While the girls' race was a blowout by 2022 champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , the boys' race at Sunday's National High School Ekiden was a tense battle of turnover that saw all of the final top four teams take a stab at leading. 2023 3rd-placer Yachiyo Shoin H.S. handled the first 2 of the 7 stages in the 42.195 km race, with lead runner Rui Suzuki delivering a bold run on the 10.0 km First Stage that produced the fastest-ever time by a Japanese runner on the stage, 28:43, and put Yachiyo Shoin 29 seconds out front. Last year's Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu Suzuki ran Yachiyo Shoin down to put 2023 champ Saku Chosei H.S. into 1st on the 8.1075 km Third Stage, but Genta Sugano of last year's 8th-placer Sendai Ikuei H.S. had other plans and took the lead on the 8.0875 km Fourth Stage. Smiling and fist pumping to the crowd almost the entire way, Taketo Tsukada of last year's 6th-placer Omuta H.S. moved up from 3rd to 1st by 2 seconds over Saku Chosei on the 3.0 k...
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For those who haven't read the interviews on this website from December 2011, they are well worth putting aside an hour or two to digest - I am not aware of any similar insight/background available through other sources.
And additionally, there's a sizeable memorial article on ESPN (read the article, ignore the video) at
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7928880/why-kenya-olympic-marathon-champion-sammy-wanjiru-live-see-25-story-shocking-talent-sudden-wealth-bitter-intrigue
RIP Sammy Wanjiru. We'll probably never know what really happened, and we'll certainly never know just how good he could have become.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery , right down to the Wikipedia attribution:
RIP Sammy