The 2010 National High School Ekiden Championships take place this Sunday, Dec. 26. Overseas viewers should be able to watch NHK's live, commercial-free broadcast via Keyhole TV, available by clicking here. If a password is required, enter the letters NHK. The girls' ekiden runs from 10:05 to 11:54 a.m. Japan time, with the boys' ekiden beginning at 12:15 and ending at 2:52 p.m. The National High School Ekiden Championships website is worth a visit, with a wealth of info on competing teams plus complete stage-by-stage results for every year the Championships have been held, 60 for boys and 21 for girls.
3rd last year, Waseda University scored its first Izumo Ekiden win since 2010, taking almost 2 minutes off the CR and leading the top 7 teams under the old record of 2:07:51 for the complete 6-stage, 45.1 km course. Waseda was 16 seconds back in 7th after the First Stage, but its 2nd runner Ojiro Honda made that up easily and put them 6 seconds out front. A massive 22:56 CR for the 8.5 km Third Stage by Shadrack Kipkemei (Nihon Univ.) dropped Waseda back to 2nd even though its runner Ryuki Suzuki broke the old CR too, but back-to-back CR on the next 2 stages by 1st-year Haruki Niizuma and Shunpei Yamaguchi put anchor Shinsaku Kudo out of reach of the rest of the field. Kudo duly won the 10.2 km anchor stage in 29:00, bypassing a 2:06 time entirely for a new 2:05:56 CR, just under 2:48/km average pace for the complete course. Defending champ Koku Gakuin University struggled a bit in the first half of the race but came on strong in the longer second half with 4th and 5th runners...
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