1. Shizo Kanakuri was a Japanese marathon runner celebrated as the "father of marathon" in Japan.
13 Facts About Shizo Kanakuri
1. 2.
Shizo Kanakuri was selected as one of the two Japanese athletes to attend the event.
3.
Shizo Kanakuri is best known for disappearing during the marathon race in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.
4.
Shizo Kanakuri was the first Japanese athlete to qualify for an Olympics.
5.
Shizo Kanakuri embarked on a difficult 18-day-long trip to Stockholm, first by ship and then by train all through the Trans-Siberian Railway.
6.
When he finally arrived in Stockholm, Shizo Kanakuri was weak from the long journey.
7.
About sixteen miles into the race, an exhausted Shizo Kanakuri left the course and desperately stumbled into a nearby garden party, where he drank orange juice for an hour.
8.
Since Shizo Kanakuri did not finish, race officials gave the consolation prize, a large wooden spoon, to a Russian.
9.
Shizo Kanakuri's disappearance spurred humorous stories in Sweden about the supposedly lost Japanese runner.
10.
Shizo Kanakuri subsequently participated in the 1924 Summer Olympics, where he failed to finish the race.
11.
Shizo Kanakuri met Bengt Petre, the son of his original hosts.
12.
Shizo Kanakuri is known for his role in establishing the Hakone Ekiden relay marathon in 1920.
13.
Shizo Kanakuri died at the age of 92 on 13 November 1983, at his hometown of Tamana in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan.