Skip to main content

Second Stage Course Record Breaker Vincent Yegon Named Hakone Ekiden MVP


Tokyo Kokusai University 2nd-year Vincent Yegon was awarded the Kanaguri Cup as the MVP of the 2021 Hakone Ekiden for setting a new course record of 1:05:49 for the 23.1 km Second Stage. Yegon took 8 seconds off the record that 10000 m national record holder Akira Aizawaa of Toyo University had set last year, the first new record on Hakone's most competitive stage in 11 years. "It's a great honor to receive this award," said Yegon. "I'm happy. This season this was the best performance I was capable of."

Yegon is the first runner from Tokyo Kokusai University and the first non-Japanese athlete to win the Kanaguri Cup. He now holds the records on both the Second and Third Stages, having taken more than two minutes off the Third Stage record at the 2020 race. Motivated for more, he said, " I want to keep trying to break stage course records. Next time my main goal will be to have a good race on the Fourth Stage."

Labels

Labels:

Comments

TS said…
One of the charming elements of every Hakone Ekiden is watching these guys nearly pass out and get carried away post run after clearly giving their all. Then there is Vincent...who just broke the record for the most prestigious stage...and he's standing there looking like he's got 30 seconds until his next mile repeat. True MVP or not, that run was truly amazing...not even mentioning the fact that he helped carry the Soka dude and completely destroyed Tazawa.
January 5, 2021 at 10:48 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...
Post a Comment
Read more

Weekend Road and Track Roundup

A roundup of the main road and track action on the last weekend of Japan's 2024-25 academic and fiscal year: Doubling off a 2:07:06 PB at the Tokyo Marathon 4 weeks ago, Tatsuya Maruyama took bronze at the Asian Marathon Championships in Jiaxing, China in 2:11:56. Gold went to North Korea's Il Ryong Han in a breakaway 2:11:18, with silver medalist Tianyu Chen of China just ahead of Maruyama in 2:11:50. Japan's Shungo Yokota was a distant 4th in 2:14:00, with Japan-based Mongolian NR holder Ser-Od Bat-Ochir 6th in 2:15:14. Japanese women Kaede Kawamura and Natsumi Matsushita were 5th and 6th in 2:31:26 and 2:34:40, with medals going to China's Bing Wu , gold in 2:26:01, North Korea's Kwang-Ok Ri , silver right behind her in 2:26:07, and defending gold medalist Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh landing in bronze this time in 2:28:56, her third sub-2:29 performance so far in 2025. Back home, four men broke 2:20 at the Fukui Sakura Marathon . Ko Kobayashi from the Shi...
1 comment
Read more

Japan Names Marathon Teams for Tokyo World Championships

On Mar. 26 the JAAF named its women's and men's marathon teams for September's Tokyo World Championships. On the women's side the team has veterans Sayaka Sato and Yuka Ando off the strength of a runner-up finish for Sato in Nagoya this year and a win in Nagoya last year by Ando, and newcomer Kana Kobayashi , 23, who has risen quickly from being a fun runner at Waseda University last year to a 2nd-place finish in Osaka Women's this year. Paris Olympics 6th-placer Yuka Suzuki was named alternate after finishing 3rd behind Kobayashi in Osaka Women's. On the men's side the team is led by last year's Fukuoka International Marathon CR breaker Yuya Yoshida and this year's Osaka runner-up Ryota Kondo . The 3rd spot on the team is reserved for JMC Series winner Naoki Koyama , who hasn't cleared the 2:06:30 World Championships qualifying standard and has to wait for the May 4 qualifying deadline for confirmation that the 1184 points he has in the Roa...
1 comment
Read more