When Dai Tamesue arrived for our recent interview in Tokyo smartly dressed in a dark business suit and toting a brown leather briefcase, the only thing setting him slightly apart from most other Japanese business types was his well-trimmed goatee, which gave him more the air of a college professor.
Though it soon became clear Tamesue was no slouch in the cerebral department, and has plenty of business savvy to boot, this 35-year-old retired athlete is by far best known in Japan as the "samurai hurdler."
That's in part because of his famously grueling training regime and his resume that includes him being a bronze medalist in the 2001 and 2005 World Championships, a three-time (though unmedaled) Olympian and the current Japan record-holder in the 400-meter hurdles — with a time of 47.89 seconds he set way back in 2001.