Skip to main content

Ritsumeikan Wins Tango University Ekiden - Weekend Race Roundup

The Ageo City Half Marathon, which saw new men's and women's course records and a Swedish national record, was the biggest race of the weekend, but across the country and abroad were a half dozen other events with quality Japanese athletes.

Saturday morning in Kyoto was the Tango University Ekiden, the 80th edition of the Kansai Region's university men's ekiden championships. Last year's runner-up Ritsumeikan University finished up a strong season with a decision win, leading start to finish to cover the 8-stage, 84.1 km course in 4:16:00. 2017 winner Kwansei Gakuin University got off to a slow start, 44 seconds behind Ritsumeikan in 5th after the first stage and spending the rest of the race trying to catch up. After six stages it was only 26 seconds behind, but a 35:00 stage record for the 11.7 km anchor leg by Ristumeikan's Shinji Koiwa meant the end of Kwansei Gakuin's hopes. Kyoto Sangyo University was 3rd, briefly threatened mid-race by Hyogo Gakuin University but safely regaining its position.

Saturday evening saw corporate leaguers lining up for mid-season workouts at the Chugoku Corporate Time Trials meet in Hiroshima. Kohei Futaoka (Chundeko) took the top spot in the men's 10000 m in 28:38.17, beating Kenyan Cyrus Kingori (SGH Group) by 7 seconds. Yumika Katayama (Wacoal) won the women's 3000 m in 9:18.72, with her teammate Mao Ichiyama (Wacoal) taking the 5000 m in 15:42.30. National record holder Kayoko Fukushi (Wacoal) was 6th in 15:50.63.

Sunday morning saw the Kobe Marathon make its debut as an IAAF bronze label race. Defending men's champ Khalil Lemciyeh (Morocco) took the lead after 10 km and never looked back, easily winning in 2:13:54. Runner-up Liam Adams (Australia) reeled in Hamza Sahili (Morocco) at 30 km before dropping him to take 2nd in 2:14:38, the fastest time of the year by an Australian man. Sora Tsukada (SGH Group) was the top Japanese man at 5th in 2:19:26.

The women's race in Kobe was a duel between Mongolian national record holder Munkhzaya Bayartsogt and Kenyan Susan Jerotich that went all the way to end before Jerotich pulled away for the win in a PB 2:31:38. Bayartsogt finished 10 seconds back in 2:31:48 just over 30 seconds off her NR. Nina Savina (Belarus) rounded out the top three in 2:33:36 with Miki Yokogawa (Hyogo Univ.) the top Japanese woman at 7th in 2:49:21.

Also Sunday morning, corporate men's qualification for the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden national championships wrapped up with the combined Chubu and Hokuriku Corporate Men's Ekidens. Toyota won the Chubu division for the fifth year in a row, running the 7-stage, 80.5 km course in 3:54:56 to lead seven qualifying teams. YKK won the Hokuriku division, with a total of two teams from that region advancing to the New Year Ekiden.

Overseas, several university women and men made their annual pilgrimage to the Netherlands' Zevenheuvelenloop 15 km. In a race that saw a new men's world record of 41:05 from Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda), Yuya Yoshida (Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) took the top Japanese spot at 10th in 44:31. Ryuichi Hashimoto (Juntendo Univ.) was 13th in 44:58. Rika Kaseda (Meijo Univ.) was the top Japanese woman at 7th in 49:30 just over two minutes behind winner Stella Chesang (Uganda). Yukina Ueda (Tsukuba Univ.) also made the top 10 at 8th in 50:13, with Hikaru Sudo (Tohoku Fukushi Univ.) 11th in 51:24 and Ayaka Ogumi (Tamagawa Univ.) 13th in 52:37.

text and photos © 2018 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Chepkirui Over Sato Again to Win 2nd-Straight Nagoya Women's Marathon, Chen Breaks Malaysian NR (updated)

This year's Nagoya Women's Marathon felt like a changing of the guard, with some the bigger domestic names over the last few years fading early and a lot of newer faces stepping up with quality debuts or second marathons. The front group was set to be paced for 2:20 flat with the 2nd group at 2:23:30 to hit the auto-qualifying time for the 2027 MGC Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials race in Nagoya. Up front things went out OK, but after a 33:10 split at 10 km Ayuko Suzuki , 2:21:22 here 2 years ago, lost touch, ultimately finishing 23rd in 2:33:28. Windy conditions started to play with pacers' ability to keep things steady and the pace slowed majorly over the next 10 km, but even with a 34:05 second 10 km there were big-name casualties. 2024 Nagoya winner Yuka Ando was next to drop, ending up 17th in 2:30:32. NR holder Honami Maeda was next, followed quickly by Bahraini Kenyan Eunice Chumba and debuting Wakana Kabasawa . Maeda faded to 21st in 2:31:21, whil...
2 comments
Read more

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...
Post a Comment
Read more

How it Happened

Ancient History I went to Wesleyan University, where the legend of four-time Boston Marathon champ and Wes alum Bill Rodgers hung heavy over the cross-country team. Inspired by Koichi Morishita and Young-Cho Hwang’s duel at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics I ran my first marathon in 1993, qualifying for Boston ’94 where Bill was kind enough to sign a star-struck 20-year-old me’s bib number at the expo. Three years later I moved to Japan for grad school, and through a long string of coincidences I came across a teenaged kid named Yuki Kawauchi down at my neighborhood track. I never imagined he’d become what he is, but right from the start there was just something different about him. After his 2:08:37 breakthrough at the 2011 Tokyo Marathon he called me up and asked me to help him get into races abroad. He’d finished 3rd on the brutal downhill Sixth Stage at the Hakone Ekiden, and given how he’d run the hills in the last 6 km at Tokyo ’11 I thought he’d do well at Boston or New York. “I...
53 comments
Read more