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National Sports Festival, Izumo, Chicago and More - Weekend Preview

It feels like old times again, with at least five big events on the Japanese calendar. The biggest is Monday's Izumo Ekiden, the season opener for the top university men's teams in the country. We'll have a separate Izumo preview out soon, but you can look forward to the race being broadcast live on Fuji TV starting at 13:00 local time Monday. We'll also cover it live on @JRNLive.

The other big ekiden is Sunday's Kurayoshi Women's Ekiden and Nihonkai Ekiden, the first major high school races of the season. They're really one thing billed with separate event names for the girls' and boys' races, five stages totaling 21.0975 km for girls and seven stages totaling 42.195 km for boys. Most of the top high school programs in the country will be there, with 2021 National High School Ekiden 2nd and 4th-placers Osaka Kunei Joshi Gakuin H.S. and Ritsumeikan Uji H.S. leading the 70 teams in the girls' race and 2021 Nationals winner Sera H.S., 2nd-place Rakunan H.S. and 5th-place Saku Chosei H.S. fronting the 96 team-deep boys' race.

Also on the roads, five Japanese men will be lining up Sunday at the Chicago Marathon. With ekiden season preventing there from being any high-level fall domestic marathons a lot of Japanese athletes have been going overseas this fall, some to try to pick up qualification for next year's MGC Race 2024 Olympic marathon trials, and for those already qualified, to get some experience running a high-level race where Japanese athletes are in the minority. Led by 2:06:26 guy Kyohei Hosoya (Kurosaki Harima), all five in Chicago are in category B. No Japanese women are entered, but the wheelchair race also features male athletes Kota Hokinoue and Sho Watanabe.

On the track, the National Sports Festival has already gotten started in Tochigi, with the opening day on Thursday producing a great junior mens' 5000 m. Led by Hiroto Yoshioka (Saku Chosei H.S.) in 13:53.85, the top 8 all went under 14 minutes, with 9th through 14th all under 14:10. Yasunari Kusu (Ami AC) also took the senior men's 3000 mSC in 8:45.18. Upcoming highlights include the junior women's 3000 m on Friday and the junior men's 3000 m and senior women's 5000 m on Sunday.

Last up is the Chubu Region Corporate Track and Field Championships in Gifu. Chubu is the only corporate region with both a spring and fall track championship meet, and coming right before ekiden season it's had some good performances in the past. For men most of the talent is concentrated in the 10000 m, especially Heat 3 where top Kenyans Rodgers Kwemoi (Aisan Kogyo), Charles Kamau (NTN) and Bedan Karoki (Toyota) face marathoners Yuma Hattori (Toyota) and Daiji Kawai (Toenec), 27:33.13 man Tomoki Ota (Toyota), steeplechase Olympian Kosei Yamaguchi (Aisan Kogyo) and more. 3000 m is the main distance for women, where Ethiopians Zeyituna Husan and Desta Burka lead the Denso corporate women's team. Streaming of the men's 10000 m will be here starting at 15:50 local time Saturday, and here for the women's 3000 m and other events starting 8:50 a.m. Sunday.

© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved

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Rigajags said…
Great weekend coming up!
Really looking forward to your preview of Izumo ekiden, i hope that with VPN there will be links to watch somewhere.

Entry lists so far are full of the best runners.
As i have seen kosuke ishida on Toyo entry list i will be curios to see if he is Indeed running: After a stellar debut last year at Izumo and all Japan he disappeared and the couple of races i have seen him at he ended up a disaster.
If you have any news on what happened (injury or else) would love to read that on the preview.

October 7, 2022 at 7:24 PM
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