Koji Murofushi of Japan finishes third in the men's hammer throw (© Getty Images)
As the twotime World Championships medallist and the third longest hammer thrower in history at 84.86m, Japan’s Koji Murofushi is one of the favourites for the gold medal in Athens. After finishing 9th in Sydney, Murofushi moved up to the next level, having won silver in Edmonton and bronze in Paris. Ken Nakamura reports
The Murofushi family is endowed with the genes for Hammer Throw. The five-time Asian Games Hammer Throw champion Shigenobu Murofushi, the father, is coach to Koji and his sister Yuka.
Koji is a serious student of the sports, for not only he trains hard for his event, but he also thinks long and hard about various aspects of the Hammer Throw including the dynamics of throw and the properties of throwing circle.
Murofushi is always looking for any clue to improve his throws, and his search is not limited to the conventional ideas, but also includes unconventional ones like ancient Asian ideas on movement.
“I would like to study the ancient ideas on movement and how they can be applied to the current ideas on the same topic. The question is how to combine the ancient and modern ideas; how to fuse these ideas together,” said Koji after the World Athletics Final in Szombathely, Hungary.
As a son of national Hammer Throw champion and record holder, Koji, who was born on 8 October 1974, was destined to be a hammer thrower but his father let his son choose his favourite events and Koji started as a sprinter and long jumper in junior high school.
However, perhaps because he threw the (junior implement) hammer to nearly 50m in his first ever attempt, Koji decided to take up the event in high school. At the time, he was a lanky kid who looked anything but a hammer thrower. But his progress was amazing and as early as his second year as a hammer thrower Murofushi won the national inter-high school championships. After defending his title in 1992, Murofushi won the national inter-collegiate championships for four straight years.
His winning streak at the national championships began in 1995, and soon Murofushi was the dominant hammer thrower in Japan. Furthermore, in 1997 at the IAAF World Championships in Athens, not only did Murofushi made the final - thus repeating his father’s achievement when 25 years earlier he had reached the final at the Munich Olympics - but he placed an excellent 10th.
By 1997, Koji was approaching his father’s national record of 75.96m set in July 1984. The long-awaited national record finally came on 26 April 1998 at the Gunma Relays, when Koji Murofushi threw an impressive 76.65m to surpass his father’s mark, one which had stood for almost 14 years.
In 1998 he improved his national record five more times with the last of these marks, 78.57m, established at the Asian Games, when he defeated Andrey Abduvaliyev, the 1992 Olympic champion, to win the gold medal. The following year, at the 1999 World University Games, Murofushi finished sixth, improving his eighth place finish of 1997. However, unlike two years before when he was tenth at the World Championships, he failed to qualify for the final in Seville.
By 1999, reaching the 80-metre barrier was a recurrent topic of conversation. After improving his national record to 79.17m Murofushi bettered his own mark twice, first to 79.20m and then to 80.23m. And that was his first throw over the magical 80m mark, the hallmark of elite hammer throwers.
Subsequently, he improved his national record thrice to 81.08m, the last of which was recorded in the Super meet in Yokohama just before the Olympics. Because he won over a formidable opposition in Yokohama, Murofushi was expected to throw well in Sydney - his first Olympic Games. Unfortunately, perhaps because of a slick throwing circle caused by the rainy conditions, he could only manage 9th.
Eleven days after the Olympics, however, Murofushi finished second at the IAAF Grand Prix Final. Three more days later he was back in Japan and won the national championships for the sixth time.
Because Murofushi committed an out-of-sector foul in his first throw in Sydney, after the 2000 season, he worked hard on throwing the hammer into the middle of the sector. And thus began the Murofushi’s (almost) Annus Mirabilis.
In May 2001, he won gold at the East Asian Games; a month later, Murofushi won his 7th consecutive national title. He thrice improved the national record, the last of which was also an Asian record.
Then in an epic hammer throwing competition at the 2001 World Championships, which Szymon Ziolkowski of Poland needed a personal best to win, Murofushi captured the silver medal. It was the first medal by a Japanese in the throwing events at the global championships.
“The competition in Edmonton is an unforgettable one. First because it was the hardest competition I ever had in my career and second because the competition was against my friend Szymon,” recalls Murofushi.
He went almost undefeated in 2001, losing only once to Ziolkowski (in Edmonton). However, Murofushi had a winning record against him, as he defeated his Polish rival in the Rome Golden League, the Goodwill Games, the Osaka Grand Prix and the Super track & field meeting in Yokohama.
Of the 67 legal throws he recorded in 2001, 34 were over 80m. The average for his fifteen competitions was 80.79m, while the overall average of his 67 throws was 79.80m. With an Asian-record 83.47m Murofushi became the seventh best performer in history.
Despite missing his winter base training due to an injury to his little finger, Murofushi established himself as one of the best hammer throwers in the world. In 2002, Murofushi won the Grand Prix Final in Paris, the first ever victory for Japan in the event. He also successfully defended his Asian Games title, and thus moved one step closer to the record five consecutive victories his father/coach, Shigenobu, has accomplished.
He also won the Asian Track and Field Championships and finished second in the World Cup in Madrid. In the World Cup, Murofushi also competed in the discus throw; his first discus competition since his collegiate days.
On 29 June 2003 fantastic news that Murofushi become the third longest hammer thrower in history with an 84.86m throw came from Prague. Only the legendary Yuriy Sedykh and Sergey Litvinov have ever thrown further than Murofushi. It was also the longest throw in the last 15 years.
Since the 1998 season, Murofushi set 18 national records in the event, of which the last two were also Asian records. In August, Murofushi won bronze at the 2003 World Championships and with his medal in Paris he became the first consecutive medallist in the event since the 1993 and 1995 editions of the Championships, when the three medallists repeated their performances. Domestically, Murofushi won the national title for nine consecutive years.
In addition to a well deserved medal, Murofushi’s success in Paris also meant he was elected to the IAAF Athletes’ Commission by his peers.
“The reason why I am running for the position is because I would like to contribute to the further development of Track & Field, by presenting the view of athletes on various topics,” said Murofushi prior to his election.
“I would like to be the voice of Asian athletes and also of athletes in the throwing events. I am very much interested in the topic of rules especially with regards to the safety of throwing events. It is my desire to collect and organise voices of athletes and present them to the governing body, and by doing so it is my hope that we can compete in the best possible environment, which foster the best possible competitions.”
In addition to being a fantastic champion, Murofushi is also an extremely popular figure in Japan and his television appearances grow in number year after year. As an official promoter of the 2007 IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Murofushi was a guest star at the New Year’s Day TBS - one of the official broadcasting partners of the IAAF - innovative sports programme in which top athletes compete in a series of unusual events that are very different to what they are used to.
“In my opinion, it is a fantastic programme, and because you are competing in a relaxed atmosphere, it is nothing like my usual competitions! At the end of the competition, I felt I was able to better understand how multi-event athletes must feel when they finish their final event. “
As he prepares for his second Olympic Games, Murofushi made several training trip to Eugene, Oregon.
“I am training with James Parker, the US champion. He is a good training partner. Best of all, in working with Stewart Toger, who was a coach of Lance Deal, I found that hammer throwing is really really fun,” says Murofushi.
With the renewed enthusiasm for the event, perhaps, he is about to move up to the next level.
Published in IAAF Magazine Issue 2 - 2004
