The starting lineups for the top five-placing teams at the university men's 2012 Hakone Ekiden and 2011 NCAA Division I Cross-Country Championships listed by 5000 m PB. American's men's data is based upon what was available through their schools' websites and elsewhere. In three cases where 5000 m PBs were not available times were calculated from other best marks using IAAF scoring tables. Please feel free to contact me with any corrections. It's worth noting that although redshirting, delaying competing with a university team to allow for increased growth and training time, is common in the NCAA, it is not practiced in Japan and none of the top five Hakone teams includes a single runner over age 22. Neither do any of the top five teams in Hakone include any foreign runners in their lineups.
With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao