He Vanished During the 1912 Olympic Marathon—Then Finished It 54 Years Later
As a relatively slow runner, I've always wondered: How long is too long to take when running a marathon? If Shizo Kanakuri's story is anything to go by, the limit does not exist: It took him 54 years, eight months, six days, 32 minutes, and 20.3 seconds, the slowest time in an Olympic marathon—and, I have to assume, any marathon (he holds the Guinness World Record, too)—ever. The saga started in 1911 and involved a long train journey and an even longer (presumed) disappearance.
How did this even happen?
Kanakuri didn't walk one step a day or anything like that. In fact, he was actually one of the fastest runners in Japan; according to the Washington Post, he was the first Japanese athlete to ever qualify for the modern Olympics. In 1912, he ran in the marathon at the fifth Olympic Games, held in Stockholm, Sweden. During the Olympic trials held the year before, he set what was then considered a world record with a time of 2:32:45, per a biography of Kanakuri from the Lydiard Foundation. "If the Japanese timekeepers and athletic trainers may be believed, western athletes will have to look to their laurels at the forthcoming Olympic games in which representatives of Japan will compete for the first time," reads a January 1912 report about his record in the Salt Lake Telegram. However, distance measurements were not quite so precise at the time, and it's estimated that the course he ran on was actually around 40 kilometers, or just under 25 miles.
So, considering he was an incredibly fast runner for his time, how did it end up taking him 54 years and change? Well, it was 1912 and he had to go from his home in Japan to Stockholm. At the time, that meant a 17-day journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway, with training opportunities limited to quick runs on the platform during stops. Even after arriving, Japan's team manager, Hyozo Omori, got sick and Kanakuri spent additional time caring for him instead of preparing for the race, according to the Japan Times.
The effects of such a long train journey alone would be enough to cause problems for any runner, but once he finally arrived in Stockholm, Kanakuri also had to contend with unfamiliar foods that caused stomach issues, high temperatures (it was reportedly 90 degrees the day of the race), and a gravel course unlike any surface he'd previously been running on (he was wearing traditional tabi shoes with canvas soles, per JT). They were tough conditions for any runner; as the Post reported, only 34 of the 68 runners who started the race that day actually crossed the finish line.
For his part, Kanakuri lost his way about two-thirds of the way into the race, and he ended up at the rural farmhouse of a Swedish family. Reports of exactly what happened vary, but according to the Post's account, the Petras gave Kanakuri raspberry juice, cinnamon rolls, and fruit, as well as a fresh set of clothes, and he slept there that night, never returning to the race. As far as Swedish race officials were concerned, Kanakuri had vanished into thin air; they were unable to find him, and it was a decades-long unsolved mystery. “Kanakuri was a good runner and a very important runner in Japan,” Japanese sports historian and Kanakuri biographer Kazuo Sayama told the Post. “But it was vanishing that day that made him famous to many.”
The morning after the race, Kanakuri felt deeply embarrassed and ashamed. He reportedly wrote in his journal: “It’s the morning after my defeat. My heart is aching with regret for the rest of my life. It was the most significant day of my life. But failure teaches success, and I can only wait for the day with fair weather after the rain so that I can clean up my shame.” He made it back to Japan (and later competed in two subsequent Olympic Games), but back in Sweden, the authorities were puzzled. He was widely considered missing, and the whole ordeal inspired stories imagining that he was still running around Sweden in search of the finish line.
The story entered back into media circulation around 1962 as part of Sweden's 50th anniversary commemorations for the 1912 Olympics, and in 1967, when Kanakuri was 75, he was invited to participate in the 55th anniversary celebrations. He made the (now much quicker) journey back to Stockholm, and he finally finished the race he'd started so long ago. He reportedly even reunited with members of the Petra family who had helped him out so many years ago. Per the Times, after his 54-year time was read out, he said, “It was a long trip. Along the way, I got married, had six children and 10 grandchildren.” One of those children, his daughter Yoshiko Sakaya, told the Post, "When I went over to Sweden, I was surprised to find that he was very much more famous there than in Japan. Everybody knows about him for going missing."
Who Was Shizo Kanakuri, Actually?
While he wasn't the mythical figure that Swedish folklore made him out to be, Kanakuri was a pretty big deal and made a lasting impact on Japanese running culture and the popularity of the sport itself in Japan. Let's start with his name, which is most typically spelled Shizo Kanakuri, with the variations of "Shiso" for his first name and "Kanaguri" as his surname often appearing as well. Born in 1981, Kanakuri grew up on the western island of Kyushu, where his family brewed and sold sake. He got his start running, according to the Post, because his school was four miles away and he ran there each morning. For college, he attended the Tokyo Higher Normal School (now the University of Tsukuba), where he trained with Kano Jigoro, Japan's "father of judo" and the same man who would later run the Olympic qualifying trials, per the Japan Times.
At the time, there was a belief that sweating was what tired a person out, so athletes, including Kanakuri, were taught to avoid drinking water in order to prevent excessive sweating. But, according to the story told by the Lydiard Foundation, Kanakuri was so thirsty one night during training that he couldn't sleep, and unable to stand the thirst, he secretly drank some water with sugar in it. After realizing that it had no negative effect on his running the next day, he continued to hydrate, and it's quite possible that his willingness to go against the popular advice of the period gave him his competitive advantage in the Olympic trials.
The Ekiden
After the challenges he faced during the 1912 Olympics, Kanakuri went home and got straight back to training for the 1916 Berlin Olympics, which were ultimately canceled due to World War I. He went on to compete in the 1920 Antwerp Olympics, finishing 16th in the marathon, and the 1924 Paris Olympics, where he was unable to complete the marathon. Back in Japan, he became an educator and worked to make running more accessible for everyone; he developed a training method for blind runners and often recruited and coached female athletes, according to the Post. Even after retiring, he reportedly took daily walks where he would stop to talk shop with any runners or other athletes he came across.
Kanakuri's ultimate goal was to spread the popularity of running in Japan and to create training and competition opportunities for young runners, and to that end he is credited with developing the Ekiden race, a long-distance relay race, which became one of the most legendary achievements of his long running career. Along with colleagues, he helped found the Hakone Ekiden race, a competition between 10 universities that continues yearly to this day. Ekiden races continue to be popular in Japan, with modern races of varying lengths happening all over the country.
As his daughter told the Post, “He wanted everybody to have the opportunities that he had.”
Katja Vujić is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, The Cut, Allure, Architectural Digest, The Boston Globe Magazine, and more. You can find more of her work on her website.