Skip to main content

Saitama Sakae H.S. Takes Both Saitama Ekiden Titles

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/local/saitama/news/20160208-OYTNT50000.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

105 teams competed in four different divisions at the 83rd Saitama Ekiden on Feb. 7.  Saitama Sakae H.S., the overall winner at last weekend's Okumusashi Ekiden, ran the six-stage, 42.195 km men's course in 2:10:14, faster than any of the corporate or university teams in the race, to seal a fourth-straight high school division win.  Following up its Hakone Ekiden debut last month, Tokyo International University was close behind in 2:10:20 to win the general division, with the Saitama T&F Assoc. team winning the local team division.  The Saitama Sakae H.S. girls ran 1:12:59 for the five-stage, 20.5 km women's race to win for the third year in a row.

The Saitama Sakae boys' opening runner Takahisa Mitsui and third runner Ryoji Tatezawa both scored overall stage wins, Tatezawa outran marathoner Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) by 31 seconds over 12.1 km.  Three of the four other Saitama Sakae boys also ran the fastest high school times on their stages.  On the track in Kumagaya Sports Park Stadium, Saitama Sakae anchor Hidekazu Tsujikata ran down Tokyo Kokusai's Tatsuki Ishii to steal the win.  Post-race Saitama Sakae head coach Yoichi Kamiyama commented, "I figured that the race would be against the universities that had run the Hakone Ekiden, but I knew that if we could show up and be competitive then we'd have the chance to win."

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox  for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Gold Coast Marathon Elite Field (updated)

Australia's Gold Coast Marathon is back for its 45th running with title sponsorship from longtime partner ASICS. Two-time winner Rodah Tanui is the top name in the women's race with a 2:23:14 in Copenhagen two years ago, with her strongest competition coming from Olympian Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh , who set a Mongolian NR of 2:26:32 in Tokyo last year. Zerihun Alemtsehay and Caroline Kilel both have recent sub-2:30 times, and debuting Ethiopian Tegest Ayalew looks to have a sub-2:30 in her too. Pacing is planned to be a 1:12:00 first half, an ambitious goal for pretty much everyone except maybe Tanui. Up front in the men's race are a solid trio of 2:07 runners made up of Ethiopians Gizealew Ayana and Japan-based Derese Workneh , and Kenyan Mathew Samperu . The top tier of Japanese men come in at the 2:08 level, including Mizuki Higashi , Yuki Takei , and Ryoma Takeuchi , a pacer at Gold Coast last year. Past winner Yuki Kawauchi has only run under 2:20 once in 2024 a...

GMO Wins First National Title at Era-Changing 2026 New Year Ekiden

Things have really been coming up fast the last year or so in Japanese distance running, but even so this year's New Year Ekiden really felt like the era has changed. GMO took the lead on the second of the race's 7 legs and went on to take over 2 minutes off the overall course record for the 100.0 km course, winning its first national title in 4:44:00. En route 6 of the 7 legs had new CR, a lot of them with multiple people breaking them, and the only leg that didn't, the 12.3 km First Stage, saw Shunpei Tomita of Logisteed run 34:23, only 7 seconds off the CR held by sub-27 Kenyan Martin Mathathi . The level at the collegiate Hakone Ekiden keeps going up up up , and that showed here as 3 of the new stage CR were set by guys in their first season in the corporate leagues who were some of the biggest stars at Hakone last year. Aoyama Gakuin University grad Aoi Ota sneaked in 1 second ahead of Toyota 's Jin Yuasa to set a 46:00 CR on the 15.9 km Fifth Stage. Collegi...