National High School Ekiden Preview, and the Rest of Championship Ekiden Season

Corporate women and junior high school students have already had their nationally-televised national championship ekidens, but tomorrow's National High School Ekiden in Kyoto kicks off the busiest part of the year, with 5 days of championship ekiden racing in the span of 10 days. NHK broadcasts high school Nationals live and ad-free on Dec. 25, with the girls' race starting at 10:20 a.m. and the boys at 12:30 p.m. local time. There's not likely to be any internationally-available streaming, but get a VPN and you should be good. With JRN's holiday travel plans canceled because of the weather in the PNW, we'll probably be covering both races live on @JRNLive. Buy us a coffee to help us get through the day.

The top high school teams in Japan would do pretty well in the NCAA on both the girls' and boys' sides, meaning two high-level races. In the girls' race, 21.0975 km in five legs, Sendai Ikuei H.S. won in 1:07:16 by over a minute last year but is down in strength after the graduation of Nanaka Yonezawa, who put Sendai Ikuei out front by 30 seconds on the 6.0 km First Stage. That first half momentum was critical to Sendai Ikuei's win, and whether 3rd-year Kokone Sugimori, winner on the 4.0975 km Second Stage last year, can step up to replicate that this year is one of the main questions of the day. First years Aoi Hosokawa and Misaki Nagaoka are key to Sendai Ikuei's chances.

All of last year's top 5 teams are back, with 6th-place Suma Gakuen H.S., 9th-place Kitakyushu Shiritsu H.S. and 10th-place Chiharadai H.S. beaten at their prefectural qualifiers this fall and replaced by Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S., Chikushi Joshi Gakuen H.S. and Luther Gakuin H.S. 2020 national champ Sera H.S. is also back after a disastrous 31st-place follow up last year.

Boys race 42.195 km in 7 stages. The Sera boys won in 2020 and 2021, running 2:01:31 and 2:01:21, with heavy pressure last year from local Kyoto team Rakunan H.S., which ran the fastest time ever by an all-Japanese lineup, 2:01:59, thanks in large part to U20 1500 m, 3000 m and 5000 m NR holder Keita Sato. Sato has moved on to an important role at national champion Komazawa University, but Rakunan remains one of the favorites to break up a Sera threepeat. All of the 2021 top 10 teams are back, so there will be a lot of other competition too.

But the main excitement will be a potential showdown between H.S. 5000 m NR holder Hiroto Yoshioka of Saku Chosei H.S., 13:22.99, and Nishiwaki Kogyo H.S.' Sonata Nagashima, 28:31 on the 10 km opening leg at the Hyogo prefectural qualifier. The only thing holding that back would be Saku Chosei head coach Masaru Takamizawa opting not to have Yoshioka run double digit distance at Nationals.

After the National High School Ekiden, the last big race of the year is the Dec. 30 Mt. Fuji Women's Ekiden, the university women's national championship race. Jan. 1 kicks off with the New Year Ekiden corporate men's national championships, followed by the biggest of them all, the mighty Hakone Ekiden's 99th running. Look for previews of all these next week.

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