37-Year-Old Rikkyo University Head Coach Ueno Anchors Nagano to National Men's Ekiden CR

There's a first time for everything. In the last major ekiden of the season, 37-year-old Yuichiro Ueno, head coach of the Rikkyo University team that ran the Hakone Ekiden three weeks ago, anchored the Nagano prefecture team to a second-straight course record win at the 28th National Men's Ekiden in Hiroshima.

Nagano's Soma Nagahara got things off to a solid start, going one-on-one with favorite Sonata Nagashima of Hyogo on the 7.0 km 1st leg, both going under the old stage CR with Nagashima 1st in 19:39 and Nagahara only 2 seconds back. Over the next two stages Nagano dropped to 4th 20 seconds off the lead, but a pair of new CR from 4th and 5th runners and Saku Chosei H.S. teammates Shunpei Yamaguchi and Hiroto Yoshioka put the team 37 seconds ahead. 6th runner Riku Kobayashi extended that to 49 seconds, giving Ueno a margin of error of just over 3 sec/km on the 13.0 km anchor stage.

Ueno first ran the National Men's Ekiden 20 years ago, passing 17 people on the 8.5 km 5th leg with a CR 24:33 at the 2003 race. He broke that record a year later, helping Nagano take the overall win. Since then he has run it another 8 times, anchoring 6 of them and part of the winning team in another 5. Over the first half of the anchor stage this time he added another 4 seconds to the lead, but even though he slowed and started to look back repeatedly he was never at risk of getting caught.

Waving to fans in the home straight in front of Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park, Ueno went 1 second under Nagano's CR, giving them a new record of 2:17:10 for the full 7-stage, 48.0 km course. It was Nagano's 9th win in the 26 times the race has been held, extending its record as the most dominant prefecture in the country. Nagahara, Yamaguchi and Yoshioka played the most important roles in that, but Ueno running well enough to place 12th of 47 on the anchor stage on time was part of the mix too.

Down in 10th after three stages, Saitama ground its way up to 2nd over the last four. Anchor Tomoya Ogikubo was 2nd-fastest on his leg, cutting Ueno's lead in half but just too far back to close it as Saitama finished 2nd in 2:17:35. Tokyo was in a consistent position for the first six stages, inching up from 8th to 6th before anchor Yudai Shimazu took the tasuki. In the last major ekiden of his college career Shimazu ran down three teams for 3rd in 2:18:20, beating Chiba by 1 second and Okayama by 8.

Briefly leading on the 8.5 km 3rd leg thanks to a good run from Keita Sato, the Kyoto team was 6th in 2:18:32, 6 seconds ahead of hosts Hiroshima. Early leader Hyogo fell to 8th in 2:18:45. Saga's Ryosuke Yamasaki, a student at Kanagawa University, was the surprise winner on the anchor stage, running 37:26 to pass ten people and move Saga up from 21st to 11th.

Way back in the back end of the field, 38-year-old Naoki Okamoto turned in the other performance of the day. Running the National Men's Ekiden for the 18th time for Tottori, Okamoto passed ten people on the 8.5 km 3rd leg to bring his career passing record at the race to 137. Okamoto will run October's Olympic marathon trials, meaning it's likely he'll be back next year to take that total one step further.

28th National Men's Ekiden

Hiroshima, 22 Jan. 2023

47 teams, 7 stages, 48.0 km

complete results

Top Individual Stage Results

First Stage (7.0 km, H.S.) - Sonata Nagashima (Hyogo) - 19:39 - CR

Second Stage (3.0 km, J.H.S.) - Haruki Niizuma (Hyogo) - 8:17

Third Stage (8.5 km, open) - Kazuya Shiojiri (Gunma) - 23:30

Fourth Stage (5.0 km, H.S.) - Shunpei Yamaguchi (Nagano) - 14:02 - CR

Fifth Stage (8.5 km, H.S.) - Hiroto Yoshioka (Nagano) - 23:52 - CR

Sixth Stage (3.0 km, J.H.S.) - Yota Mashiko (Fukushima) - 8:36

Seventh Stage (13.0 km, open) - Ryosuke Yamasaki (Saga) - 37:26

Top Team Results

1. Nagano - 2:17:10 - CR

2. Saitama - 2:17:35

3. Tokyo - 2:18:20

4. Chiba - 2:18:21

5. Okayama - 2:18:28

6. Kyoto - 2:18:32

7. Hiroshima - 2:18:38

8. Hyogo - 2:18:45

9. Miyagi - 2:20:07

10. Ibaraki - 2:20:09

11. Saga - 2:20:10

12. Wakayama - 2:20:11

13. Yamaguchi - 2:20:11

14. Osaka - 2:20:30

15. Nagasaki - 2:20:33

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...

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview and Streaming (updated)

Japan's winter marathon season of 6 major races in 7-straight weekends wraps up Sunday with the world's largest women-only marathon, the Nagoya Women's Marathon . The weather is looking pretty good, 6˚ at the start rising to 10˚ by the finish and sunny skies, but a moderate 7 m/s NW wind means a headwind finish that might impact the potential for some fast times. Official streaming kicks off at 9:00 a.m. local time. Live results will be here . Sheila Chepkirui won last year in 2:20:40, breaking away from Sayaka Sato and Eunice Chebichii Chumba at 30 km and hanging on for the win. Sato negative split a 2:20:59 PB for 2nd, Chumba fading to 3rd in 2:21:36. All 3 are back this time, but they have pretty serious competition from Aynalem Desta , 2:17:37 in Amsterdam last fall, and Selly Chepyego Kaptich , 2:20:03 in Barcelona 2023. And of course, Japanese NR holder Honami Maeda . Maeda ran 2:18:59 at the Osaka International Women's Marathon in 2024 to make the Paris Oly...

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...

japan running news

Search This Blog