As a child, hurdler Dai Tamesue did not stand out. He was brought up in an ordinary family and like millions of other kids he was into playing video games.

But two things made Tamesue different. He could run like the wind and he traded secondhand game software.

Those two elements stuck and represent the double life he leads today as a track star and investor.

Tamesue won the bronze medal in the men's 400-meter hurdles at the World Championships in 2001 and 2005. His next goal is to win a medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The hurdler's quest to learn about money, on the other hand, led him into the life of an investor who now manages more than 26 million yen in stocks.

"I've always had doubts about whether cash is something that is really as almighty (and trustworthy) as people believe," Tamesue said in a recent interview.

He wonders why many people in Japan still place great trust in bank deposits despite the incredibly low interest rates.

As of the end of June, cash and deposits accounted for 51.6 percent of the 1.5 quadrillion yen in Japanese household financial assets, whereas in the United States the figure is 13.3 percent of $39.8 trillion, according to the Bank of Japan.

Despite the government's efforts to shift household assets from savings to investments, only 17.4 percent of the total took the form of stocks, investment funds, bonds and other contributions to capital in Japan, compared with 52.4 percent in the U.S.

In his recent book "Investment Hurdler," Tamesue encourages Japanese to stop relying on banks to manage their assets and instead take risks based on their own decisions on where they want their money to be invested.

The hurdler also describes his ideas about money and investments, how his initial 300,000 yen stake has grown to 20 million yen in Thailand and what he has learned from investing.

Tamesue's first encounter with finances came in the late 1980s when he discovered a gap in prices between a secondhand video game store in his hometown and one in a neighboring town where his grandmother lived.

In those days, mom-and-pop bookstores were selling secondhand game software, and price fluctuations resulted from the differences in supply and demand in a given area, the 28-year-old Tamesue recalled.

His town was a new residential area, so games for kids were popular. Where his grandmother lived, however, there was more demand for software attractive to older people.

Tamesue, about 9 years old at the time, was fascinated by the differences in prices listed in the two shops' sales circulars and started buying cheaper games in one store and selling them for more in the other, turning a tidy profit in the exchange.

"It was fun . . . to see (how and why) the prices differed," Tamesue said with a laugh. He spent an hour riding his bicycle to and from his grandmother's town every Sunday to buy and sell games.

His "business" only lasted about a year. A big chain dealing in secondhand games came to town, ending the arbitrage.

The trading was not only fun but also taught him how important it is to analyze and forecast prices, to determine the best timing for sales and purchases, and to have a cash reserve to avoid missing new investment opportunities.

About a decade later in 2001, Tamesue started investing in stocks, using 5 million yen out of the 15 million yen prize money for winning the 400-meter hurdle bronze medal at the World Championships in Canada.

Tamesue first began by purchasing shares of Japanese companies he was familiar with.

An encounter with Mitsuji Konoshita, president of Asia Partnership Fund, which later became Tamesue's sponsor, led him to begin investing in real estate in Thailand in 2003.

"I was half in doubt when I first heard that you could get high returns through real estate investment in Thailand," Tamesue said. "I was surprised when I experienced it myself."

At the time, Thailand was recovering from the 1997 Asian financial crisis and was in dire need of cash from overseas because its financial system was still paralyzed.

Tamesue's initial investment of 300,000 yen tripled in six months. He also got high returns on investing in housing loans and stocks there, resulting in growing his initial investment to 20 million yen in two years.

Although Thailand's demand for money has cooled off, investment opportunities abound in other developing countries where cash is much needed.

Of course, investors should not be eager to jump into risky areas, Tamesue said, but added that investors can control risks if they are aware of them and are prepared to minimize them through such means as diversifying investments.

To Tamesue, hurdling and investing money have much in common.

"What I learned from investment can be applied to my training for hurdling," he said.

For example, he said, both require a great deal of analysis of cause and effect. Without analyzing why stock prices went up or down -- or why you lost or won a race -- you won't have good results the next time.

Without proper analysis, he pointed out, investors will be susceptible to trendy stock picks, such as in the dot-com craze, which can result in unwise decisions.

This is also true in hurdling, he said. When a training method is touted as effective, athletes tend to jump on it, deluding themselves into believing it will also work for them.

This doesn't happen if an athlete knows his body well and knows what kind of training program fits best, Tamesue said.

"So, making your own decision based on your own analysis is important," he said. "(In stock trading) I think you must have an eye for the true value of a company and should be able to forecast what the firm will be like in the long run to make an investment."