Kashiwabara Starts Off Second Year

by Brett Larner

Toyo University's Ryuji Kashiwabara, who caught the national eye with an epic new stage record on the 5th leg of January's Hakone Ekiden, begins his second year of university competition this Sunday at the 5th Kanto Private School Five University Track and Field Meet at Daito Bunka University. Kashiwabara will be one of four students in the final event of the day, the 3000 m Premium Race, where he will face professional runners from four teams along with three of his university rivals. The strongest contenders for the win on paper are Josai University's Yuta Takahashi and Team Chugoku Denryoku's Yasuhiro Tago, but Takahashi was a DNS at the recent World Cross Country Championships and his fitness may be in question. The Premium Race will also feature as pacemakers two of the best African runners in Japan, Team Komori Corp.'s Josephat Ndambiri and Team Nissin Shokuhin's Gideon Ngatuny. JRN will be on hand to cover the meet.

The Premium Race 3000 m Entry List
Indicated times are 5000 m PBs.
Josephat Ndambiri (Team Komori Corp.) - pacemaker
Gideon Ngatuny (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - pacemaker
Yuta Takahashi (Josai Univ.) - 13:37.69
Yasuhiro Tago (Team Chugoku Denryoku) - 13:39.13
Kosaku Hoshina (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 13:50.71
Yusuke Hasegawa (Jobu Univ.) - 13:52.76
Yoshinori Murakami (Team Fujitsu) - 13:57.38
Ryuji Kashiwabara (Toyo Univ.) - 13:58.28
Akira Kiniwa (Team S&B) - 13:59.99
Kazuma Kaikura (Team Nissin Shokuhin) - 14:03
Keisuke Tanaka (Josai Univ.) - 14:07.23
Hiroshi Ino (Team Fujitsu) - 3:44.69 (1500 m)

(c) 2009 Brett Larner
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