I became a coach, I started reading a lot of books by successful people. When I hit a wall while trying to make the team stronger, these books helped me many times. I also read a lot of books by Kazuo Inamori, the founder of Kyocera.

――I know you are really busy, but what do you find refreshing on a daily basis?

Oyagi　I run for about 40 to 50 minutes in the morning, and it’s a good way to refresh myself. The time to go to the sauna and drink shochu (Japanese traditional hard liquor) is also a respite. It’s been about eight years since the current student dormitory was built, and we built a sauna in the dormitory. There are quite a few athletes who break down, but when they can’t practice, they don’t sweat and they gain weight. That’s why I thought it was necessary for reinforcement and weight management, so I negotiated with the university. There is also a proper water bath, and it is full-fledged. I also go in if I have free time (laughs).

――If you have free time (laughs). It’s also a good place to communicate with students.

Oyagi　That’s right. If there is an athlete who is injured, I will go in with the athlete and ask how the athlete is doing and give advice. We also have conversations like, “Do you have a girlfriend?” In the past, there were a lot of people who tried to get away with it, but strangely enough, students today answer that question more clearly. Isn’t it interesting.

――That’s what you talk about! What kind of shochu do you drink?

Oyagi　I often drink potato shochu, and I especially like “Demon King”. I drink it with water or pickled plums. The soda split is also delicious, so I recommend it.

――By the way, according to the SNS “Yagiji’s Daily Life”, you also like Korean dramas, which was very surprising. I would like to hear if you have a favorite drama.

Oyagi　The first film I saw was “Winter Sonata”, and I’ve been watching Korean dramas for about 20 years since then. I also like Lee Byung-heon’s “All In: Fateful Love,” which was broadcast at the same time. All Korean dramas have similar patterns, but I am really drawn in by that storyline (laughs). Just last month (May), when I went to Korea for the Asian Championships, I ate Chinese jar-ja noodles for the first time. I often saw it in Korean dramas and wanted to eat it, so I was happy (laughs).

 

Beyond Japanese Records
To shine on the world stage

――The World Athletics Championships are about to begin, but what is the position of the World Athletics Championships for you?

Oyagi　After all, the stage of the World Athletics Championships and the Olympics is a dream and aspiration for people who play sports. The World Athletics Championships is the biggest competition of the year, and I have been feeling the enthusiasm of the Ggoat athletes for the World Athletics Championships since last year. The athletes are concentrating on training right now, so I just want them to do their best. Japanese representative for their event has not yet been confirmed, but we will continue to support them so that they can achieve good results.

――What is the current outlook for the Ggoat members to participate in the World Athletics Championships?

Oyagi　One of the qualifications for the World Athletics Championships is a points system, which is a bit complicated, but there is still potential for all athletes. That’s why I think the Japan Championship will be a really important race.

――I’m looking forward to it. When Ggoat members were to perform on the World Athletics Championships, what would you like the spectators to see?

Oyagi　If it’s the 5000m or 10000m, it’s probably the last spurt. It’s really exciting to see where each athlete plays. I hope you don’t miss the race from the crucial winning moment. The 800m is only two laps of the track, so you have to keep an eye on the athletes’ moves and psychological battle from the beginning. If Ochiai were to compete, he has a small physique of 165 cm so would he be able to compete against a massive foreign athlete with a height of 180~190 cm. I want people to pay attention to the races that only he can do.

――Thank you very much for your time. Lastly, please tell us about the future prospects for Ggoat.

Oyagi　Again, my biggest goal is to develop athletes who can compete with the top athletes on the world stage and win. In order to do that, it is necessary to set a time in the 12-minute range for the 5000m and a time in the 26-minute range for the 10,000m. The current Japanese record for the 5000m is 13:08.40 and the 10,000m is 27:09.80. Our athletes are confident that they can run in the 27:10 range in the 10,000m, so it’s a matter of how we can reduce the remaining 10 seconds. At the moment, Keita is the closest to the 12-minute mark in the 5000m, but Shinohara is also a possibility. Everyone is practicing hard for the record, so I would like the Ggoat athletes to break the first Japanese record by starting the 12-minute and 26-minute range. I think it is my great role to lead them to that goal. In the future, we are looking to make the team a little bigger, so if there is an athlete who wants to aim for the world at Ggoat, I would like to raise them. Please look forward to what’s coming ahead in the future!

Hiroaki Oyagi / Born in Fukushima Prefecture in 1958
General Manager of the Komazawa University Track and Field Club |Ggoat Representative

He started track and field when he was in junior high school, and after graduating from Aizu Technical High School, he got a job at Komori Printing (now Komori Corporation). At the age of 24, he enrolled in the evening division at Komazawa University and participated in the Hakone Ekiden three times. In the first year, he won the 5th section award, and in the 2nd and 3rd years, he won 5th place and the section prize in the 2nd section, respectively.
After graduating from university, he worked for Yakult before becoming a coach at the Komazawa University Track and Field Club in April 1995. He has been the coach since April 2004. From his coaching days until his retirement as a coach in 2023, he won a total of 27 championships in the three major university Ekiden tournaments in Izumo, All Japan, and Hakone.
From 2023, he has served as the general manager of the Komazawa University Track and Field Club, while also launching the athlete project “Ggoat” to train athletes who aim for the world.

IG：yagig.life

〈Ggoat〉
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text by Hiromi Kai
photographs by Uta Mukuo

Co-produced with the Local Organising Committee of World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25.