Sunday is the 40th edition of Sendai's Morinomiyako Ekiden, the National University Women's Ekiden Championships. NTV will be broadcasting the race live starting at noon local time, with coverage also on @JRNLive. 26 teams are racing for the national title, the complete course covering 38.1 km in 6 legs.
Last year Meijo University led start-to-finish en route to a fifth-straight win, taking 5 of the 6 individual stage titles with 3 of them in course record time. 2 of the stage winners have graduated, but in their place Meijo has a very strong class of first-years led by Nanaka Yonezawa, 8:59.57 for 3000 m and 15:31.33 for 5000 m. 4 others are under 9:15 for 3000 m or under 15:50 for 5000 m, making solid support for the 4 returning members from last year. A lot depends on 4th-year Narumi Kobayashi, who ran a 10000 m collegiate record 31:22.34 last year but hasn't run well most of her senior year so far. 4th-year Yuma Yamamoto on the other hand is fresh off a 15:16.71 PB for 5000 m, and with an 8:52.19 best for 3000 m she's the fastest woman in the entire race. If Kobayashi can keep it together Meijo's chances of pulling off a first-ever 6th-straight national title look very good.
Who could challenge them? Daito Bunka University has been 2nd 4 of the last 5 years, but with the graduation of sub-15:40/sub-32:00 duo Yuka Suzuki and Natsuki Sekiya it's not the team it was. 3000 mSC specialist 4th-year Reimi Yoshimura and fellow 4th-year Mizuho Yamaga lead the team with bests of 15:48.96 and 15:49.88, but beyond that DBU looks thin.
Ritsumeikan University has finished in the top 4 every year for the last 20 years, and this year's team is an improvement on last year's 4th-place squad. 1st-year Yu Muramatsu looks very promising with 9:09.54 and 15:49.33 bests, adding to 4th-year Rinka Hida's 15:47.59 and 2nd-year Tomo Muramatsu's 15:53.55. That's half a solid team.
On paper last year's 5th-placer Nittai University looks good enough to beat DBU, but Ritsumeikan is a stretch and Meijo far out of reach. 2nd-year Risa Yamazaki, 9:07.32 and 15:33.49, is its best runner, and with enough sub-9:20 people to handle the shorter stages the main question will be what Nittai can do on the 9.2 km Fifth Stage.
That's where Takushoku University's Seira Fuwa had her big coming out last year. It's hard to describe what it was like watching it happen, mind-blanking splits coming from Fuwa every kilometer en route to a 28:00 CR for the 9.2 km stage, 30:26 pace for a road 10 km from an 18-year-old 1st-year who'd never raced that far before. Watch it for yourself, at 8:30 in the video up top. Fuwa almost singlehandedly gave Takushoku its best-ever finish, 3rd overall behind Meijo and DBU, and more than backed that run up over the rest of the season including destroying Kobayashi's new collegiate 10000 m record with a 30:45.21 in her debut at the distance in December.
But an Achilles injury in January kept her out of racing most of this year until a tentative comeback with a low-key win in the 10000 m at September's National University Track and Field Championships. The big question here is how much she's progressed in the weeks since then. It doesn't seem like there's any chance she'd be in a condition to repeat last year's show, and without that Takushoku just isn't strong enough to place that high again.
But even just an OK run should put them inside the top 8, earning a guaranteed return trip to next year's Morinomiyako. It's pretty safe to say that a very big chunk of the TV audience will be there specifically to see what Fuwa does. There's just nobody else as exciting in Japanese women's distance running right now. It's a lot of pressure, and hopefully she and Takushoku head coach Toshiharu Igarashi have learned from last year's mistakes and won't reach too high too soon again.
© 2022 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
Comments
I've been looking forward to this event for a while now. And yes, the pressure on Fuwa and head coach Toshiharu Igarashi must be enormous. They certainly have got a lot of publicity in recent times. And I agree, she will find it difficult to repeat last year's spectacular run.
I'm curious what 21 year old Ririka Hironaka and holder of the 2nd fastest 10000m time in Japan makes of all this and how she will respond in a month's time in the Queens Exiden.