With championship ekiden season right around the corner there aren’t many weekends this time of year that aren’t busy ones in Japan. This one is another one. Saturday is the 85th Tango University Ekiden in Kyoto, the 8-stage, 74.4 km season-ender for Kansai Region university teams.
This year a few of them had the chance to run the Hakone Ekiden qualifier in October to try to achieve the hopeless task of beating even one Kanto Region team for a spot at the 100th Hakone in January, but with none achieving that goal they’re back for their own regional championship. It’s an interesting situation as some teams like Ritsumeikan University and Kantaiheiyo University just made the challenging Hakone qualifier - National University Ekiden double, and others like Kwansei Gakuin University opted to focus everything this season on a Tango win. And this time there’s actually a Kanto Region interloper in the form of powerhouse Aoyama Gakuin University, making a special one-time appearance at Tango without counting in the standings. Streaming is scheduled to start here at 8:20 a.m. Saturday local time.
The main race on Sunday is the legendary Ageo City Half Marathon in Saitama, the race that virtually all Hakone-bound teams except Aoyama Gakuin use to thin down the ranks of contenders on their roster for the final Hakone lineup. Hundreds of collegiate men run times that would win a lot of other half marathons, with the top two Japanese collegians earning an invitation to March’s United Airlines NYC Half in a program set up by JRN. The race has become a go-to in Asia for people looking to break a national record, and this year marathoner Khishigsaikhan Galbadrakh will be taking a shot at the Mongolian women’s NR as a tune-up for December’s Taipei City Marathon. Streaming will be on the Teletama Youtube channel starting 9:00 a.m. local time Sunday. As always, JRN will be on-site in Ageo from the lead car.
Also Sunday at Tokyo’s National Stadium, hundreds of other collegians will be running a series of 10000 m time trials put on by Hakone organizers KGRR. Just a few years ago it was a big enough deal for someone to break 29 minutes that the KGRR offered scholarship money to anyone who did it at this meet, but it’s a sign of how much things have changed that the fastest men’s heat is set to go at 27:45 pace this time. There are also 3 women’s heats along with the 10 men’s heats, so expect fast times there too. Streaming starts above at 11:15 a.m. Sunday.
Less of an elite race, especially since the pandemic hit, the Kobe Marathon Sunday actually features a decent men’s field with current sub-2:10 runners Hamza Sahli (Morocco), Wilfred Kimitei (Kenya), Barnaba Kipkoech (Kenya) and Junichi Tsubouchi (Japan/Kurosaki Harima). The women’s field is weaker, with no internationals and only two Japanese women who have run under 2:40, late-career veterans Misato Horie (Sysmex) and Haruka Yamaguchi (AC Kita).
© 2023 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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