Skip to main content

Suzuki Anchors Aichi to National Women's Ekiden Title


video highlights by NHK

Coming back from a win in her marathon debut at last August's Hokkaido Marathon, 2016 10000 m national champion Ayuko Suzuki anchored the Aichi prefecture team to the National Women's Ekiden title in a back-and-forth race with hosts Kyoto. An entertaining format with teams made up of the best junior high school, high school, university and pro runners from each of Japan's 47 prefectures, the National Women's Ekiden and its male counterpart next weekend in Hiroshima make up the peak of championship ekiden season.

Aichi took the lead on the second of the day's nine stages thanks to a stage win by high schooler Yumi Fujinaka and from there to the end was never out of the top two. After a brief challenge from Chiba Aichi didn't get its first real threat until Kyoto pulled up even on the Fifth Stage, both teams handing off simultaneously to the Sixth. Kyoto fell as far as 26 seconds behind over the next two stages, but junior high schooler Koko Kamada made it up on the 3.0 km Eighth Stage to run down Aichi's Nayu Hayashi and even open a two-second lead.

Kamada set up a great anchor stage battle for the sin, with Suzuki starting for Aichi just behind Kyoto's Mao Ichiyama, one of the best of the younger corporate generation. The pair stayed locked together until around 7 km into the 10 km anchor stage, Suzuki splitting 15:56 at halfway to Ichiyama's 15:58. Then Suzuki got down to business, dropping Ichiyama with ease and opening more than a minute on her over the last 3 km. Suzuki's 2nd half split of 15:12 was unmatched in the field, more than enough to bring Aichi home for the win and a good sign that she has handled the recover from her marathon debut well.

But Suzuki aside, most of the day's best running was to be found outside Aichi, and most of it by the younger runners in the field. With corporate league women on six of the nine stages six were won by high school students, two by junior high schoolers, and one by a club runner. And that's part of what makes the National Ekidens' mixed-aged formats so entertaining. Top-ranked high schooler Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki) outmuscling Diamond League runner Rina Nabeshima (Kochi) and National Corporate Women's Ekiden First Stage winner Kaori Morita (Kanagawa) to win the First Stage? Sure. Relatively unknown high school runner Narumi Kobayashi (Nagano) going head-to-head with two-time defending 10000 m national champion and 2:22 marathoner Mizuki Matsuda (Osaka) in pursuit of 2:21 marathoner Yuka Ando (Shizuoka) and easily dropping Matsuda in the last kilometer to win the stage on time? Why not?


There was so much good running it was hard to pick a highlight, but along with Suzuki, Hironaka and Kobayashi there were two other clear choices. The junior high school student who ran Aichi down to briefly put Chiba in the lead on the 3.0 km Third Stage, 14-year-old Hinata Minami, was a joy to watch, her long, graceful stride carrying her to a course record 9:10. Suzuki aside, the Third Stage winners rarely survive the transition to senior running. In Minami's case she just exuded a sense of future, so let's hope she's another exception to the rule and that there are years more ahead for her.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the rescendent Hitomi Niiya followed up her brilliant East Japan Women's Ekiden anchor stage course record and Zatopek:10 win to beat Suzuki for the anchor stage title. Running the way she knows best, Niiya went through halfway in 15:30 almost dead even with Kayoko Fukushi's course record split. She faded slightly over the second half but still came in faster than Suzuki, passing seven competitors en route to a 31:06 stage win and 9th-place finish overall for Tokyo. Niiya is targeting the 2020 Tokyo Olympics 10000 m in her comeback from 5 years of retirement. Most of her strongest competition for the team may be headed for the marathon, but this trio of performances shows that she is still the one to beat.

37th National Women's Ekiden

Kyoto, 1/13/19
47 teams, 9 stages, 42.195 km
complete results

Top Individual Stage Performances
First Stage (6.0 km, open)
1. Ririka Hironaka (Nagasaki) - 19:24
2. Rina Nabeshima (Kochi) - 19:26
3. Yuka Suzuki (Akita) - 19:36

Second Stage (4.0 km, open)
1. Yumi Fujinaka (Aichi) - 12:43
1. Mai Nishiwaki (Okayama) - 12:43
3. Yuna Wada (Nagano) - 12:44

Third Stage (3.0 km, J.H.S.)
1. Hinata Minami (Chiba) - 9:10 - CR tie
2. Nanaka Yonezawa (Shizuoka) - 9:14
3. Sora Sakai (Aichi) - 9:17

Fourth Stage (4.0 km, open)
1. Narumi Kobayashi (Nagano) - 12:50
2. Mizuki Matsuda (Osaka) - 12:56
3. Yuma Goto (Hyogo) - 13:00

Fifth Stage (4.1075 km, open)
1. Azusa Mihara (Kyoto) - 13:18
2. Miki Nagai (Aichi) - 13:28
3. Miku Sakai (Fukuoka) - 13:29

Sixth Stage (4.0875 km, open)
1. Hikari Onishi (Hyogo) - 12:44
2. Sakiko Naito (Chiba) - 12:45
3. Yumi Furukawa (Kagoshima) - 12:53

Seventh Stage (4.0 km, H.S.)
1. Mayu Matsumuro (Osaka) - 12:31
1. Yuna Arai (Hyogo) - 12:31
3. Akane Ogasawara (Aichi) - 12:35
3. Tomo Muramatsu (Kyoto) - 12:35

Eighth Stage (3.0 km, J.H.S.)
1. Asuka Ishimatsu (Hyogo) - 9:58
2. Koko Kamada (Kyoto) - 10:11
3. Rina Suzuki (Saitama) - 10:14

Ninth Stage (10.0 km, open)
1. Hitomi Niiya (Tokyo) - 31:06
2. Ayuko Suzuki (Aichi) - 31:08
3. Honami Maeda (Osaka) - 31:49

Top Team Performances
1. Aichi - 2:15:43
2. Kyoto - 2:16:45
3. Osaka - 2:17:01
4. Hyogo - 2:17:13
5. Chiba - 2:17:28
6. Nagano - 2:17:47
7. Kanagawa - 2:18:15
8. Shizuoka - 2:18:38
9. Tokyo - 2:18:54
10. Okayama - 2:19:11

© 2019  Brett Larner, all rights reserved

Buy Me A Coffee

Comments

Most-Read This Week

Weekend Racing Roundup

  China saw a new men's national record of 2:06:57 from  Jie He  at the Wuxi Marathon Sunday, but in Japan it was a relatively quiet weekend with mostly cold and rainy amateur-level marathons across the country. At the Tokushima Marathon , club runner Yuhi Yamashita  won the men's race by almost 4 1/2 minutes in 2:17:02, the fastest Japanese men's time of the weekend, but oddly took 22 seconds to get across the starting line. The women's race saw a close finish between the top two, with Shiho Iwane  winning in 2:49:33 over Ayaka Furukawa , 2nd in 2:49:46.  At the 41st edition of the Sakura Marathon in Chiba, Yukie Matsumura  (Comodi Iida) ran the fastest Japanese women's time of the weekend, 2:42:45, to take the win. Club runner Yuki Kuroda  won the men's race in 2:20:08.  Chika Yokota  won the Saga Sakura Marathon women's race in 2:49:33.  Yuki Yamada  won the men's race in 2:21:47 after taking the lead in the final 2 km.  Naoki Inoue  won the 16th r

Japan's Olympic Marathon Team Meets the Press

With renewed confidence, Japan's Olympic marathon team will face the total 438 m elevation difference hills of Paris this summer. The members of the women's and men's marathon teams for August's Paris Olympics appeared at a press conference in Tokyo on Mar. 25 in conjunction with the Japan Marathon Championship Series III (JMC) awards gala. Women's Olympic trials winner Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) said she was riding a wave of motivation in the wake of the new women's national record. When she watched Honami Maeda (Tenmaya) set the record at January's Osaka International Women's Marathon on TV, Suzuki said she was, "absolutely stunned." Her coach Sachiko Yamashita told her afterward, "When someone breaks the NR, things change," and Suzuki found herself saying, "I want to take my shot." After training for a great run in Paris, she said, "I definitely want to break the NR in one of my marathons after that." Mao

Takeuchi Wins Niigata Half in Boston Tune-Up

Running in cold, windy and rainy conditions, Ryoma Takeuchi (ND Software) warmed up for April's Boston Marathon with a win at Wednesday's Niigata Half Marathon . Takeuchi sat behind Nittai University duo Susumu Yamazaki and Ryuga Ishikawa in the early stages, then made a series of pushes to pick up the pace. Each time he tucked in behind whoever went to the front, while behind them others dropped off. Before 15 km only Yamazaki and Riki Koike of Soka University were left, and when Takeuchi went to the front the last time after 15 km only Koike followed. By 16 he was gone too, leaving Takeuchi to solo it in to the win in 1:03:13 with a 17-second negative split. "This was my last fitness check before the Boston Marathon next month, and my time was right on-target," he said post-race. "Everything went as planned. I'm looking forward to racing some of the world's best in Boston, and my goal there is to place in the single digits." Just back from tr