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KIDS IN ACTION Thirty-one-legged Race | |||||||
Have you ever run in a three-legged race? Imagine if you had to run in a line of 30 people, instead of just two. Does that sound hard? Well, an event known as the 31-legged race is popular right now among Japanese elementary school students. In this event, 30 classmates line up in a single row with their legs tied together at the ankles. As one long line of 31 legs, they run as fast as they can against the clock over 50 meters. There is even a 31-legged race national championship for elementary school students, which is broadcast on national TV. The championship has been organized every year since 1996 by TV Asahi, a Tokyo-based TV station. The tenth competition took place in 2005. Since the seventh event in 2002, the competition has been recognized by Guinness World Records. As this race has become better known, the number of participants has risen to over 150,000. Each year, teams from abroad are invited to compete. So far, teams from such countries as South Korea, Kenya, and Cuba have participated. At the sixth competition, a team from China defeated Japan's strongest elementary school to win the championship. The latest competition, held on November 13, 2005, featured teams from the 26 Japanese schools who won regional qualifiers held throughout Japan, as well as a team invited from Nigeria. The teams and their supporters gathered at Yokohama Arena for a series of fiercely contested races. The winning team was a class of sixth graders from Wakaba Elementary School in Ishikari, Hokkaido. This was an incredible victory, because the school is so small that there is only one class per grade, meaning that the students there have the same classmates for all six years.
Sixth-grade homeroom teacher Watarai Tomohiro has coached the 31-legged team from the beginning. He said, "We started doing the 31-legged race when the students were in fourth grade. At the time, there was no sense of unity in the class, and we wanted the kids to feel that they were working together to achieve something." The Wakaba team began competing as fourth graders, continued, and succeeded in becoming national champions in their third year of competition. Miyano Koshiro, who has captained the team since the fourth grade, said that, as the face of the team, he tries to set a good example. "All the practice was hard, because we had to keep pushing ourselves. In order to get to this point, we had to work hard, and our parents also took care of us. That's why we felt so strongly that we couldn't produce a poor time. At the national championship, we believed in our own power, believed in each other, and did our best," he said. Teammate Saito Hiromu said that as he stood at the starting line for the deciding race, he was overcome with three years of memories: "We practiced the 31-legged race during summer vacation, winter vacation, and regular break times as well. At home, my own training included sit ups, back raises, push ups, skipping, and leg raises. I recalled everything we did over the three years, and realized that, win or lose, this would be our final race, so I tried to run a race that I would remember forever." In between the intense races, the Wakaba Elementary School team also enjoyed some cultural exchange by eating breakfast with a team from Okinawa and taking pictures with the Nigerian team. "Winning the national championship was our dream, and I believe that what we accomplished was a great experience," said Miyano. For the students who ran the 31-legged race, the national championship was full of memories that they'll cherish forever. |
