video highlights via NHK
Two and a half weeks after delivering the standout performance of the 2019 Hakone Ekiden, Toyo University third-year Akira Aizawa did it again, just missing the stage record as he anchored the Fukushima team to its first-ever National Men's Ekiden title.
The season-ending national championship ekiden for Japanese men, the race features teams made up of the top junior high school, high school, university, club and pro runners from each of Japan's 47 prefectures, an entertaining format that often produces the national debuts of future stars from the next two generations alongside the best of the current one.
No team from the Tohoku region, Japan's northeastern area that was hit by the 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, had ever won the National title before today. Fukushima started well in 4th, but over the next two stages it dropped to 12th as 3rd man Hiroki Abe, the only Japanese collegiate man to break 28 minutes for 10000 m last year and one of the stars at Hakone, had trouble coping with the competition around him. Competition that included 1500 m national champion Ryoji Tatezawa (Kanagawa) and 3000 m steeplechase national champion Kazuya Shiojiri (Gunma). People talk about how the good thing about cross-country was how it used to bring together the best from different disciplines. Here it was on the roads, high entertainment over 8.5 km.
With range including 27:47.87 for 10000 m and 1:01:22 for the half marathon along with his Olympic and Asian Games steeple credentials Shiojiri was just too much to handle, wrapping his college career by opening a 25-second lead over 2nd. Like Fukushima the Gunma team had never won the National title, and with a strong run on the Fourth Stage 10th-grader Kosuke Ishida did his part to make it happen, extending Gunma's lead to 28 seconds.
But with top-three runs on both the high school-only Fourth and Fifth Stages Fukushima ran them down, Fifth man Kazuki Matsuyama going to the front by 9 seconds over Gunma's Kosuke Osawa. Junior high schooler Hanamichi Horiguchi turned Gunma's fortunes back around by overtaking Fukushima's Yuki Shishito to hand off to anchor Ryosuke Maki with a 25-second lead over Aizawa.
Aizawa started simultaneously with one of the other stars of this season's university ekiden circuit, Waseda University first-year Yuhi Nakaya of course record holders Nagano, the pair working together for the first 7 km of the 13 km anchor stage to catch Maki. A last-minute replacement for another runner knocked out by the flu that has been sweeping Japan this season, the 32-year old Maki did what he could, but with ever kilometer Aizawa and Nakaya cut three seconds off his lead.
By 7 km Maki's margin was down to 5 seconds, close enough for Aizawa to get to work. Instantly dropping Nakaya he quickly drew even with Maki, giving him a once-over before saying good by. From there it was a race against only the clock, Aizawa coming home just 5 seconds off Kenta Oshima's seemingly unbreakable course record of 37:09 but delivering both Fukushima and Tohoku their first-ever wins. In post-race interviews he said that he hoped the team's win would bring courage to people in Fukushima still suffering the after-effects of the 2011 disasters and to show the rest of the country that whatever they've suffered the people of Fukushima remain strong.
Nakaya briefly overtook Maki for 2nd, but with 2 km to go Maki dropped him again to take the runner-up spot, 35 seconds from scoring Gunma's win but still marking its best-ever finish. A gutted Nakaya was 4 seconds behind in 3rd overall, also scoring the 3rd-fastest time on the stage behind Aizawa in 37:53. In between them on the stage rankings was Fukuoka International Marathon winner and Toyo alum Yuma Hattori (Aichi), looking tired and heavy but muscling out a 37:50 to take Aichi from 18th onto the podium in 7th.
The only one in the field to pass more people than Hattori was his fellow MGC Race 2020 Olympic marathon trials qualifier Naoki Okamoto (Tottori), who passed 17 people on the 8.5 km Third Stage to move up from 32nd to 15th. A Nationals veteran, his run today brought Okamoto's career passing total at Nationals to 112 runners, a record that earned him special recognition on the live broadcast. With national championship ekiden season now a wrap Okamoto, Hattori and others will now turn their attention to the half marathon, to World XC, to the MGC Race, and beyond to Tokyo 2020. Look for Okamoto next at the Feb. 3 Beppu-Oita Mainichi Marathon where he'll be gunning to beat his 2:11:29 PB and winning time at last August's hot and humid Hokkaido Marathon.
24th National Men's Ekiden
Hiroshima, 1/20/1947 teams, 7 stages, 48.0 km
complete results
Top Individual Stage Performances
First Stage (6.0 km, H.S.)
1. Atsushi Shobu (Yamaguchi) - 20:32
2. Yusuke Kodama (Miyagi) - 20:33
3. Kaishin Hattori (Nagano) - 20:35
Second Stage (3.0 km, J.H.S.)
1. Manaya Takizawa (Tochigi) - 8:36
2. Hiroto Onizuka (Fukuoka) - 8:37
3. Hinata Suyama (Kagoshima) - 8:40
Third Stage (8.5 km, open)
1. Kazuya Shiojiri (Gunma) - 23:55
2. Ryoji Tatezawa (Kanagawa) - 24:07
3. Keita Yoshida (Hiroshima) - 24:12
Fourth Stage (5.0 km, H.S.)
1. Shungo Yokota (Fukushima) - 14:14
2. Genta Kuramoto (Hiroshima) - 14:20
3. Kosuke Ishida (Gunma) - 14:21
Fifth Stage (8.5 km, H.S.)
1. Issei Sato (Chiba) - 24:29
2. Jun Sakai (Osaka) - 24:42
3. Asahi Ogura (Iwate) - 24:59
Sixth Stage (3.0 km, J.H.S.)
1. Hanamichi Horiguchi (Gunma) - 8:35
2. Haruto Miyamoto (Kyoto) - 8:39
3. Shuto Yamada (Okayama) - 8:42
Seventh Stage (13.0 km, open)
1. Akira Aizawa (Fukushima) - 37:14
2. Yuma Hattori (Aichi) - 37:50
3. Yuhi Nakaya (Nagano) - 37:53
Top Team Performances
1. Fukushima - 2:19:43
2. Gunma - 2:20:18
3. Nagano - 2:20:22
4. Hiroshima - 2:20:38
5. Nagasaki - 2:20:56
6. Kagoshima - 2:21:22
7. Aichi - 2:21:26
8. Fukuoka - 2:21:28
9. Wakayama - 2:21:29
10. Kanagawa - 2:21:31
© 2019 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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