Non-Japanese Students banned from Ekiden Marathon

Japan just passed a new law to ban foreign students from running in first leg of the annual "All Japan High School Ekiden Championships" marathon because Kenyan students have excelled so much in the marathon that the races loses the "drama of a close finish" according to Ekiden leaders. Teams with foreign students running the first leg of the Ekiden marathon have won the All Japan High School Ekiden Championships five times in the past 10 years.

Kazunobu Umemura, executive managing director of the federation told the press that "angry fans complained it is a turnoff to see foreign students" gaining a huge lead over Japanese students. Keisuke Sawaki, a director of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations said "the differences in physical capabilities between Japanese and foreign students are far beyond imagination."

The rules against foreigners in the race were already unfair and biased before this new thing. Since 1995, the rules have set the number of foreign students who can enter the Ekiden race to one from each school. Only 20% of the overall runners are allowed to be non-Japanese. And now, the foreign students are just banned completely from the whole first leg of the marathon. How insecure and racist does this make the Ekiden directors and its fans seem?

Watanabe, a high school gym teacher and coach at one of the schools said, "The decision is not good from an educational point of view because it can be viewed as excluding foreign students." If you're not going to let Kenyans or other foreign students participate with the others at their own high school, why let them into Japanese schools at all? I think this inappropriate, unfair, and really racist.