Ekiden week rolls on with the first major race of 2021 worldwide, the Jan. 1 New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships. Asahi Kasei is going for a fifth-straight national title, something they've managed twice before with six-packs of wins in 1978-1983 and 1990-1995. And really, who's going to stop them?
In September Asahi Kasei took delivery of the world's largest low-pressure altitude training facility so that they didn't have to deal with traveling to get to altitude, and just look at the results. At the National Championships earlier this month they had five guys under 28 minutes for 10000 m including a 27:18.75 national record from rookie Akira Aizawa, and a sixth man, Shuho Dairokuno, across the line in 28:01.29. And both of their Kenyan runners Robert Mwei and Benuel Mogeni are sub-28. And they have other guys like Hiroshi Ichida who aren't quite up to that level but always deliver come ekiden day.
Asahi Kasei broke the New Year Ekiden course record last year to win over Toyota by more than two minutes, and at November's Kyushu regional qualifier it took six of the seven stages to win in course record time by more than a minute and a half over Mitsubishi Juko. What are you going to do?
Well, for one Toyota picked up the great Bedan Karoki from the disbanding DeNA team. He's done great work as a pacer for Toyota's top duo Yuma Hattori and Taku Fujimoto, and at the Chubu regional qualifier last month he was stellar, running a 22:36 course record for his 8.3 km stage to help Toyota break the overall CR. But no matter how good he is there's a limit to how much weight one runner can carry, and with Hattori a last-second scratch from Fukuoka this month due to an injury and Fujimoto running below potential there it looks like there are cracks in what had been looking to be a legit challenge to Asahi Kasei's dominance.
Last year's 3rd-placer Honda has picked up 10000 m national record breaker Tatsuhiko Ito this year, but Honda has relied heavily on former half marathon and marathon national record holder Yuta Shitara for a big part of its success the last few years, and with Shitara underperforming this season it might not be able to improve much on its 3rd-place finish at the East Japan regional qualifier. Fujitsu pulled off the win there and is definitely strong, but runner-up GMO feels like it has more momentum and could challenge for the top three if rookie Yuya Yoshida has recovered from his win at Fukuoka at the start of the month.
Only 24th at the New Year Ekiden last year, Kansai region winner NTT Nishi Nihon has been developing rapidly and is set to pick up three quality people from DeNA next season. That won't help it at this stage, but it should have a shot at the eight-deep podium. That would be about the best that Chugoku region winner Mazda, 10th last year, could hope for, and would be a dream come true for Hokuriku region winner YKK, only 32nd of 37 teams last year.
There are lots of interesting little rivalries further back in the field, like the battle for independent supermarket chain supremacy between Comody Iida and Sunbelx, and that between hospital teams Hiramatsu Byoin and SID Group, There's even the drama of a team set to be disbanded in March, Nihon Seiko Setouchi, qualifying for the first time in 21 years. What's not to like? It's going to be a great start to the year at every level.
TBS will be broadcasting the race live starting at 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 1 local time. They have a streaming app you can download here, but it is probably not available outside Japan. If you're not in Japan options like mov3.co, iTVer, and TVJapanLive might work. Unofficial streams tend to pop up on Youtube once the race gets underway. We'll be doing English commentary on @JRNLive as usual, and will tweet Youtube links if streams turn up.
2021 New Year Ekiden Entry Lists
Maebashi, Gunma, 01 Jan. 2021
37 teams, 7 stages, 100.0 km
1. Asahi Kasei (Kyushu region)
2. Toyota (Chubu region)
3. Honda (East Japan region)
4. JR Higashi Nihon (East Japan region)
5. GMO (East Japan region)
6. Aisan Kogyo (Chubu region)
7. Yakult (East Japan region)
8. Konica Minolta (East Japan region)
10. Mazda (Chugoku region)
11. Yasukawa Denki (Kyushu region)
12. Toyota Kyushu (Kyushu region)
13. Toyota Boshoku (Chubu region)
14. Chudenko (Chugoku region)
15. Osaka Gas (Kansai region)
16. Sumitomo Denko (Kansai region)
17. Mitsubishi Juko (Kyushu region)
18. Chugoku Denryoku (Chugoku region)
19. Hitachi Butsuryu (East Japan region)
20. SGH Group (Kansai region)
21. Kurosaki Harima (Kyushu region)
22. NTT Nishi Nihon (Kansai region)
23. Kyudenko (Kyushu region)
24. Toenec (Chubu region)
25. JFE Steel (Chugoku region)
26. Aichi Seiko (Chubu region)
27. Chuo Hatsujo (Chubu region)
28. YKK (Hokuriku region)
29. Comody Iida (East Japan region)
30. Hiramatsu Byoin (Kyushu region)
31. Fujitsu (East Japan region)
32. Sunbelx (East Japan region)
33. SID Group (East Japan region)
34. ND Software (East Japan region)
35. Otsuka Seiyaku (Kansai region)
36. Nihon Seiko Setouchi (Chugoku region)
37. Togami Denki (Kyushu region)
DNS - Kanebo (East Japan region)
© 2020 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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