Skip to main content

Hakone Ekiden Entry Lists and Rankings

by Brett Larner

The KGRR, organizers of the Hakone Ekiden, have released the 16-member entry lists for the 21 university teams running the 92nd edition of Japan's biggest sports event on January 2 and 3.  For the first time ever JRN has made the complete entry lists available in English, with name, class year, 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon bests for all 334 athletes in the field and top ten average 5000 m, 10000 m and half marathon times for all 21 teams.  Click any listing below to enlarge.

With the Hakone Ekiden's ten stages averaging 21.71 km each, half marathon times are the most relevant to a team's performance.  Teams are listed below in order of the average half marathon PB of their ten fastest men.  In some cases half marathon PBs are extrapolated from 20 km times.  The averages for Yamanashi Gakuin University and Nihon University, both of which have two Kenyan members apiece, include the times of only their faster Kenyan as only one can run Hakone.

JRN will publish its annual detailed Hakone preview closer to the end of the month, but a quick analysis breaks the field into four clear groups:
  • One group of four possible winners, or rather of three universities hoping to take down defending champion and heavy favorite Aoyama Gakuin University which has a spectacular ten-man half marathon average of 1:02:36.
  • A second group of five universities with a lock on making the ten-deep seeded bracket and which will be shooting to make the top five.
  • A group of six schools in range of taking 10th, the last seeded place for the 2017 Hakone Ekiden.
  • A final group of six also-rans including the debuting Tokyo Kokusai University and the Kanto Region Student Alliance Team made up of high-placing individuals at October's Hakone Ekiden Qualifier whose schools did not make the cut.  Among them, Jobu University has only entered 14 runners instead of the full allowance of ten starters and six alternates.
Six universities in the field have 10-man 5000 m averages under 14:00, four have 10000 m averages under 29:00, and two have half marathon averages under 1:03:00.  Only Aoyama Gakuin hits all three categories.  The quality of the race up front and the density of teams in contention for the last seeded position promise another spectacular year.  Look for detailed pre-Hakone coverage on JRN in the weeks to come and for live coverage throughout the race on @JRNLive.


©2015 Brett Larner
all rights reserved
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
That must have been a huge amount of work! A huge otsukaresama deshita :) I hope to get out along the course and cheer this year.
December 16, 2015 at 5:03 AM
Brett Larner said…
Thanks, it was. I'm indebted to the fantastic Mattari Ekiden site for help with tracking down many of the lesser-known runners' PBs. A highly recommended site for anyone who can read Japanese: http://sat-ekiden.info/
Also helpful was the searchable ARRS database site: http://more.arrs.net/
December 16, 2015 at 8:22 AM
Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

'CAS Clears Japan’s Olympic Silver Medallist Ikeda of Doping, Overturns Ban'

https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/23/cas-clears-japans-olympic-silver-medallist-ikeda-of-doping-overturns-ban The AIU's missteps in this case cost Tokyo Olympics and Oregon World Championships 20 km race walk silver medalist Koki Ikeda , a Toyo University graduate who competes for the Asahi Kasei corporate team, the chance to represent Japan at a home soil World Championships last year. It is almost unheard of for an athlete to successfully fight a biological passport suspension as Ikeda did, making this a highly significant case. The CAS' press release about its decision stated: "The Panel stressed that the Athlete did not merely assert his position on the ABP abnormalities but adduced very extensive evidence in support of his explanations. In this highly complex case, the evidence brought during the CAS proceedings was far more abundant and specific than during the first instance proceedings with the WA Disciplinary Tribunal, implying the CAS Panel had further ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meijo Back With Morinomiyako Ekiden CR for National University Title

The last big dynasty school in Japanese women's distance running with 7-straight wins at October's Morinomiyako Ekiden from 2017 to 2023 and 6-straight titles at the season-ending Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden from 2018 to 2023, Meijo University came back from a 3rd-place finish last year to win the 44th Morinomiyako Ekiden again, leading almost start-to-finish to set a 2:02:21 CR for the 6-stage, 38.0 km course in Sendai. 12 second back in 2nd after the opening leg, collegiate 3000 mSC champ Nozomi Kondo put Meijo out front with a 12:36 CR for the 4.0 km Second Stage, and the rest of the team never looked back. The biggest threat to a Meijo win was on the 9.2 m Fifth Stage, where this year's collegiate 10000 m winner Sarah Wanjiru from last year's runner-up Daito Bunka University started 50 seconds back from Meijo 1st-year Mao Kimura . In taking the 10000 m title Wanjiru had outrun Kimura by over a minute, but today Kimura was a revelation, strong and smooth out fr...
1 comment
Read more

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...
8 comments
Read more