1970

In 1970, for the first time in its five-year history, a Japanese national, Akio Usami won the prestigious Fukuoka International Marathon championships.

In near ideal conditions, Usami set the Japanese national best of 2:10:37.8 breaking the previous best of 2:11:17.0 set by Sei-ichiro Sasaki in the 1967 Fukuoka marathon. In the process, Usami became the third fastest performer in history, relegating Bill Adcocks who recorded 2:10:47.8 in the 1968 Fukuoka marathon into the fourth place on the all time best list. Only Derek Clayton and Ron Hill had run the marathon faster.

Previously, Great Britain’s Ron Hill, who won the 1969 European Championships marathon in Athens was invited to the 1969 Fukuoka marathon, but he was only able to finish second. However, by 1970, Hill was at the height of his aerobic power. In April, the Britain won the Boston marathon in a course record time of 2:10:30, thus became the second fastest marathon runner in history with the third fastest performance. Derek Clayton ran faster twice, 2:08:33.6 and 2:09:36.4. In his second marathon of the year, Hill ran even faster. In July of 1970, at the British Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, he became the second man to break 2:10 barrier with 2:09:28. In both of these races, Hill was most impressive. In Boston, he broke the course record by more than three minutes despite the cold rain. In Edinburgh, he recorded the second fastest time despite starting out at suicidal pace - first 10Km in 29:24, a 2:04 marathon pace. Naturally, Hill who headed the list of invited runners for the 1970 Fukuoka International marathon was a clear favourite.

Other top invited runners invited to participate included Bill Adcocks, the third fastest marathon runner in history who won the Fukuoka marathon in 1968, and Akio Usami who was second to Derek Clayton in Clayton’s record run in Antwerp Belgium in May of 1969. Usami was a 1968 Olympian who finished 9^th in Mexico City.

In near perfect conditions, Yoshiaki Unetani, the 1969 Boston marathon champion, ran aggressively from the start. At 5Km, he led the chase pace by three seconds with 15:20. However, soon after 5Km, the chase pack swallowed him up. The lead pack passed the 10Km in 30:55. Due to the slow early pace, the lead pack of 17 runners including six invited foreign runners stayed together until almost half way. Then in a stunning development, just before the turn around point (21.3949Km), both of the pre-race favourites Ron Hill and Bill Adcocks of Great Britain lost contact with the leaders. After finishing the race in disappointing ninth place, Hill who was completely mystified with his failure said, "Although I had stomach problem from 10Km, I still don’t understand why I lost the race."

Thus soon after the half way mark the race was down to eight runners - Akio Usami, Yoshiaki Unetani, Tadaaki Ueoka, Hayami Tanimura, Kenny Moore, Yuri Volkov, John Farrington and Jack Foster. After the turn around point, as the wind shifted from the headwind to the tailwind, the pace picked up, and the pack started to break-up. Akio Usami, who was hoping for slow first half (the 1:05:39 first half which was the slowest in five years must have been to his liking) was running smoothly, but the other runners were feeling the effect of the pace which was up to 15:12 for the 5 Km between 20Km and 25Km. Soon after 25Km, John Farrington of Australia was the first to fall behind the leader. Hayami Tanimura and Jack Foster of New Zealand were next to go, and there were five runners left in the lead pack. As Usami continued to push the pace, Ueoka and a Russian Yuri Volkov too lost contact with the leader.

It became a three-man battle between Usami, Moore and Unetani. Usami continued to push the pace and covered the next 5Km between 25Km and 30Km in 14:59, the first sub 15:00 5Km split in the Fukuoka marathon since the historic run by Derek Clayton in 1967. Hill was supposed to be with him when the real racing started, however, Usami was alone by 30Km. Moore was five seconds behind Usami and Unetani was another eight seconds back. It was the exactly the type of the race Usami envisioned before the race - after the slow first half, he would pick up the pace to shake off everyone else. By 35Km, Usami had a commanding lead of 43 seconds over Moore, while Unetani was three seconds behind Moore. Unetani, who at one time was 50m behind Moore, worked up and caught Moore soon after the 35Km point. They ran side by side from 35Km to 38Km, before Moore prevailed and secured the second place. Meanwhile, Usami continued to push the pace with the hope of becoming the third sub 2:10 marathon runner. However, Usami slowed down too much from 35Km - 5Km split of 15:55 between 35Km to 40Km - and had to settle for the honour of being the first Japanese to crack 2:11. He shattered the Japanese national record in his 22^nd marathon with 2:10:37.8.

Because of consistent finish in the medals by marathon runners from Great Britain in major championships (Hill and Jim Alder were first and third in the 1969 European Championships; they were top two in the 1970 British Commonwealth Games), Britain was considered as a premier marathon powerhouse at the time. Hence, it was a time for celebration in the Heiwadai stadium, for Usami won convincingly from the best Britain had to offer. However, during the post-race interview, in the midst of celebrations, Usami had different perspective:

"I am happy with the outcome. The race went as I envisioned and I set a personal best. However, just because I won today, it does not mean that Japanese marathon runners are superior to the marathon runners from Great Britain. It only means that I won the race today." As reported in Asahi newspaper, Usami may have been fortunate that nobody pushed the pace from the start.

The next four places, Moore, Unetani, Foster and Farrington all achieved personal bests. They also moved into the top 20 in the all-time performer’s list. Moore and Foster were to reach their peak several years later. Kenny Moore finished fourth in the Olympics in 1972, while Jack Foster was second in the 1974 British Commonwealth Games. Yuri Volkov of Soviet Union was eighth in 2:14:28.0, which shattered the national record of 2:15:17.0, recorded by Sergey Popov at the 1958 European Championships in Stockholm. It was a world best performance at the time.

Although Ron Hill finished a disappointing 9^th in his third marathon of the year, he was still ranked first by the Track & Field News on the strength of his two important wins – the Boston and British Commonwealth Games marathons. It was the first time in five years that a runner who failed to win the Fukuoka marathon was ranked first by Track & Field News. For each year since 1966, inaugural year of the Fukuoka marathon, top two finishers of this prestigious marathon were ranked as the top two marathon runners of the year by the Track & Field News. Incredibly in 1968, Mamo Wolde and Kenji Kimihara, gold and silver medallists respectively at the Olympic marathon were ranked third and fourth respectively behind Bill Adcocks and Yoshiaki Unetani who finished first and second respectively at the 1968 Fukuoka marathon. Such was the status of the Fukuoka International marathon at the time. However, in 1970 the top two finishers of the 1970 Fukuoka marathon, Akio Usami and Kenny Moore were ranked second and third respectively behind Ron Hill by the Track & Field News.

December 6, 1970 Sunny 12.5C, humidity 36%, wind 4.1m/s North North West

JPN unless otherwise indicated

1) Akio Usami 2:10:37.8 Japanese National Best
2) Kenny Moore (USA) 2:11:35.8
3) Yoshiaki Unetani 2:12:12.0
4) Jack Foster (NZL) 2:12.17.8
5) John Farrington (AUS) 2:12.58.4
6) Bill Adcocks (GBR) 2:13:32.0
7) Tadaaki Ueoka 2:13:46.0
8) Yuri Volkov (URS) 2:14:28.0
9) Ron Hill (GBR) 2:15:27.0
10) Katsuaki Hirai 2:16:08.0

Splits for Usami
5Km 15:24
10Km 30:55 (15:31)
15Km 46:32 (15:37)
20Km 1:02:15 (15:43)
Half Marathon 1:05:39
25Km 1:17:27 (15:12)
30Km 1:32:26 (14:59)
35Km 1:47:32 (15:06)
40Km 2:03:27 (15:55)
42.195Km 2:10:37.8 (7:10.8)

All-time marathon performance list after the 1970 Fukuoka marathon

Derek Clayton 2:08:33.6 1^st Antwerp 30 May 1969
Ron Hill 2:09:28 1^st Edinburgh 23 July 1970
D Clayton 2:09:36.4 1^st Fukuoka 3 Dec 1967
R Hill 2:10:30 1^st Boston 20 Apr 1970
Akio Usami 2:10:37.8 1^st Fukuoka 6 Dec 1970
Bill Adcocks 2:10:47.8 1^st Fukuoka 8 Dec 1968
B Adcocks 2:11:07.2 1^st Athens 6 Apr 1969
Eamon O’Reilly 2:11:12 2^nd Boston 20 Apr 1970
Jerome Drayton 2:11.12.8 1^st Fukuoka 7 Dec 1969
Sei-ichiro Sasaki 2:11:17.0 2^nd Fukuoka 3 Dec 1967
Akio Usami 2:11:27.8 2^nd Antwerp 30 May 1969
Kenny Moore 2:11:35.8 2^nd Fukuoka 6 Dec 1970
R Hill 2:11:54.4 2^nd Fukuoka 7 Dec 1969
Morio Shigematsu 2:12:00 1^st Chiswick 12 Jun 1965
J Drayton 2:12:00 1^st Detroit 19 Oct 1969
Hayami Tanimura 2:12:03.4 3^rd Fukuoka 7 Dec 1969
Jim Alder 2:12:04 2^nd Edinburgh 23 July 1970
Abebe Bikila 2:12:11.2 1^st Tokyo 21 Oct 1964
Yoshiaki Unetani 2:12:12 3^rd Fukuoka 6 Dec 1970
B Adcocks 2:12:16.8 1^st Karl Marx Stadt 19 May 1968
Jack Foster 2:12:17.8 4^th Fukuoka 6 Dec 1970
Don Faircloth 2:12:19 3^rd Edinburgh 23 July 1970
David McKenzie 2:12:25.8 3^rd Fukuoka 3 Dec 1967
Y Unetani 2:12:40.6 2^nd Fukuoka 8 Dec 1968
Pablo Garrido 2:12:52.8 4^th Fukuoka 7 Dec 1969
John Farrington 2:12:58.4 5^th Fukuoka 6 Dec 1970
Toshiharu Sasaki 2:13:06.4 5^th Fukuoka 7 Dec 1969
Akio Yoshida 2:13:21.0 6^th Fukuoka 7 Dec 1969