Having shed the flashy, eye-catching pink shorts of his high school and grown his hair longer, Japanese sprinter Yoshihide Kiryu has begun a new chapter in his track career, aiming to step up to the next level in a new environment.
Kiryu, who shot to prominence when he notched Japan's second-best time ever — 10.01 seconds — in the 100 meters as a student of Kyoto's Rakunan High School last year, moved from Kansai to Kanto this month to enroll at Toyo University.
"I don't think I'll get used to it," Kiryu, a Shiga Prefecture native, said of his new base, jokingly, at the university's campus in Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture. "There are an amazing amount of people in the trains on my way to (another) campus (in Tokyo)."