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Eri Okubo Leaving Second Wind AC

http://swac.jp/news.shtml
http://sw-ac.jugem.jp/?eid=2656

translated by Brett Larner
photo by Dr. Helmut Winter

Our sincerest thank you to all of Second Wind AC's regular supporters.  Our club athlete Eri Okubo has decided to leave Second Wind AC at the end of March. Following her departure from Second Wind AC she plans to continue to pursue her own personal goals in a new environment.  Okubo has posted a personal statement about her decision to leave on the Second Wind AC blog.  We hope that all of you will continue to support and encourage her as she follows her dream and thank each of you for the encouragement you have given up to now.

Okubo's statement:

Thank you to everyone who has helped me and supported me. Unfortunately, I dropped out of Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon.  Thank you to all of my regular fans and to everyone who came out to cheer along the course.  I am truly sorry that I was not able to live up to your expectations and that I ended up with a result like this.

I would also like to tell you all that the Nagoya Women's Marathon was my last race as a Second Wind AC athlete.  I am sorry to deliver this kind of abrupt news on top of a bad race result.  Running as a Second Wind athlete enriched my range of experience as a runner, and I learned that the marathon and running itself can be truly fun.

Looking at the path ahead of me it's still a blank page, but after a night's sleep after the race on Sunday my resolve and motivation to pursue my next goal are back strong as ever. Once I fully recover and am back to a level where I can run hard I want to get back to competing in some form or another.

Three years was a short time, but I sincerely want to thank everybody who offered their encouragement whenever they saw me and who supported me right from when I was starting out and had not yet accomplished anything.

Eri Okubo

photo (c) 2012 Dr. Helmut Winter
all rights reserved
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Comments

yuza said…
I am curious to know why she is leaving. Did the team ask her to leave, because she failed to meet expectations, or is she leaving because she believes she can do better without them?

I suppose it does not really matter.

Nagoya was a really good race, which had surprising depth with 15 women running under 2hrs 35mins.

Great run by Kizaki, but I am not sure how much faster she can run.

March 12, 2013 at 4:07 PM
Brett Larner said…
My impression from the tone is that this came from her side. She is the best athlete SWAC currently has so it doesn't seem likely she would be asked to leave on the basis of Nagoya.
March 13, 2013 at 7:22 AM
yuza said…
Fair enough. Perhaps she has been inspired by Kawauchi?
March 14, 2013 at 1:50 AM
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