Skip to main content

Even With Kawauchi's Public Opposition, Hakone Ekiden Select Team May Be Cut to Once in Five Years

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20130501-00000032-spnannex-spo

translated and edited by Brett Larner

On April 30 the Kanto Region University Athletics Federation (KGRR), administrators of the world's most competitive university men's long-distance circuit and organizers of its premier race, the Hakone Ekiden, announced that they plan to cut back the Hakone Ekiden's Kanto Region University Select Team, made up of the top individual runners from schools that fail to qualify as a team at October's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifier road race, from its current annual presence to once every five years on the occasion of Hakone's five-year anniversary editions.

The Select Team was introduced in 2003 at Hakone's 79th running, and the KGRR already plans not to include it at the 90th anniversary edition in 2014.  The KGRR has discussed whether to bring it back in 2015 or beyond, but at an executive board meeting on April 26 a proposal to include the Select Team only in five-year anniversary editions of Hakone was introduced.  If the plan is adopted at the KGRR's June board meeting, the Kanto Region Select Team will not be seen again until the 95th Hakone Ekiden in 2019.

The Select Team was originally introduced with the intent of giving talented runners at universities not strong enough to make the Hakone Ekiden as a team the chance to run the prestigious event.  Two of the five members of the last World Championships men's marathon team, Yoshinori Oda (Team Toyota) and Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't), ran Hakone as members of the Select Team, Kawauchi running the downhill Sixth Stage twice while a student at Gakushuin University.

However, the KGRR raised problems including the fact that some athletes made the Select Team all four years of their university careers, saying, "There are more demerits to having a Select Team than merits."  If the Select Team is cut, one more university will have the opportunity to qualify for Hakone in its place.  There is an argument to be made in that rather than a "miscellaneous" collection of individuals with different goals like the Kanto Region Select Team, the decision would give the chance for Hakone Ekiden glory to one more university team whose members had shared a dream and worked together to achieve it.

Nevertheless, having gained his first big step toward the world-class level via the Kanto Region Select Team, Kawauchi remains adamant in his public calls for the Select Team to be preserved for the benefit of younger athletes still to come.  "If it becomes only once every five years it means that there will be athletes who cannot aim for Hakone without doing a fifth year in school," Kawauchi said.  "If the KGRR's stance is that the demerits outweigh the merits, what possible reason could they have for bringing it back once every five years?  I can't understand what they're thinking at all."

Comments

TokyoRacer said…
He's right. That's a typical idiotic Japanese "compromise" that makes no sense at all.
yuza said…
Surely every second or third year is fine?

Most-Read This Week

Ninja Runner Yuka Ando Leads Japanese Women's Marathon Team in London: "I Want to Go For It"

Her form has been dubbed "ninja running." Both arms held straight down with almost no movement. That idiosyncratic style carried Yuka Ando , 23, to the fastest-ever marathon debut by a Japanese woman, 2:21:36, at March's Nagoya Women's Marathon to land at #4 on the all-time Japanese lists. All at once Ando found herself catapulted to the top level of women's marathoning, a candidate for Japan's next great marathoner. When she was younger Ando ran moving her arms like other runners, but she had a bad habit of moving robotically, her upper body and lower body not working in sync. The turning point came in 2014 when she joined Suzuki Hamamatsu AC . Working there with coach Masayuki Satouchi to eliminate the faults in her form, the pair arrived at the ninja running style that let her run relaxed. "Other people keep asking me, "Isn't it hard to run like that?" but for me it's comfortable," she said. The efficient form helped her mai

Yamaguchi 10th at United Airlines NYC Half - Weekend Overseas Results

2024 national cross-country champion Tomonori Yamaguchi was the top Japanese finisher in the men's race at the United Airlines NYC Half , taking 10th in 1:04:36. A 2nd-year at Waseda University , Yamaguchi was one of three collegiate runners running New York in the 11th year of JRN's development program collaboration between the Ageo City Half Marathon and the New York Road Runners, a program that has seen people like future half marathon and marathon NR breaker Yuta Shitara and Paris Olympic team member Akira Akasaki make their international debuts. Yamaguchi's Waseda teammate Taishi Ito started fast, going with the leaders through 5 km in 14:29 before losing touch. Hosei University senior Rei Matsunaga went through in 14:42 in his last race before joining the JR Higashi Nihon corporate team in April. Yamaguchi, who caught COVID after winning last month's National Cross-Country Championships, started more conservatively with a 15:11 first 5km. But where both Ito

Rui Aoki Wins National University Men's Half Marathon - Weekend Results

Yuka Ando 's win at the Nagoya Women's Marathon was the big news of the weekend, but there were other high-level races happening, even in Nagoya. Held in parallel with the marathon, the Nagoya City Half Marathon saw Australians Natalie Rule and Ed Goddard take easy wins by about 2.5 minutes each, Rule in 1:13:57 and Goddard in 1:04:01. The new Biwako Marathon also had a non-Japanese winner, China's Yousheng Guan scoring 1st in 2:14:58 with Japan's Hirohito Sugai next in 2:16:40. Mikiko Ota won the women's race in 2:50:44. The Shizuoka Marathon returned for its first running in five years, with club runner Shumpei Oda leading the top 7 men under 2:20 in 2:15:36. Women's winner Remi Tanaka ran 2:41:23, beating runner-up Ayumi Sano by exactly 7 minutes. And in Tokyo, Rui Aoki continued what has been a great season so far for Koku Gakuin University with a win at the National University Men's Half Marathon . Aoki and Hiro Konda of Chuo Gakuin Unive