Ekiden Weekend Roundup

This weekend saw four major ekidens across the country, with Kansai region university men wrapping their seasons in Kyoto and New Year Ekiden qualification coming to a close for corporate men.

At Saturday's Tango University Ekiden, the Kansai region university championships, two-time defending champ Ritsumeikan University got off to a slow start, only 3rd on the lead stage but getting back on track thanks to a 24:29 CR on the 7.7 km Second Stage by Kohei Okada to take the top spot. Ritsumeikan never looked back from there, taking four of the remaining five stages to make it three in a row in 3:34:32. Kwansei Gakuin University, Biwako University, Kyoto University and Kyoto Sangyo University battled it out for 2nd, Kwansei Gakuin ultimately coming out on top in 3:38:14 and Biwako Gakuin, which made its National University Ekiden debut earlier this month, 3rd in 3:40:25.

Sunday saw the last four corporate regions run their New Year Ekiden national championship qualifiers, three on the roads and one on the track. The Chubu Region Corporate Ekiden played out almost exactly the same way as Tango, with defending champ Toyota starting off in 3rd before taking the top spot thanks to a Second Stage CR of 22:36 for 8.3 km by Bedan Karoki, leading the rest of the way with wins on four out of the five remaining stages, and taking 1st in a CR 3:51:19. Again as at Tango, Toyota Boshoku, Aisan Kogyo and Toenec fought a distant duel for 2nd, Toyota Boshoku taking it in 3:54:42 with Aisan Kogyo 9 seconds back.

Toyota's Karoki, a new recruit to the team season after leaving the disbanding DeNA, took 25 seconds off his stage record and looked like he could be the deciding factor in Toyota knocking Asahi Kasei off the top spot at the New Year Ekiden. Also of note was that Toyota's marathoners Yuma Hattori and Taku Fujimoto both sat Chubu out as they get ready for Fukuoka next month.

The Kansai Region Corporate Ekiden saw winner NTT Nishi Nihon lead start to finish, but unlike Tango and Chubu it was a much closer race, only 54 seconds separating NTT from runner-up Sumitomo Denko at race's end, 3:57:01 to 3:57:55. 3rd place SGH Group was another 28 seconds behind. Likewise at the Chugoku Region Corporate Ekiden, Mazda led the entire way but ended up with only a 25-second margin of victory over Chugoku Denryoku and JFE Steel another 6 seconds back in 3rd. Further back, Nihon Seitetsu Setouchi qualified for the New Year Ekiden for the first time in over 20 years.

With only three teams competing, in place of a road ekiden the Hokuriku region opted to do its New Year Ekiden qualifier as a single track 10000 m race this year, with each team scored by the combined times of its seven men. YKK took the qualifying spot, team members Daisuke Hosomori and Vincent Kipkemoi leading the way in 28:44.68 and 28:47.57.

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...

16 Women and 26 Men on the Current Olympic Trials Qualifier List

Last weekend's Nagoya Women's Marathon and the Tokyo Marathon the weekend before brought the main part of the first year of qualification for the Marathon Grand Championship Race, Japan's L.A. Olympics marathon trials to be held in Nagoya in October, 2027, to an end. There are still a few races like the Nagano Marathon and overseas World Athletics platinum label races this season where people might qualify, but for the most part we're not likely to see many new additions until August's Hokkaido Marathon, where the qualifying period opened last year. As of right now 16 women and 26 men have qualified, although the first woman to make the cut, Ai Hosoda , announced that she was retiring after Tokyo earlier this month. Out of the 16 women to have qualified so far, Mikuni Yada is the fastest with her 2:19:57 debut at Osaka Women's in January. Including Hosoda that makes 2 qualifiers for the Edion corporate team, but Daihatsu has the biggest share of the field so ...

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...

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