Daniel Njenga is a longtime member of the Yakult corporate team, formerly as an athlete and currently as part of its coaching staff. On June 8 Kenyan media published a detailed article credited to Peter Mwangi claiming that Njenga had been kidnapped during a carjacking two days earlier while picking up his daughter from school. Longtime Njenga associate Brendan Reilly tweeted a link to the article, but after retweeting it in Japanese JRN received a tweet from a Yakult runner saying that he had talked to Njenga, who was at home as usual. The Yakult athlete subsequently deleted the tweet, but JRN confirmed with another source that Njenga is safe at home and that the article by Mwangi is a fabrication.
While the girls' race was a blowout by 2022 champ Nagano Higashi H.S. , the boys' race at Sunday's National High School Ekiden was a tense battle of turnover that saw all of the final top four teams take a stab at leading. 2023 3rd-placer Yachiyo Shoin H.S. handled the first 2 of the 7 stages in the 42.195 km race, with lead runner Rui Suzuki delivering a bold run on the 10.0 km First Stage that produced the fastest-ever time by a Japanese runner on the stage, 28:43, and put Yachiyo Shoin 29 seconds out front. Last year's Fifth Stage CR breaker Tetsu Suzuki ran Yachiyo Shoin down to put 2023 champ Saku Chosei H.S. into 1st on the 8.1075 km Third Stage, but Genta Sugano of last year's 8th-placer Sendai Ikuei H.S. had other plans and took the lead on the 8.0875 km Fourth Stage. Smiling and fist pumping to the crowd almost the entire way, Taketo Tsukada of last year's 6th-placer Omuta H.S. moved up from 3rd to 1st by 2 seconds over Saku Chosei on the 3.0 k...
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