There's a general sense that Japanese women aren't where they used to be, but counter to that trend are a lot of new women's ekiden teams trying to get off the ground. Along with some of the long-established powers like past national champions Universal Entertainment, Tenmaya and Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo, there are relatively young teams like Nitori, Senko and Tokyo Metro trying to qualify for the first time, and newcomers like Bears Camellia making their debuts. Next year expect to see at least one more, Shin Nihon Jusetsu.
Last year only 44 seconds separated 19th-place Sysmex from final qualifier Higo Ginko in 16th, making the question of who's likely to fill in the bottom end of the qualifying list an open one. But it's a little more complicated this year. Any team that had someone qualified for last weekend's MGC Olympic marathon trials will auto-qualify for Queens as long as they finish the Princess Ekiden. That would cover Uniqlo, Universal, Tenmaya, Starts, Wacoal, Otsuka Seiyaku, Hitachi, and Kyocera, half the qualifying spots.
Those are all teams that would likely qualify anyway, so you could argue the special rule this won't change the results that much. But it's not a given that they'll all finish. Kyocera DNFd last year while running 15th when anchor Mei Shirai suffered a stress fracture. But the dynamic will be a bit different, at any rate, as it's feasible that at least one of the teams qualifying via the MGC route finishes outside the top 16.
- Kyudenko
- Uniqlo
- Universal Entertainment
- Yamada Holdings
- Tenmaya
- Mitsui Sumitomo Kaijo
- Iwatani Sangyo
- Starts
- Wacoal
- Daiso
- Otsuka Seiyaku
- Route Inn Hotels
- Hitachi
- Shimamura
- Higo Ginko
- 18 Ginko
- Nitori
- Sysmex
- Senko
- SID Group
- Noritz
- Canon
- Kagoshima Ginko
- Comodi Iida
- Tokyo Metro
- Aichi Denki
- Toto
- Memolead
- Kyocera
- Bears Camellia
- Ehime Ginko
© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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