Overseas viewers should be able to watch the 2009 Hakone Ekiden live online through this site. The race will be broadcast on NTV beginning at 7:00 a.m. Japan time on both Jan. 2 and 3. Each day will begin with a 1-hour preview show with the race starting at 8:00 a.m.
The mile isn't really a thing in Japan, especially on the roads, but it's starting to change a little bit. At Nike's new Ginza Mile road race, even in the middle of heavy rain the top 7 in the men's race all broke the national record of 4:00.02 set in March by Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.). Soma Nagahara (Juntendo Univ.) was first across the line to become the official new NR holder in 3:57.0, just beating Shunsuke Kuwata (Komazawa Univ.) by 0.3 in Kuwata's best race since the NYC Half in March. Kaisei Okada (Chuo Univ.) and Yuto Miyake (Chuo Univ.) were right behind in 3:57.9 and 3:58.1, and while there doesn't seem to be an official Taiwanese road mile NR it's pretty much a given that the 3:58.9 by Chien Tzu-Chieh (Chuo Univ.) for 5th was Taiwan's best-ever. Women's NR holder Nozomi Tanaka (Toyota Jidoshokki) easily won in 4:33.8, almost 2 seconds off her NR from 2023, with Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) 2nd in 4:36.87 and Ran Urabe ...
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I read on NHK that Yuki Yagi is in the "backup" group for Waseda...is he hurt?
Glad to hear it. Kashiwabara was something else.....
I haven't heard that Yagi is injured. Schools often don't include their big stars in the initial start list in order to hide their strategy. Yuki Sato, for example, wasn't listed until they announced the changes this morning. Waseda will probably announce Yagi as a replacement tomorrow morning.