by Brett Larner
In miserable conditions of rain and snow with temperatures of 3 degrees, Nagano overcame rivals Hyogo and a strong performance by Aichi on Jan. 20 to take back the title it lost at last year's All-Japan Men's Interprefectural Ekiden.
The Interprefectural Ekiden features a 7-stage, 48 km course starting and ending at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park. Like last week's women's edition of the event, teams in the Interprefectural Ekiden include star professional, university, high school and junior high school runners from each of Japan's 47 prefectures. It is an unusual sight to see young runners barely into their teens handing off to Olympian teammates, but this is one of the Interprefectural Ekiden's unique points. The last four years have been duels between Nagano and Hyogo, with Nagano coming out on top for three years straight before Hyogo's victory last year on the strength of its anchor Satoru Kitamura's dominating performance. This year looked set to be a rematch between the two powerhouses.
The 7 km 1st Stage was expected to be dominated by Hyogo's Yuki Yagi, the top high school distance runner last year with a 5000 m PB of 14:01. Yagi unexpectedly ran behind the large pack in last place, leaving it up to others to set the pace. Fukushima's Ryuji Kashiwabara took up the challenge, dropping the pack and opening a lead of 10 seconds to prove that his freshly-minted 5000 m PB, also 14:01, was not a fluke. Yagi accelerated after 2.5 km and passed the entire pack but could not make up the gap to Kashiwabara.
It looked as though Fukushima's Seichiro Kondo would be quickly overtaken by runners from Hyogo, Nagano and Aichi on the 3 km 2nd Stage, but the junior high school student negative splitted to hang onto his team's slim lead. His teammate Hideyuki Anzai, an ace runner from Komazawa University who earlier this month became only the 4th person to break 1:20 on the uphill Hakone Ekiden 5th Stage, opened the 8.5 km 3rd Stage with a ridiculous 2:40 before being overtaken by Aichi's Hidekazu Sato and Nagano's Yuki Sato. Both Satos ran together for a distance before Yuki Sato, record holder on individual stages in most of Japan's major ekidens, accelerated to deliver the lead to his prefectural team. Surprisingly, though, he did not earn stage best honors. Behind him, Hokkaido's Takashi Ota outran Sato's time by 10 seconds to take the stage title. Television announcers reported that Ota will be running next month's Tokyo Marathon in a bid for the Beijing Olympic team.
Nagano did take stage best honors on the 5 km 4th Stage and 8.5 km 5th Stage thanks to excellent performances by high school runners Kenta Sasaki and Akinobu Murasawa, the latter of whom moved the team 1 second ahead of course record pace. Aichi maintained 2nd place, while Hyogo tried in vain to move up from 3rd. Last year's 4th Stage winner Takuya Nakayama of Hyogo, son of legendary marathoner Takeyuki Nakayama, once again displayed the beautiful form which has drawn even more attention than his name but was unable to make up the distance to Aichi on the 4th Stage. Hyogo's 5th Stage runner Kondo Yohei launched a wicked attack at 5 km to try to catch Aichi but could not maintain the pace and was overtaken by Akita's Masaki Ito at the 7.5 km point.
Nagano's Shun Morozumi maintained his team's lead over the 3 km 6th Stage but slipped off course record pace by 7 seconds, delivering a 1:06 lead to anchor Hideyuki Obinata. Obinata, a last-minute replacement for the unwell Yuichiro Ueno, started well on the 13 km 7th Stage but with the freezing rain worsening his condition declined and he progressively slowed. Behind him, Aichi's Yoshihiro Yamamoto came closer and closer. Akita's Yuko Matsumiya, who last month ran 2:09:40 at the Fukuoka International Marathon to place himself as an outside contender for the Beijing Olympic team, started in 3rd place but was quickly overtaken by Hyogo's Satoru Kitamura and a group of other runners. Further back, notable aces running the anchor leg included Hakone Ekiden 5th Stage 'God of the Mountain' Masato Imai of Fukushima, Osaka World Championships 5000 m runner Yu Mitsuya of Fukuoka, and Osaka World Championships marathon runners Tsuyoshi Ogata of Hiroshima and Mitsuru Kubota of Kochi.
Kitamura quickly tired of the pack in 3rd place and launched a sensational acceleration in pursuit of Aichi. In the home stretch it looked as though Yamamoto might overtake Obinata and, in turn, as though Kitamura might overtake Yamamoto, but the separations were too large and the three teams finished within 27 seconds of each other without changing order. Imai overtook Matsumiya, while Mitsuya, Ogata and Kubota all had strong runs to advance their teams several places. To the surprise of many, it was Kitamura who took the stage best time for the anchor stage with an outstanding 38:09.
Obinata was in visible pain and almost unable to control his shaking body and voice during the post-race interview, and needed assistance to walk away afterward. Despite disappointment at his relatively weak run, he said he was happy to have been able to help bring the national title back to Nagano.
1. Nagano: 2:21:07
2. Aichi: 2:21:19
3. Hyogo: 2:21:34
4. Kumamoto: 2:22:04
5. Saitama: 2:22:06
6. Oita: 2:22:16
7. Chiba: 2:22:20
8. Saga: 2:22:30
9. Fukushima: 2:22:36
10. Akita: 2:22:40
Ken Nakamura's detailed stage-by-stage report for the IAAF is here. A Japanese-language report is here.
(c) 2008 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
In miserable conditions of rain and snow with temperatures of 3 degrees, Nagano overcame rivals Hyogo and a strong performance by Aichi on Jan. 20 to take back the title it lost at last year's All-Japan Men's Interprefectural Ekiden.
The Interprefectural Ekiden features a 7-stage, 48 km course starting and ending at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park. Like last week's women's edition of the event, teams in the Interprefectural Ekiden include star professional, university, high school and junior high school runners from each of Japan's 47 prefectures. It is an unusual sight to see young runners barely into their teens handing off to Olympian teammates, but this is one of the Interprefectural Ekiden's unique points. The last four years have been duels between Nagano and Hyogo, with Nagano coming out on top for three years straight before Hyogo's victory last year on the strength of its anchor Satoru Kitamura's dominating performance. This year looked set to be a rematch between the two powerhouses.
The 7 km 1st Stage was expected to be dominated by Hyogo's Yuki Yagi, the top high school distance runner last year with a 5000 m PB of 14:01. Yagi unexpectedly ran behind the large pack in last place, leaving it up to others to set the pace. Fukushima's Ryuji Kashiwabara took up the challenge, dropping the pack and opening a lead of 10 seconds to prove that his freshly-minted 5000 m PB, also 14:01, was not a fluke. Yagi accelerated after 2.5 km and passed the entire pack but could not make up the gap to Kashiwabara.
It looked as though Fukushima's Seichiro Kondo would be quickly overtaken by runners from Hyogo, Nagano and Aichi on the 3 km 2nd Stage, but the junior high school student negative splitted to hang onto his team's slim lead. His teammate Hideyuki Anzai, an ace runner from Komazawa University who earlier this month became only the 4th person to break 1:20 on the uphill Hakone Ekiden 5th Stage, opened the 8.5 km 3rd Stage with a ridiculous 2:40 before being overtaken by Aichi's Hidekazu Sato and Nagano's Yuki Sato. Both Satos ran together for a distance before Yuki Sato, record holder on individual stages in most of Japan's major ekidens, accelerated to deliver the lead to his prefectural team. Surprisingly, though, he did not earn stage best honors. Behind him, Hokkaido's Takashi Ota outran Sato's time by 10 seconds to take the stage title. Television announcers reported that Ota will be running next month's Tokyo Marathon in a bid for the Beijing Olympic team.
Nagano did take stage best honors on the 5 km 4th Stage and 8.5 km 5th Stage thanks to excellent performances by high school runners Kenta Sasaki and Akinobu Murasawa, the latter of whom moved the team 1 second ahead of course record pace. Aichi maintained 2nd place, while Hyogo tried in vain to move up from 3rd. Last year's 4th Stage winner Takuya Nakayama of Hyogo, son of legendary marathoner Takeyuki Nakayama, once again displayed the beautiful form which has drawn even more attention than his name but was unable to make up the distance to Aichi on the 4th Stage. Hyogo's 5th Stage runner Kondo Yohei launched a wicked attack at 5 km to try to catch Aichi but could not maintain the pace and was overtaken by Akita's Masaki Ito at the 7.5 km point.
Nagano's Shun Morozumi maintained his team's lead over the 3 km 6th Stage but slipped off course record pace by 7 seconds, delivering a 1:06 lead to anchor Hideyuki Obinata. Obinata, a last-minute replacement for the unwell Yuichiro Ueno, started well on the 13 km 7th Stage but with the freezing rain worsening his condition declined and he progressively slowed. Behind him, Aichi's Yoshihiro Yamamoto came closer and closer. Akita's Yuko Matsumiya, who last month ran 2:09:40 at the Fukuoka International Marathon to place himself as an outside contender for the Beijing Olympic team, started in 3rd place but was quickly overtaken by Hyogo's Satoru Kitamura and a group of other runners. Further back, notable aces running the anchor leg included Hakone Ekiden 5th Stage 'God of the Mountain' Masato Imai of Fukushima, Osaka World Championships 5000 m runner Yu Mitsuya of Fukuoka, and Osaka World Championships marathon runners Tsuyoshi Ogata of Hiroshima and Mitsuru Kubota of Kochi.
Kitamura quickly tired of the pack in 3rd place and launched a sensational acceleration in pursuit of Aichi. In the home stretch it looked as though Yamamoto might overtake Obinata and, in turn, as though Kitamura might overtake Yamamoto, but the separations were too large and the three teams finished within 27 seconds of each other without changing order. Imai overtook Matsumiya, while Mitsuya, Ogata and Kubota all had strong runs to advance their teams several places. To the surprise of many, it was Kitamura who took the stage best time for the anchor stage with an outstanding 38:09.
Obinata was in visible pain and almost unable to control his shaking body and voice during the post-race interview, and needed assistance to walk away afterward. Despite disappointment at his relatively weak run, he said he was happy to have been able to help bring the national title back to Nagano.
1. Nagano: 2:21:07
2. Aichi: 2:21:19
3. Hyogo: 2:21:34
4. Kumamoto: 2:22:04
5. Saitama: 2:22:06
6. Oita: 2:22:16
7. Chiba: 2:22:20
8. Saga: 2:22:30
9. Fukushima: 2:22:36
10. Akita: 2:22:40
Ken Nakamura's detailed stage-by-stage report for the IAAF is here. A Japanese-language report is here.
(c) 2008 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
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