About this time last year, Yoshihide Kiryu was just an obscure sprinter who innocently hoped to be mentioned in Japanese track-and-field magazines, just like any other high school athlete.
A year later, he's the sport's most sought-after man in among members of the media.
The men's 100-meter dash was the main event of the three-day National Championships at Ajinomoto Stadium this past weekend. An unusually large number of fans and reporters filed into the stadium to watch the event, in which Kiryu and his rival Ryota Yamagata competed (the second day drew 17,000 fans, the best figure of the three days).