Marathon success for Team YOKOHAMA
28 Apr 2014

A representative running team from the Japanese Tyre manufacturer YOKOHAMA took part in the popular Duesseldorf Marathon which took place yesterday.  The four-man strong team encountered very rainy conditions and many hundreds of participants in a relatively flat course. TEAM YOKOHAMA ran in and around the roads and streets of Duesseldorf, covering the riverside and some parts of the city centre known as the “Altstadt”, covering a distance of 42.2 Km in total.

The YOKOHAMA TEAM was made up by;

      1.     David Oliva (10.8km) (Starting line)

      2.     Yuichi Toriya (10.8km) (First changeover)

      3.     Takayuki Atsumi (11.3km) (Second changeover)

      4.     Shinichi Takimoto (9.3km) (Finish line)

With a very credible time of 3hrs 25 minutes which places TEAM YOKOHAMA in 188th place from over 2400 teams the spirits were high after YOKOHAMA Europe President Shinichi Takimoto sprinted to the finish line as fourth runner.  Earlier the fast pace had been set up by David Oliva who was then followed on by Yuichi Toriya – a keen sportsman and youngest member of the team who also managed a spectacularly fast relay effort before handing over the responsibility to Takayuki Atsumi, an experienced runner who maintained the dynamism of the team’s performance throughout. 

“It was a real team effort with a great team spirit” exclaimed YOKOHAMA Europe President Takimoto san, adding that “the target was to go sub 4 hours and close to three and a half hours if at all possible”. This they did exceedingly well and raised the expectations to another participation in a future edition.

A spokesman for YOKOHAMA communications explained “the main aim was to engage in an environmentally friendly, healthy activity as well as involving ourselves as YOKOHAMA within the community that we live and work in.”