There has never been this much money put on the table for marathoners and their coaches

Japan's Project Exceed is continuing for two more years and already $1.5 million dollars has been awarded to Japanese runners, their coaches and clubs. The next approved race is this weekend, the Lake Biwa Marathon... The program was started in March 2015 and goes until March 2020. The idea of the program is to give incentives to Japanese runners to be competitive in the marathon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, in fact to win the gold medal... To reach this goal, Project Exceed was established to encourage Japanese runners to break the Marathon National Record (men 2:06:16 and women 2:19:12). The new men's record is now 2:06:11 set by Yuta Shitara Feb 25 at the Tokyo Marathon and 160 million Yen ($1.5 million US dollars) was awarded through this program. The program also pays out 10 Million Yen to all men who break 2:06:59 and women 2:21:59. ... also 50 Million Yen to their coach or team if they break the NR...The same runner can only earn the 100 million yen once per year but the other 10 million yen ($93,000US) bonus money would be granted. This program has big sponsors behind it: Honda, Toyota, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, just to name a few.

posted Wednesday February 28th