Rookie Ono Shuts Down Toyota Threat to Give Asahi Kasei Fourth-Straight New Year Ekiden National Title

Strong over the second half, it came down to an untried rookie just promoted up from the B-team to seal up the old-school Asahi Kasei team's fourth-straight New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships title. Asahi Kasei was always there, 2nd on the opening stage thanks to a good run from leading man Keijiro Mogi, Kenyan Abraham Kapsis Kipyatich moving them up to 1st on the Second Stage in his final run with the team, and Sixth Stage specialist Hiroshi Ichida holding the lead on the Third Stage.

It wasn't until the Fourth Stage, at 22.4 km the longest of the day, that Asahi Kasei lost any ground, with 2019's fastest Japanese half marathoner Minato Oishi (Toyota) running down third man Hiroshi's twin brother Takashi Ichida and opening a gap of 12 seconds. On paper that should have been enough for Toyota, the favorite to end Asahi Kasei's domination, to pull it off, with Olympic marathon trials runner-up Yuma Hattori and the #2 and #3 half marathoners of 2019, Hideyuki Tanaka and Tsubasa Hayakawa, making up the rest of its lineup while Asahi Kasei was missing at least two of its best.

But while Hattori went out strong and steady on the Fifth Stage, Asahi Kasei's Kenta Murayama inched closer in the second half of the stage, cutting Toyota's lead to 5 seconds by stage's end. Tanaka, who along with his half marathon credentials had the fastest Japanese 5000 m time last year, should have been able to make quick work of Asahi Kasei's sixth man, 20-year-old rookie Chihiro Ono, and over the first 3 km he did. But Ono, who ran on Asahi Kasei's B-team at November's regional qualifier before getting the nod for the New Year main event on the strength of a quality run at December's Kosa 10-Miler, began to pick it up, overtaking Tanaka, opening a 46-second lead and cutting a stunning 36 seconds off the stage record.

That kind of gap meant it would take both an up-to-potential run from Toyota anchor Hayakawa and a sub-par one from Asahi Kasei's Tetsuya Yoroizaka for Toyota to retake the top position on the 15.5 km Seventh Stage. But fate had something else in mind, with Yoroizaka blasting a 44:47 stage record and Hayakawa fading away. Yoroizaka broke the tape in 4:46:07, a record for the current three-year-old version of the course and just off the event record, and making Asahi Kasei the first team to win four national titles in a row since they last did it 25 years ago.

Toyota was next in 4:48:36, Honda taking 3rd in 4:49:30 and JR Higashi Nihon's Natsuki Terada outkicking GMO's Yuta Shimoda for 4th 4:50:40 to 4:50:46. The top three teams were under the current course record, and the stage records set by Ono and Yoroizaka weren't the only ones. On the 13.6 km Third Stage the top four bettered the 37:52 stage record, Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) leading the way in 37:39 after splitting 27:15 at 10 km. 2018 Asian Games marathon gold medalist Hiroto Inoue (MHPS) passed 17 people en route to breaking the 22.4 km Fourth Stage record with a time of 1:03:57, equivalent to a 1:00:14 half marathon. Sixth Stage runner-up Kenya Sonota (JR Higashi Nihon) also broke that stage's record. Others, including Second Stage winner Bernard Koech (Kyudenko), were just seconds off the records.

(2/2)
Hiroto Inoue, CR, 4th Stage
Chihiro Ono, CR, 6th Stage
Kenya Sonota, also under CR, 6th Stage
Tetsuya Yoroizaka, CR, 7th Stagehttps://t.co/iPcpzyagiQ pic.twitter.com/iPguCQfZhm

— Japan Running News (@JRNHeadlines) January 1, 2020

But amidst all the fast times, the best racing came in the battle for the bottom of the podium. In the final kilometer of the anchor leg six teams were still together in contention for 6th through 8th on the eight-deep podium. In a mad sprint that saw them all finish the 100 km race within 8 seconds of each other, Aisan Kogyo and Yakult took 6th and 7th. The Toshinari Takaoka-coached Kanebo team looked to have 8th place in hand, but in the final meters East Japan regional qualifier winner Konica Minolta anchor Tsuyoshi Ugachi, an assistant coach who was put in as an emergency replacement, caught Kanebo's Kei Fumimoto to put Konica Minolta on the podium.

In most other ekidens that would mean a guaranteed spot at next year's national championships, but the New Year Ekiden is the lone exception among Japan's major marathons in that every team has to re-qualify in the fall regional races, something that seriously impacts the country's male marathoners. Runner-up Toyota seems to have struck a pretty good balance, but nowhere is the disparity between ekiden excellence and marathon mastery as clear as with Asahi Kasei. Four straight ekiden national titles, but not a single runner qualified for the 2020 Olympic marathon trials.

Murayama and Yoroizaka will both be trying to make the 2020 team, Murayama at March's Tokyo Marathon and Yoroizaka on the track in the 10000 m. Both looked as good as they've ever been today, but they'll each need to break the national record to make the Olympic. Is the moribund Asahi Kasei leadership up to the challenge, or is it enough to coast on national titles and the legacy of past accomplishments to keep up an image of international relevance with the home crowd? Either way, with new blood like Ono coming on board every year and Toyo University star Akira Aizawa set to join after his graduation in March, Asahi Kasei's grip on national-level domination shows no signs of letting up.

2020 New Year Ekiden

64th Corporate Men's National Championships
Maebashi, Gunma, 1/1/20
37 teams, 7 stages, 100.0 km
complete results

Top Team Results
1. Asahi Kasei - 4:46:07 - CR
2. Toyota - 4:48:36 (CR)
3. Honda - 4:49:30 (CR)
4. JR Higashi Nihon - 4:50:40
5. GMO - 4:50:46
6. Aisan Kogyo - 4:51:32
7. Yakult - 4:51:33
8. Konica Minolta - 4:51:36
----- eight-deep podium
9. Kanebo - 4:51:37
10. Mazda - 4:51:39
11. Yasukawa Denki - 4:51:40
12. Toyota Kyushu - 4:52:47

Top Individual Stage Results
First Stage (12.3 km)
1. Yusuke Osumi (JR Higashi Nihon) - 34:37
2. Keijiro Mogi (Asahi Kasei) - 34:39
3. Naoki Koyama (Honda) - 34:42

Second Stage (8.3 km)
1. Bernard Koech (Kyudenko) - 21:55
2. Tulu Merga (Yasukawa Denki) - 22:04
3. Kiprono Sitonik (Komori Corp.) - 22:07

Third Stage (13.6 km)
1. Yusuke Nishiyama (Toyota) - 37:39 - CR
2. Ken Nakayama (Honda) - 37:42 (CR)
3. Keigo Yano (Kanebo) - 37:51 (CR)
3. Naoki Aiba (Chudenko) - 37:51 (CR)

Fourth Stage (22.4 km)
1. Hiroto Inoue (MHPS) - 1:03:57 - CR
2. Daiji Kawai (Toenec) - 1:04:23
3. Yuta Shitara (Honda) - 1:04:36

Fifth Stage (15.8 km)
1. Kenta Murayama (Asahi Kasei) - 45:44
2. Hiroyuki Yamamoto (Konica Minolta) - 45:47
3. Yuma Hattori (Toyota) - 45:51

Sixth Stage (12.1 km)
1. Chihiro Ono (Asahi Kasei) - 35:13 - CR
2. Kenya Sonota (JR Higashi Nihon) - 35:42 (CR)
3. Keisuke Hayashi (GMO) - 36:02

Seventh Stage (15.5 km)
1. Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Asahi Kasei) - 44:47 - CR
2. Takumi Kiyotani (Chugoku Denryoku) - 45:45
3. Genki Nakanishi (Aisan Kogyo) - 46:03

© 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved