Honda Kicks Off Season With Win at 66th Towada Hachimantai Ekiden

by Brett Larner

Ekiden season got off to an early start with the 66th running of Akita's Towada Hachimantai Ekiden on Aug. 7. The Honda corporate team, less Moscow World Championships marathoner Masakazu Fujiwara and other A-list members, outran rival Yakult for the win after a slow start. The Yakult A team led for the first three of the day's five stages thanks in part to a superb stage record of 36:12 on the 13.4 km Second Stage by new Kenyan ace Bernard Kimani, while Honda fell as low as 4th. On the 16.4 km Fourth Stage new Honda recruit Wataru Ueno, a graduate of Komazawa University and Sendai Ikuei H.S., had a strong corporate ekiden debut as he made up the 30-second gap to leader Yutaro Fukushi of Yakult before opening a lead of nearly two minutes.

With Fukushi having fallen to 3rd behind Komori Corporation, Yakult anchor Soji Ikeda, another Komazawa alum, did his best to run down Honda's Hayato Saito on the tough uphill Fifth Stage, but although he overtook Komori's Tatsunori Hamasaki and closed the gap to Saito to 1:30, Saito was just too far away. Honda covered the 73.7 km course in 3:48:03 for the win. Yakult A was next in 3:49:33, Ikeda holding off Hamasaki in the final stretch. With a Third Stage win by marathoner Keita Akaba, Komori Corporation was 3rd in 3:49:35.

66th Towada Hachimantai Ekiden Top Results
Kazuno, Akita, 8/7/13
5 stages, 73.7 km, 32 teams
click here for complete results

Top Team Results - 73.7 km
1. Honda - 3:48:03
2. Yakult A - 3:49:33
3. Komori Corporation - 3:49:35
4. Fujitsu - 3:50:46
5. JR Higashi Nihon - 3:51:35

Individual Results

First Stage - 13. 6 km
1. Yuki Takamiya (Yakult A) - 40:57
2. Yusuke Sato (Fujitsu) - 41:04
3. Takehiro Yamanaka (Honda) - 41:05
4. Kiyokatsu Hasegawa (JR Higashi Nihon) - 41:15
5. Yasuhito Ikeda (NTT Nishi Nippon) - 41:27

Second Stage - 13. 4 km
1. Bernard Kimani (Kenya/Yakult A) - 36:12 - CR
2. David Njuguna (Kenya/Yakult B) - 37:25
3. Takuya Yokoyama (JR Higashi Nihon) - 38:27
4. Kenta Kitazawa (Yachiyo Kogyo) - 38:43
5. Shogo Matsugaki (NTT Nishi Nippon) - 38:47

Third Stage - 16.2 km
1. William Malel (Kenya/Honda) - 46:31
2. Joseph Onsarigo (Kenya/Nanyu City Hall) - 47:10
3. Kazuyoshi Shimozato (Komori Corp.) - 47:31
4. Kassa Mekashaw (Ethiopia/Yachiyo Kogyo) - 48:23
5. Tomohito Takenaka (NTT Nishi Nippon) - 48:33

Fourth Stage - 16.4 km
1. Keita Akiba (Komori Corp.) - 50:04
2. Kazuhiro Kuga (Fujitsu) - 50:35
3. Wataru Ueno (Honda) - 50:44
4. Masahiro Kawaguchi (Yakult B) - 51:00
5. Makoto Harada (JR Higashi Nihon) - 51:25

Fifth Stage - 14.1 km, significant uphill
1. Soji Ikeda (Yakult A) - 50:28
2. Hayato Saito (Honda) - 50:44
3. Tatsunori Hamasaki (Komori Corp.) - 50:53
4. Norimasa Nishina (Fujitsu) - 51:26
5. Yasuaki Kojima (East Japan Corp. Select Team) - 51:37

(c) 2013 Brett Larner
all rights reserved

Australian Male Arrested on Drug Smuggling Charges After Entering Japan for Osaka Marathon

On Apr. 9 the Kinki Region Bureau of Health, Labor and Welfare's Drug Control Division arrested Matthew Inglis Fox , 38, an Australian business owner of no known fixed address, on charges of violating the importation regulations of the Narcotics Control Act by smuggling tablets containing marijuana elements from the United States. The suspect had entered Japan in February to run in the Osaka Marathon . The suspect was arrested on suspicion of smuggling approximately 12 pills containing marijuana by sending them from a U.S. airport to Osaka's Kansai Airport using an international courier service on Feb. 19. The Osaka branch of the Customs Service discovered the tablets in arriving cargo and suspected them to be narcotics. Customs contacted the Narcotics Control Division, which then began its investigation of the case. According to the Narcotics Control Division, the suspect denies the charges. Translator's note: Fox, who received a lifetime ban from the Ageo City Half Mara...

Australian YouTuber Handed Lifetime Ban by Ageo City Half Marathon After Running 1:06 with Another Runner's Bib (updated)

After discussion with their race's chief JAAF referee, on Nov. 27 the organizers of the Ageo City Half Marathon handed down a lifetime ban from their event against 36-year-old Australian Matt Inglis Fox for running the Nov. 15 race wearing the bib number of another JAAF-registered runner. The incident came to light after Fox posted on his personal Instagram account that he had run a PB of 1:06:33 and finished 203rd in Ageo with a 10 km split of 31:03, along with photos and video of himself in the race wearing a bib number beginning with 11. Fox did not appear in the results by name or in that time or place, the closest match being a 1:06:54 gross, 1:06:50 net finish time with a 31:21 10 km split for 18th place in the JAAF-registered division and 209th overall by bib number 1129, registered to a non-Japanese Tokyo-resident club runner. The club runner, Harrisson Uk , readily confirmed that he had given his bib to Fox, saying, "I gave my number to Matt. It wasn't me."...

Tokyo Olympics Marathon Trials Winner Nakamura Enters Waseda Grad School

An Olympian in the marathon at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo Nakamura (Fujitsu) announced on his social media that he has entered Waseda University 's Graduate School of Sport Science with the start of the new academic year this week. A graduate of Mie's Ueno Kogyo H.S. , Nakamura went to Komazawa University before joining Fujitsu in 2015. His senior year of high school he was 3rd overall and 2nd Japanese in the 5000 m at the National High School Track and Field Championships, and in the fall the same year he ran what was at the time the 7th-fastest high school mark ever, 13:50.38. At Komazawa he scored four individual stage wins across the three big university ekidens. In 2019 he won the MGC Race, Japan's marathon trials for the Tokyo Olympics, where he was 62nd in 2:22:23. Nakamura indicated that he would be studying "top sports management" under professor Takeo Hirata . "I'll be balancing competition and academics," Nakamura wrote. "I'm r...

japan running news

Search This Blog