japan running news

Ten-time national champion Ritsumeikan University added an eleventh National University Women's Invitational Ekiden Championships title to its resume, winning the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden title for the fifth-straight year since the National Championships' 2013 move to the Mt. Fuji course.

プライベートで観戦した富士山女子駅伝。
7区の3km地点では富士山をバックに走る選手の後ろ姿を撮ることができました。
頂上に向かって走っている感じがして良いなと思いました。 pic.twitter.com/oOMzD3cdxr — 馬場遼 (@bmbryo126) December 30, 2017
Running on a hilly course under perfect blue skies and the watchful eye of Mt. Fuji looming above, Ritsumeikan got off to a slow start as third-year Ena Kagayama was only 13th on the 4.1 km opening stage. Ritsumeikan's next two runners Naruha Sato and Ayano Tanaka picked up the slack with new course records on their stages to put Ritsumeikan up where it feels most comfortable in 1st.

On the race's longest stage, the 10.5 km Fifth Stage, the team's lead fell as close as 13 seconds over Daito Bunka University, one of the two teams…

The 100th anniversary year of the ekiden as a race format wraps up Saturday at the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden, the season-ending national championships for university women. Run on a scenic but tough course in the foothills of Mt. Fuji, it has been dominated for the last four years by ten-time national champion Ritsumeikan University. Last year Ritsumeikan was beaten by Matsuyama University at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden but returned to win a fourth-straight national title. This year it fell to 3rd at Morinomiyako, with last year's Mount Fuji runner-up Meijo University and #1 Kanto Region program Daito Bunka University taking the top two spots. All four schools will square off again at Mount Fuji this year, with Morinomiyako 4th-placer Osaka Gakuin University and Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden winner Osaka Geijutsu University in the mix. The Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden will be broadcast live on Fuji TV starting at 10:00 a.m. local time on Dec. 30.



The ekiden's …

http://www.sanspo.com/sports/news/20161230/ath16123013030006-n1.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

【富士山女子駅伝】
スタートしました！#富士山女子駅伝pic.twitter.com/sx0ES9dPE0 — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) December 30, 2016
Running through the foothills of Mt. Fuji on a seven-stage, 43.8 km course from Fujisan Hongu Sengen Shrine to Fuji Sports Park Field in Shizuoka, on Dec. 30 Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University won a fourth-straight Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden in 2:25:43.  It was Ritsumeikan's tenth National University Women's Invitational Ekiden Championships title and left the school undefeated since the National Championships moved to the hilly Mt. Fuji course in 2013.  Meijo University was 2nd, with 2016 National University Women's Ekiden championMatsuyama University taking 3rd.

Conditions at the start were good, with 10-degree temperatures, 44% humidity and a gentle north wind.  Running the First Stage on a new course circling Sengen Shrine, Matsuayama's Rio de Janeiro 3000 m steeple…

by Brett Larner

Ekiden season is the peak of the Japanese racing year, the long-distance road relays being the main event for most Japanese runners.  The season is already underway but Monday's Izumo Ekiden marks the start of the championship races.  Below is a quick guide to the season's main high school, university and pro ekidens and related events.  There are more, to be sure.

High School
After the high school season launch at the Kurayoshi Women's Ekiden and Nihonkai Ekiden October sees prefectural high school ekiden championship races across the country, followed up in November by regional championship races.  The peak of the season comes in late December with the National High School Ekiden featuring the top teams from each prefecture, both the girls' and boys' races broadcast live and commercial-free across the country.  It's sometimes the site of the birth of future greats, none more so than the late Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya whose 22:40 record for the 8.1…

by Brett Larner

【富士山女子駅伝】 立命館大学が3連覇達成！！ pic.twitter.com/KLGTRxDwgR — 日本学生陸上競技連合 (@iuauj) December 30, 2015
Despite coming up short of replicating its perfect win, six stage titles and the overall victory, at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden, two-time defending champion Ritsumeikan University's dynasty proved unstoppable as it led start-to-finish to win the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national university title for the third year in a row.

Having missed being part of the winning Morinomiyako team, Nanako Kanno, one half of Ritsumeikan's pair of top-level runners, led off with a 6-second lead on the steepest of the first four downhill stages, a lead that grew to 2:22 by the end of another strong run by second-year Kotona Ota, undefeated so far in her university ekiden career.  More dynamic racing happened further back in the field, where last year's runner-up Osaka Gakuin University, 4th-placer Meijo University and 5th-placer Matsuyama University exchanged places on almost e…

by Brett Larner

In its third edition in the foothills of Mt. Fuji, the National University Women’s Invitational Ekiden Championships, renamed, appropriately enough, the Mt. Fuji Women’s Ekiden, continues to grow in popularity and stature. This year it moves from the Dec. 23 national holiday to Dec. 30, putting it into a prestigious block alongside the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men’s national championships and the biggest of them all, the university men’s Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2 and 3. Whether Mt. Fuji will reach the same level of popularity remains to be seen, but it’s a sign of faith in the event’s viability, its hilly course offering real racing and not just a handout to the fastest school.

The fastest school is again two-time defending champion Ritsumeikan University of the Kansai region, fresh from a course record win at October’s Morinomiyako Ekiden against the best from the Kanto region and the rest of the country. With wins on all six stages at Morinomiyako including …

by Brett Larner

National Championship ekiden season starts this Sunday, over a month's worth of the year's best racing with no less than eleven major races, almost all of them televised nationwide.  The action starts with the 23rd edition of the National Junior High School Ekiden in Yamaguchi, separate boys' and girls' races marking the national-level debuts for a lot of future talent, many of whom will feature again a month later in the season's final major ekiden.  Simultaneously, the National Corporate Women's Ekiden starts far to the north in Sendai, the main event of the year for the women's corporate league teams in a revised format this year.  Gone are the November regional qualifier ekidens that prevent so many of Japan's runners from racing fall marathons in other countries, replaced with a seeded bracket for top-placing teams at Nationals with a single nationwide qualifying race for the second-tier teams.

A week later Kyoto hosts the National …

by Brett Larner

October marks the start of the best part of the Japanese year, university ekiden season.  The key races among these road relays are big, high-level and massively popular with live nationwide broadcasts, and now that university women have finally achieved parity with the men at three major ekidens it's better than ever.  A quick guide to the season's main races, with detailed previews to follow.

Technically the women's season began last weekend with the regional qualifiers for the first of their big three races, the Oct. 25 Morinomiyako Ekiden in Sendai.  Serving as the National University Women's Ekiden Championships, Morinomiyako has been dominated by Kyoto's Ritsumeikan University for years and there is little sign of that changing.  The second main race on the women's calendar is its newest addition, the Nov. 29 Nikko Irohazaka Women's Ekiden.  Still finding its feet, so far Irohazaka has proved popular with its unusual one-way uphill cou…

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/local/shizuoka/news/20150610-OYTNT50188.html

translated by Brett Larner

Skirting the feet of Mt. Fuji, the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden national university women's invitational ekiden championship race is set to go off again this year.  Co-organized by the Fuji city government, the race's third edition will be held at the end of the year on Dec. 30.  For the first time, its field will include a select team made up of top Shizuoka talent.

The course is the same as in the first two runnings, starting at Fuji Hongu Sengen Shrine in the city of Fujinomiya and covering 43.4 km in 7 stages on the way to the finish at Fuji Sports Park Field in Fuji.  20 schools will race including top finisher teams from October's Morinomiyako Ekiden national university women's championships.  New this year, the Shizuoka Prefecture Student Select Team will feature university and graduate student athletes who graduated from junior high schools and high schools in Shizuok…

by Brett Larner

Cloudless skies, a fresh snow cap and carefully worked out camera angles that included Mt. Fuji as a backdrop in almost every shot made for spectacular viewing at the second running of the Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden, the last elite race of the year on the Japanese calendar.  Formerly held in Tsukuba, Ibaraki and serving as the season-ending National University Women's Invitational Ekiden Championships, the Mt. Fuji race was once again dominated by the unstoppable Ritsumeikan University whose seven runners handled the downhill first half, flat middle and 164 m-climb 7.7 km anchor stage with equal skill, all seven making the top four out of twenty on their stages.

Maya Iino (Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) took a short-lived lead on the 78 m-downhill First Stage, but Ritsumeikan's Tomoka Iwai was quick to move to the front on the 25 m-descent Second Stage.  3000 mSC collegiate national record holder Chikako Mori (Daito Bunka Univ.) provided a brief challenge, but Iwai managed…

http://www.fuji-news.net/data/report/sports/201410/0000003415.html

translated by Brett Larner

On Oct. 27 twelve of the twenty university teams to compete in the Dec. 23 Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden national invitational were announced.  The top twelve placing teams at last weekend's National University Women's Ekiden in Sendai received invitations to race the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden:
Ritsumeikan UniversityDaito Bunka UniversityOsaka Gakuin UniversityMatsuyama UniversityKanoya Taiiku UniversityKyoto Sangyo UniversityMeijo UniversityFukuoka UniversityTokyo Nogyo UniversitySaitama UniversityHakuoh UniversityBukkyo University Six of the remaining spots will go to other schools with the fastest average official 5000 m times and will be determined by Dec. 1.  On Dec. 5 two select teams will also be announced, one from East Japan featuring members of other universities from the Hokkaido, Tohoku, Kanto and Hoku-Shinetsu regions and one from West Japan featuring members of schools…

http://www.kobe-np.co.jp/news/keizai/201404/0006845617.shtml
http://www.fuji-news.net/data/report/economy/201404/0000003189.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

The Kobe Marathon organizing committee has release figures on the total economic benefits of the event's third running last November, calculating that the race generated 11.6 billion yen [~$113 million USD] nationwide.  The Hyogo Institute of Economic Research think tank calculated the estimate, which includes runners and spectator's expenditures on meals and accommodations.  The figures represent an increase of 600 million yen [~$6 million USD] over those from the Kobe Marathon's second running.  Of the 11.6 billion yen, 6.6 billion [~$66 million USD] was spent within the host Hyogo prefecture.

A survey of 1500 runners in the Kobe Marathon revealed an average expenditure of 30,564 yen [~$300 USD] on travel, accommodations and souvenirs related to their participation in the event.  20,411 people ran the third e…

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/region/news/140307/szk14030702060000-n1.htm

translated by Brett Larner

At the Shizuoka Prefectural Assembly's regular meeting on Mar. 6, Governor Heita Kawakatsu confirmed that the Mount Fuji Women's Ekiden, first held last December, will be held again at the end of this year.  The news came in response to a question from Assembly representative Sakae Endo (Jimin Kaikaku Kaigi Party, Fuji City).

The ekiden commemorates Mount Fuji's registration as a World Heritage Site and served as the National Women's Invitational Ekiden Championships, the first time that event has been staged in Shizuoka.  At the first running twenty teams from across the country raced over a seven-stage, 43.4 km course in the foothills of Mount Fuji.

Governor Kawakatsu commented, "With 80,000 spectators having turned out to cheer along the course and impeccable race organization, we gave the event a very high evaluation.  TV viewership ratings within Shizuoka were an ex…