Skip to main content

Fukuoka Takes Second-Straight Grand Tour Kyushu to Bring Its 62-Year History to a Close

http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nsp/ekiden/2013/all/kiji/20131103/20131103_0004.shtml

translated and edited by Brett Larner
results coming shortly

The eighth, final and sweetest of the eight days making up the 62nd running of the Grand Tour Kyushu ekiden took place Nov. 3, the day's six stages spanning 83.8 km from the Yuhata Nishi Ward Offices in Kita-Kyushu to the Nishi Nippon Newspaper building in Fukuoka.  The hometown Fukuoka team won the day, its third individual day win of the tour, to make up a 3:42 deficit at the end of the seventh day and overtake Miyazaki for its second-straight overall win by a margin of just 2 1/2 minutes over the full 739.9 km distance, the 26th overall title in its history.  It was a perfect ending to bring the Grand Tour Kyushu's long and celebrated history to a close.

Fukuoka trailed Miyazaki through the Fourth Stage until Fifth Stage man Shuji Yoshikawa (Team Kyudenko) moved into first.  Fukuoka's anchor, Moscow World Championships marathoner Kazuhiro Maeda (Team Kyudenko), sealed the deal with a stage win to give Fukuoka the day by a margin of 6:16 over Miyazaki.

Fukuoka's Ryuji Watanabe (Team Toyota Kyushu) won the Tour's MVP award for winning all three of his stages including one stage record.  Kumamoto Prefecture's Naoki Inoue (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) won the Best Newcomer award.  Kagoshima Prefecture was the most improved team, taking 10:39 off its overall time from last year.  Both Fukuoka and Miyazaki won three individual days, with Nagasaki Prefecture picking up the other two.

Comments

Most-Read This Week

On the Loss of the ARRS Database

At some point in the last few months I discovered that both versions of the ARRS database, the static one and the searchable version , are gone. Last week David Monti posted a link to the ARRS history of an event he covered in Race Results Weekly, I guess copying and pasting a link from last year without looking at it, and that reminded me to write something about the loss of the database. The Association of Road Racing Statisticians was basically a one-man show operated from the remote Northern California shores by Ken Young . When the site existed its intro read: The Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) is an independent, non-profit organization that collects, analyses and publishes results and statistics regarding elite distance running at distances 3000m and longer...The data of ARRS is stored in the ARRS database, which has more than 1.3 million performances from more than 240,000 races by more than 95,000 elite and sub-elite distance runners worldwide...This website ...

Multiple National Records This Weekend

Olympic and World champion Haruka Kitaguchi got the biggest headlines among Japanese athletes this weekend, overcoming a rough last year and a half that included injury and a coaching change to break her own javelin throw NR by over a meter and a half to win the inaugural WA Ultimate Championship in Budapest. U20 WR and Asian AR holder Ziyi Yan opened with a big 68.05, 0.67 m further than Kitaguchi's best-ever from back in 2023. That could have been the end, but Kitaguchi came back from a 61.15 m first attempt to throw a massive 68.92 m NR on her next one, ultimately enough for the win. She still has a long way to go to match the 18-year-old Yan's 71.74 m from May, but it was a clear statement that Kitaguchi is back. Back home at the National Corporate Track and Field Championships in Kyoto, women's pole vault NR holder Misaki Morota continued a solid comeback season of her own, bettering her NR from May by 1 cm with a 4.51 m on her first attempt. Morota took another 3...

Japan's Team Lineup in Copenhagen

Re-upping an earlier post on Japan's team lineup for this weekend's  Copenhagen World Road Running Championships . The JAAF chose not to name any women to the team in the mile. Women 5 km Kana Mizumoto (Edion) - 15:06.98 Rina Kusu (Sekisui Kagaku) - 15:10.91 Half Marathon Yumi Yoshikawa (Canon) - 1:09:14 Wakana Kabasawa (Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo) - 1:09:20 Rina Shimizu (Noritz) - 1:09:22 Yuna Takahashi (Shimamura) - 1:09:23 Men Mile Ojiro Honda (Waseda Univ.) - 3:37.53 (1500 m) Tomoki Nakano (Toenec) - 3:37.92 (1500 m) 5 km Yota Mashiko (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.35 Rui Suzuki (Waseda Univ.) - 13:20.64 Half Marathon Tomoya Ogikubo (Hiramatsu Byoin) - 1:00:22 Yuma Nishizawa (Toyota Boshoku) - 1:00:26 Neo Namiki (Subaru) - 1:00:29 Daisuke Sato (Chuo Univ.) - 1:00:40 © 2026 Brett Larner , all rights reserved