This is the story of Shinzo Kanakuri.

This is the story of Shinzo Kanakuri. Kanakuri was the first ever Japanese athlete to qualify for the Olympics. The year was 1912 and the Olympics was scheduled to be held at Stockholm. Shinzo embarked on a very strenuous voyage first by ship and then by the Trans-siberian railway. This journey from Japan to Stockholm took him 18 days. The journey itself had taken all his strength. He struggled to sleep in Stockholm, a city where there were white nights (where the sun never set). He found the local food not to his liking and moreover his coach who had tuberculosis was not able to give him pre-race training. In short, he was in very bad shape. To top it all Stockholm was going through a heat wave that year. It was so bad that the 1912 Olympics recorded the first ever games related fatality when a sprinter collapsed on the track. Despite all this, Kanakuri decided to run the marathon. After the 16 mile mark he was so exhausted and experienced such debilitating hyperthermia that he dropped out of the race. He stumbled into a garden where a family was having a garden party. They took him in and offered him orange juice. Kanakuri spent an hour in that house drinking just orange juice. He was so embarrassed by his failure to complete the race that he silently returned to Japan without informing anyone. Since he had returned to Japan without informing anyone, his name was added to the list of missing persons in Sweden and the name stayed there for 54 years. More than 54 years later, a Swedish investigative journalist found that Kanakuri was teaching Geography in a school in Japan and wrote a story about his Olympics experience. Swedish Television then got in touch with Kanakuri and told him that since he hadn't reached the finishing line his clock was still running and asked him whether he would like to complete his 1912 marathon. Kanakuri immediately agreed. So on March 20, 1967, a 75 year old Shinzo Kanakuri returned to Stockholm and completed the marathon that he had started 54 years ago. After he finished the marathon he paid a visit to the same family that had saved his life 54 years ago. Bengt Petre, the son of the original hosts welcomed him with, yes, orange juice. Shinzo Kanakuri's name features in the Guinness Book of world records under the 'Longest time taken to complete a marathon'. His official time was 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds. After he finished his race he commented 'This has been a very long marathon. I started in 1912. By the time i reached the finishing line, I had married. Had six children and 10 grandchildren