The Hakone Ekiden Qualifier, the world's deepest 20 km road race, takes place tomorrow, Oct. 15, in Tokyo's Showa Kinen Park. JRN will be on-site to cover the race and will be doing live English-language commentary via Twitter @JRNLive during the tape-delayed broadcast on Nihon TV from 3:30-5:00 p.m. Japan time on the 15th. Overseas viewers can watch online via Keyhole TV. Click here for JRN's preview of the race.
Already the course record-breaker at the Izumo Ekiden and National University Ekiden this season, 2021 Hakone Ekiden champion Komazawa University came one step away from its first-ever triple crown of single-season ekiden wins as it won a highly competitive 2023 Hakone Ekiden Day One over defending champ Aoyama Gakuin University and last year's 6th placer Chuo University . Things got off to an unexpected start when Select Team runner Hayate Nitta of non-qualifier Ikuei University decided to take his one and only Hakone shot and run it up to his ability on the 21.3 km 1st leg even though the rest of the field opted to jog. At one point Nitta had a lead of almost a minute and a half, but as beautiful as it would have been for him to pull it off, Meiji University 's Shunpei Tomita and Komazawa's Kensuke Tsubura still managed to run him down in the final kilometer. Tomita took the stage win in 1:02:44, 1:02:08 half marathon pace vs. his 1:02:10 PB despite the slow s...
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