Aoyama Gakuin Breaks Own CR by 2:17 to Dominate 100th Hakone Ekiden

Aoyama Gakuin University brought the first century of the Hakone Ekiden to a close with a dominant performance that took over two minutes off its own course record to put an end to defending champ Komazawa University's hopes of becoming the first team to win all three major university ekidens two years in a row.

After a hard-fought opening day that saw both teams break the Day One course record, Aoyama Gakuin's Akimu Nomura needed to hold its 2:38 lead over Komazawa over the downhill Sixth Stage, 20.8 km with a steep climb at the start and an ~800 m drop to the exchange zone, and when he opened it to 4:17 the race was all but over. Komazawa's Taiyo Yasuhara initially closed incrementally on AGU's Kento Yamauchi on the 21.3 km Seventh Stage, but Yamauchi turned it around in the second half to outrun Yasuhara by 27 seconds.

AGU head coach Susumu Hara had put two of his best runners on the next two stages in an evident plan to cover any scenario in which Komazawa was close or ahead at that point, and both Shota Shiode and Genta Kuramoto came through with stage wins. By the time anchor Shunya Udagawa took over it was only a question of how much Aoyama Gakuin would take off the course record, and when he ran the 2nd-fastest time on the 23.0 km Tenth Stage that number was 2:17. AGU covered the complete 217.1 km course in 10:41:25, 2:57/km including the two ~800 m elevation change mountain stages.

For Coach Hara it was the 7th Hakone title in the last 10 years, putting him into very top tier of Hakone history. "In December we had setbacks and I genuinely thought we might not make top 10," he said in post-race comments. "I'm very grateful to the students for coming through. In my 20th year as head coach, Hakone's 100th year, and Aoyama Gakuin University's 150th year, it was a perfect trio of achievement." For what it might have lacked in drama, that achievement made up for in sheer force.

Komazawa was 2nd in 10:48:00, still the 5th-fastest time in history but over 2 km behind AGU. Kiyama's faltering Sixth Stage run for 12th on stage time cost them the chance at bettering their winning time last year of 10:47:11, but as a whole there wasn't a lot of room for criticism of the team's performance. AGU was just in another world somehow.

3rd throughout almost all of Day One, Josai University held its position all the way through Day Two to finish 3rd in 10:52:26, a major improvement on its best-ever placing of 6th. 4:31 behind Josai at the end of the Seventh Stage, Toyo University gave them a scare on the anchor stage when Ryotaro Kishimoto ran its fastest time, 1:08:51, to pull within 19 seconds for 4th in 10:52.47. One of the top four-ranked teams, Koku Gakuin University overtook Soka University on the Eighth Stage to move up from 6th into 5th in 10:55:27.

AGU's Day One record meant 16 of the 23 teams in the field started Day Two together on the ten minute mark after AGU began and carried a time handicap throughout the race. That meant the race for the bottom places on the ten-deep podium, which carries with places at October's Izumo Ekiden and at the 2025 Hakone, was complex and hard to follow, independent of the number of teams in contention a short distance apart in total time. Like last year, Hosei University came on strong over Day Two to finish as the top time handicap team at 6th in 10:56:35, gotten off to a good start by Sixth Stage winner Kazuma Takeda, the first Hosei runner to win the downhill stage in 76 years. Waseda University overtook Soka University on the Ninth Stage for 7th, Soka 8th and 41 seconds back by race's end.

The main action happened back from 9th to 13th. The always-stable Teikyo University, Hakone Ekiden Yosenkai qualifier half marathon winner Daito Bunka University, 2019 Hakone winner Tokai University, bottom-tier Kokushikan University and last year's runner-up Chuo University were the main protagonists, all but Kokushikan sitting in 9th or 10th at some point on Day Two. Teikyo got up to 9th on the Eighth Stage and stayed there over the last two stages. Daito Bunka moved as high as 7th, but after the injured Peter Wanjiru ran the slowest time on the Eighth Stage, the first time an African has run the Eighth and the first time since 1999 one has run Day Two, they dropped to 11th. Tokai's Yuta Minamisaka passed Wanjiru to move into 10th. Chuo broke into the top 10 on the downhill Sixth Stage and stayed there thanks to a Seventh Stage win by Shunsuke Yoshii, but fell to 12th just one stage later. Kokushikan hovered in between at 12th throughout.

It took until the anchor stage for their final order to be sorted out. Kokushikan's Shinya Suzuki and Chuo's Daichi Shibata worked together to close ground on the runners ahead, while Daito Bunka's Masato Sasaki and Tokai's Shumon Rohoman invisibly raced each other, physically separate because of the time handicaps but their teams' fates closely locked together. Sasaki started 4 seconds behind on total time, but he quickly made it up to knock Tokai off the podium, 1:10 ahead by race's end. Kokushikan's Suzuki exactly tied Tokai's total time of 11:01:52 but was given 12th behind them, with Chuo just 6 seconds back in 13th.

Further back, Rikkyo University had a quality showing less than 3 months after head coach Yuichiro Ueno was fired, taking 14th in 11:03:04. Juntendo University was a non-factor after cracking the top 10 on Day One, dropping from relevance to 17th in 11:06:42. Last-place Yamanashi Gakuin University was almost half an hour behind AGU in 11:11:11, getting white sashed on both of the last two stages.

Crowds along the course looked even deeper than usual, with TV ratings doubtlessly higher. Few races in the world have lasted a hundred years, and few have as a big a TV audience as Hakone. With a massive performance to cap its 100th running, the Hakone Ekiden's performance level and popularity continues to hit levels never seen before.

100th Hakone Ekiden Day Two

Hakone-Tokyo, 3 January 2024

23 teams, 5 stages, 109.6 km

complete results

Top Individual Stage Results

Sixth Stage (20.8 km, ~800 m descent)

1. Kazuma Takeda (3rd yr., Hosei Univ.) - 58:02

2. Akimu Nomura (3rd yr., Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 58:14

3. Shota Kawakami (1st yr., Soka Univ.) - 58:15

4. Yuki Satake (4th yr., Daito Bunka Univ.) - 58:24

5. Yuto Urata (3rd yr., Chuo Univ.) - 58:37

Seventh Stage (21.3 km)

1. Shunsuke Yoshii (2nd yr., Chuo Univ.) - 1:02:27

2. Ryuichiro Ono (4th yr., Teikyo Univ.) - 1:02:44

3. Kento Yamauchi (4th yr., Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:02:46

4. Taiyo Yasuhara (4th yr., Komazawa Univ.) - 1:03:13

5. Koyo Hayashi (3rd yr., Josai Univ.) - 1:03:24

Eighth Stage (21.4 km)

1. Shota Shiode (2nd yr., Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:04:00

2. Takanori Wakesu (3rd yr., Nittai Univ.) - 1:04:40

3. Kazuki Aya (1st yr., Meiji Univ.) - 1:04:42

4. Yuto Akahoshi (4th yr., Komazawa Univ.) - 1:04:49

5. Yota Ifuku (3rd yr., Waseda Univ.) - 1:04:56

Ninth Stage (23.1 km)

1. Genta Kuramoto (4th yr., Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:08:51

2. Shu Yoshida (3rd yr., Toyo Univ.) - 1:09:12

3. Taisei Kobayashi (3rd yr., Teikyo Univ.) - 1:09:30

4. Yu Fukahori (2nd yr., Tokyo Nogyo Univ.) - 1:09:40

5. Kyosuke Hanao (4th yr., Komazawa Univ.) - 1:09:41

Tenth Stage (23.0 km)

1. Ryotaro Kishimoto (4th yr., Toyo Univ.) - 1:08:51

2. Shun Udagawa (2nd yr., Aoyama Gakuin Univ.) - 1:09:21

3. Kenta Sekiguchi (4th yr., Rikkyo Univ.) - 1:09:29

4. Shunki Niwase (4th yr., Komazawa Univ.) - 1:09:33

5. Yuta Kanno (3rd yr., Waseda Univ.) - 1:09:45

Overall Team Results

top 10 teams qualify for 2025 Hakone Ekiden

1. Aoyama Gakuin University - 10:41:25 - CR

2. Komazawa University - 10:48:00

3. Josai University - 10:52:26

4. Toyo University - 10:52:47

5. Koku Gakuin University - 10:55:27

6. Hosei University - 10:56:35

7. Waseda University - 10:56:40

8. Soka University - 10:57:21

9. Teikyo University - 10:59:22

10. Daito Bunka University - 11:00:42

-----

11. Tokai University - 11:01:52

12. Kokushikan University - 11:01:52

13. Chuo University - 11:01:58

14. Rikkyo University - 11:03:04

15. Nihon University - 11:06:06

16. Nittai University - 11:06:30

17. Juntendo University - 11:06:42

18. Surugadai University - 11:06:58

19. Chuo Gakuin University - 11:07:26

20. Meiji University - 11:07:28

21. Kanagawa University - 11:07:37

22. Tokyo Nogyo University - 11:09:16

23. Yamanashi Gakuin University - 11:11:11

Day Two Team Results - 109.6 km

1. Aoyama Gakuin University - 5:23:12

2. Komazawa University - 5:27:09

3. Toyo University - 5:27:28

4. Hosei University - 5:27:32

5. Koku Gakuin University - 5:28:20

6. Teikyo University - 5:28:59

7. Soka University - 5:29:13

8. Meiji University - 5:30:07

9. Tokai University - 5:30:19

10. Waseda University - 5:30:35

11. Nittai University - 5:30:55

12. Josai University - 5:30:56

13. Chuo University - 5:31:23

14. Rikkyo University - 5:31:27

15. Kokushikan University - 5:31:32

16. Kanagawa University - 5:31:47

17. Daito Bunka University - 5:31:48

18. Nihon University - 5:34:15

19. Tokyo Nogyo University - 5:35:43

20. Chuo Gakuin University - 5:35:44

21. Surugadai University - 5:36:07

22. Juntendo University - 5:36:25

23. Yamanashi Gakuin University - 5:40:06

Ekiden Great Naoki Okamoto to Retire in January at Age 40

The Chugoku Denryoku men's corporate team has announced that team member Naoki Okamoto , 40, will retire in January. Born in May, 1984, Okamoto went to Tohaku J.H.S. and Yura Ikuei H.S. before enrolling at Meiji University . His 2nd year at Meiji he helped it make it through the Hakone Ekiden qualifying race for the first time in 14 years and ran Hakone at the end of that season in 2005. He went on to run it his 3rd and 4th years too, placing 6th on the First Stage and 9th on the highly competitive Second Stage. After graduating in 2007 he joined Chugoku Denryoku. He was a regular on its team at the New Year Ekiden, winning the Fifth Stage in 2010. But where he really made his name was the National Men's Ekiden, held every January in Hiroshima where Chugoku Denryoku is based. Running it 19 times, he passed a total of 134 competitors in his career there and came to be recognized as one of the event's icons. He also won its Seventh Stage in 2009. In the marathon, ...

Anonymous said…

Awesome coverage as always Brett! Couple questions: what do you think happened to Chuo University? I expected a better showing from them. Also, is this the most amount of teams to ever get white sash’d? Might sound silly, but do you think anything from AGO feels bad about being the cause of so many white sashes?

January 4, 2024 at 3:06 AM

Kyle S. said…

Wow did Aoyama Gakuin end up dominating this race! At the start of the 6th stage I held out a sliver of hope for the possibility that Komazawa could somehow run down AoGaku like they ran down Soka for the win in 2021, but AoGaku was just too strong. It really goes to show how many things need to go right in order to win Hakone, even when coming in as a heavy favorite. This year's race makes AoGaku's 4-peat as part of their 7 wins in the past decade all the more impressive.

As always, many thanks for your coverage throughout the year. I'm very much looking forward to your Hakone book when it comes out.

January 4, 2024 at 3:19 AM

Brett Larner said…

Thanks very much. Chuo was off at Izumo but looked better at Nationals. With Yamato Yoshii running a 10000m PB at Hachioji etc. it seemed like things were going in the right direction, but with so many people off, especially on the first 3 legs, I'm not sure.

I've seen the stat for most white sashes but can't remember off the top of my head. I'll have to look for it. No, I doubt they feel bad about it.

Kyle--thanks for pointing out the typos. Busier than usual this time so I haven't had time to proofread thoroughly.

January 4, 2024 at 6:25 AM

Thanks for the response! Another question I had watching this years race: has anyone ever dropped the tasuki? Or any notable stories of someone fumbling it or it getting blown away in the wind or something? Another question: have there ever been any “handoff violations” like a teammate grabbing the tasuki too early or late or something? Obviously it’s unlikely given the long distance nature of the event compared to like a 4x400 relay but with so many handoffs over the past 100 years I feel like something weird has been bound to happen a few times. Thanks again!

January 4, 2024 at 7:59 AM

I haven't seen it at Hakone but someone dropped the tasuki at the National High School ekiden in December and had to go back and get it. I've seen DQs at both the National High School Ekiden and the National Corporate Women's Ekiden for handoff violations. The high school one had somebody crawling in who threw the tasuki to the next runner, and the women's won involved the outgoing runner being late to the exchange zone and accidentally running out of the zone before she had the tasuki in her hand. Both were pretty much on the edge and didn't really need to have been DQs.

There was an incident at Hakone where one of the Sixth Stage runners was so nervous he forgot to put the tasuki on and didn't realize it until after he'd started. He had to run back and get it. That's part of why they do a one-by-one check now to make sure each starting runner is properly kitted up.

January 7, 2024 at 5:26 AM

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