Skip to main content

Boston Marathon Winner Kawauchi's Younger Brother Elected to Kuki City Council

Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi's youngest brother Koki Kawauchi, 25, was elected to the Kuki city council in an election held April 22, winning 6309 votes. Kawauchi was delighted, commenting, "My older brother's Boston Marathon win was like the winds of a typhoon filling my sails. I couldn't be more grateful."

When the results of the election were announced just after midnight, Kawauchi made an appearance to celebrate his win, wearing a running uniform and a crown of laurels. Smiling broadly he raised his arms and shouted in victory as he broke a finish line tape that said, "Koki Kawauchi Elected."


As a government employee Yuki Kawauchi was prohibited from campaigning on his younger brother's behalf, but his Boston Marathon victory and subsequent declaration that he would go professional acted as a form of de facto support in his brother's favor.

On the day of the election Yuki Kawauchi was in Gifu for the Gifu Seiryu Half Marathon while middle brother Yoshiki Kawauchi, 27, was in Poland running the Krakow Marathon, meaning neither could appear at the celebration. Koki Kawauchi expressed his desire to do the best job he could, saying, "From the star of the amateur marathon world, I want to become the star of the city council."

source article:
https://www.sponichi.co.jp/society/news/2018/04/22/kiji/20180423s00042000055000c.html
translated by Brett Larner

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr