japan running news

In preparation for its second-straight appearance at the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden, Tokyo Kokusai University held an open practice session for the media at its campus in Sakado, Saitama. Among its members is 2011 World Championships 5000 m team member Kazuya Watanabe, 31. "I want to do my part to pass on the tasuki and help us make the podium," said Watanabe of his hopes for the team to improve on its 17th-place finish last time.

That time Watanabe finished 7th on Hakone's Seventh Stage. "I want to help generate momentum," he said. "If I can I want to run the Fourth Stage on Day One. I want to finish higher up in the field that I did last time, top 3 if I can." Watanabe is studying to earn a degree in physical education. During the summer he had a heavy class load. Asked about his summer training he answered tersely, "I couldn't concentrate on running." He skipped month-long team training camps in Hokkaido and Gifu in late July to attend c…

Entry lists are out for the world's biggest running event, the Jan. 2-3 HakoneEkiden university men's championships. Aoyama Gakuin University has built a near monopoly on Hakone, winning the last four years and looking this year to follow Chuo University and Nittai University as the third team in Hakone's 95 years of history to win it five years straight. But with its weakest lineup since 2015, the year AGU first rose to Hakone dominance, that won't be easy.

Using the chart above from JRN's January, 2016 article "The Shape of Things to Come" which predicted the breakthrough we've seen this year in Japanese men's marathoning based on the last 20 years of Hakone results, we've ranked the 23 teams in the 2019 Hakone Ekiden based on the combined scores of the 10 best runners on each team's 16-man entry roster.
The Win 1. Tokai University - 70 pts.
2. Komazawa University - 69 pts.
3. Teikyo University - 62 pts.
4. Aoyama Gakuin University - 61 …

At the Dec. 2 Fukuoka International MarathonYuma Hattori (25, Toyota) ran 2:07:27 to win and become the eighth-fastest Japanese man ever. It was the first time since 2004 that a Japanese man became the Fukuoka champion. Hattori now stands among the leading competitors in the fierce battle to make the 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon team.

Hattori and his younger brother Hazuma Hattori (23, Toenec) were star members of Toyo University's 2014 Hakone Ekiden winning team. They rank among the most famous brothers in Japanese athletics, but neither of them actually wanted to be a runner. "I wanted to play soccer," Hattori said. "Hazuma wanted to play table tennis. We're from the sticks out in Niigata and my junior high school didn't have a soccer team. I thought about joining a club team, but it was too far away."

"My dad had been a decathlete," Hattori continued, "so I started doing track and field as well. My mom was a cross-country skier, so bo…

In response to a tabloid magazine's claims that Komazawa University president Hachiro Hasebe and others had called for the resignation of ekiden team head coach Hiroaki Oyagi, Komazawa announced on Nov. 27 that it will establish a third-party investigatory committee. "The committee will ascertain the facts of the situation and respond with appropriate severity," said the statement.

According to the gossip rag's report, in July President Hasebe's group asked Coach Oyagi to resign over financial irregularities that had come to light. Oyagi is said to have responded by calling the internal audit and demand for him to resign power harassment.

Komazawa University has won the Hakone Ekiden six times under Oyagi's leadership. Last time it finished only 12th, but at October's qualifying race it took the top spot by a wide margin and at the Nov. 4 National University Men's Ekiden it was a strong 4th.

source article:
https://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics…

On Nov. 13 Rikkyo University, which will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2024, announced its new "Rikkyo Hakone Ekiden 2024" project, naming DeNA corporate team runner Yuichiro Ueno, 33, as head coach of its ekiden program.

A graduate of Nagano's Saku Chosei H.S. and Hakone powerhouse Chuo University, Ueno has been well-known for his unique personality as well as his achievements both at those schools and at the SB and DeNA teams. He will leave DeNA at the end of November and take over at Rikkyo effective Dec. 1 to lead its ekiden team to qualify for the 100th Hakone Ekiden in 2024. He plans to remain active as an athlete, training directly alongside the athletes he will supervise.

If successful it will be Rikkyo's first time qualifying for the Hakone Ekiden since 1968. For a school more than half a century removed from the Hakone frontlines Rikkyo's new development project is an ambitious one, and the appointment of the idiosyncratic Ueno as head coach adds …

The Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai is the qualifying race for Japan's most prestigious road race, the Jan. 2-3 Hakone Ekiden. University men's teams in the Tokyo area that didn't make the top ten at Hakone the year before square off in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park with teams of up to twelve. The top ten score, their cumulative times determining the team's placing with the top eleven teams advancing and high-placing individuals from schools that don't make the cut rounded up to form a select team.

The Yosenkai has long been the world's #1 20 km road race by a wide margin, with winning times among the fastest in the world for the distance and the same kind of incredible depth seen at November's Ageo City Half Marathon and March's National University Men's Half Marathon. In light of changes in the IAAF's ranking system and the level of performance at the Yosenkai, this year organizers took the historic step of changing it from its traditional distance to …