Skip to main content

No Clemency Granted as Transferring Sendai Ikuei Team Barred for Six Months

http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/f-sp-tp0-20120228-910220.html
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/athletics/news/p-sp-tp0-20120222-907198.html

translated and edited by Brett Larner

On Feb. 28 the Aichi Prefecture High School Athleteics Board announced its decision with regard to the ten first and second-year former members of Miyagi prefecture ekiden powerhouse Sendai Ikuei H.S. who have transferred to Aichi's three-time girls' national champion Toyokawa H.S. due to the effects of last year's disasters and other problems.  The board has ruled that no special consideration will be given to the athletes as victims of the disasters and that in accordance with standard policy they will be barred from competing in high school federation-sponsored events for six months.  The transferring athletes will not be eligible to compete in this summer's National High School Track & Field Championships but will be able to run November's Aichi prefecture qualifier for the National High School Ekiden Championships.

Further details of the transfer were also released.  In addition to the ten previously announced students, among whom are all seven first and second-year Japanese members of last year's Nationals team, five of the six top-ranked junior high school boys Sendai Ikuei had recruited to join its ekiden team at the start of the school year in April have cancelled their enrollments.  Sendai Ikuei's boys' and girls' teams have made the National High School Ekiden Championships together for twenty-straight years and have won a combined total of nine National High School Ekiden titles, but head coach and Sendai Ikuei alum Junichi Seino resigned from the school following suggestions that former head coach Takao Watanabe return to work together with him in the wake of the boys' team's 12th-place finish last December.  According to a source connected to the school, there is no chance whatsoever that Watanabe will return to coach at Sendai Ikuei.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Ngetich and Mutiso Take Down Tokyo Legacy Half CR

In its 5th edition the Tokyo Legacy Half Marathon scored 2 new course records via Kenyans from the Ikaika agency, with 10 km WR holder Agnes Ngetich blasting 3 minutes off the old record to win by over 4 in 1:04:23, and Alexander Mutiso skimming just 1 second under the CR for the win by 5 seconds in 59:51. The 2 races played out completely differently, even if the paydays were the same for the winners. Surrounded by an envelope of male runners all the way to the final 100 m, Ngetich was out hard on the downhill in the first 5 km, hitting it on sub-64 pace in 15:08 before leveling out on the flat middle 10 km. Her next 2 splits projected to 1:04:09 and 1:04:17, and even with the uphill back to the stadium in the last 5 km she didn't fall far off from that, winning in 1:04:23. Runner-up Tabitha Njeri Kamau was nearly a mile back in 1:08:28, with Kamau's Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo teammate Kazuna Kanetomo dropping a 1:10:17 PB for 3rd. Now an independent, track Olympian Kaede Ha...

Waseda Leads Top 7 Teams Under Izumo Ekiden CR, Ivy League Best-Ever 3rd (updated)

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...

Route Inn Hotels Win National Corporate Women's Ekiden Qualifier for First Time

After Saturday's Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifying race in Tokyo, 2nd-tier corporate women's teams were in Fukuoka for their own national championships qualifying race, the Princess Ekiden . With Queens Ekiden 19-placer Otsuka Seiyaku a DNS, 30 teams lined up for the 6-stage, 42.195 km race where the top 16 would go on to join the top 8 from last year's Queens Ekiden at next month's national race. Coming right in the middle of the international fall marathon season several teams had people still tired from Berlin and Chicago, with Daihatsu fielding Rika Kaseda and Natsuki Omori from Berlin, Tokyo Metro sending out its own Berlin duo of Mao Uesugi and Ayumi Morita , and Kraftia not playing its top member Yuka Akasaki after her solid run in Chicago last week. After a fast start from eventual 9th-placer Denso 's Rio Matsutani , Daihatsu took over on the Second Stage and held it until the Fifth, where a tired Omori dropped to 3rd. Mayuka Fujita from Route Inn H...