After having led Surugadai University to its first-ever Hakone Ekiden appearances in 2022 and 2024, Kazuyoshi Tokumoto , 45, announced on Jan. 12 that he is stepping down as head coach. A star Hakone runner during his days at Hosei University , Tokumoto took over as head coach at Surugadai in 2012. In his 10th season in 2021-22 Surugadai made the qualifying bracket at the Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race, earning the right to make its debut at Hakone 2022. That was followed up with a second appearance in 2024. Assistant coach Nobuhiro Goto , 42, will take over from Tokumoto in the head coach's role. According to a source, Tokumoto had already informed the athletes, their parents and other involved parties of his decision to leave the program prior to making the public announcement. The announcement makes Surugadai the 4th Hakone contender school to replace its head coach for the 2025-26 season, following Asia University , Reitaku University and Meiji University . Others are...
In our post-Hakone Ekiden analysis of this year's record-breaking race we wrote that winner Aoyama Gakuin University head coach Susumu Hara excels at developing depth of quality and can usually fill gaps caused by graduation. It's a sign of how much depth he has that his B- and C-squad runners occupied podium places at two fast half marathons just a week after Hakone. The Takanezawa Genki-Up Half Marathon in Tochigi is the usual destination for AGU benchwarmers and has seen some breakthrough performances from future A-squad stars. Local independent Ryuichi Yoshioka got the win in 1:03:00, but AGU runners took the next 6 spots, all under 1:03:40, led by Riku Anjima and Daiki Sasaki in 1:03:04 and 1:03:06. And they weren't even the fastest AGU people in action. At the rebranded Tokyo New Year Half Marathon , previously the Hi-Tech Half, Kaito Nakamura and Kyosuke Hiramatsu went head-to-head with former 10000 m NR holder Kota Murayama from the GMO corporate team. ...