Skip to main content

Heavy Kuroda Family Representation at National Women's Ekiden and National Men's Ekiden


On Jan. 11 Asahi Kuroda, winner of the highly competitive Second Stage for overall champion Aoyama Gakuin University at the 100th Hakone Ekiden on Jan. 2, announced that his next race will be the Jan. 21 National Men's Ekiden in Hiroshima. At the seven-stage, 48.0 km race he said he hopes to be on a stage adjacent to the one his younger brother Zen Kuroda of Tamano Mitsunan H.S. runs so that they can hand off the tasuki together.

Two stages at the National Men's Ekiden are for collegiate and corporate league runners, three are reserved for high schoolers, and two for junior high school athletes. Representing Okayama prefecture, the older Kuroda brother is scheduled to run the 8.5 km Third Stage, with the younger brother, who will enter the Aoyama Gakuin team in April, is set to run the 5.0 km Fourth Stage. "This will be the first time we've run an ekiden together since I was in my third year of high school and he was in his first," said Asahi. "I'm really psyched. We'll give it all for Okayama."

The brothers' father Masayoshi Kuroda, 42, was 3rd on the Hakone Ekiden's First Stage during his first year at Hosei University in 2001, part of the "Orange Express" led by Kazuyoshi Tokumoto, 44, now head coach of Surugadai University. Zen was 2nd in the 3000 m steeplechase at last summer's National High School Track and Field Championships.

Asahi and Zen's younger sister Rikka Kuroda, a 3rd-year at Kyoyama J.H.S., won last year's National Junior High School Track and Field Championships 1500 m final, and at December's National Junior High School Ekiden she anchored Kyoyama to the win to beat her older brothers to the punch of winning a national ekiden title. According to Aoyama Gakuin head coach and Kuroda family friend Susumu Hara, 56, the youngest daughter in the family, Shiika Kuroda, still in kindergarten, also has high potential to be a fast runner.

At the National Women's Ekiden this Sunday, Rikka will run on the Okayama prefecture team and will hand off the tasuki with the biggest start of last year's Nationals, Sherry Drury, now a 1st-year at Tsuyama H.S. "January will be a Kuroda family ekiden festival stretching from Hakone all the way to the National Men's Ekiden," said coach Hara. There'll be more of that to come when Zen falls under Hara's leadership at Aoyama Gakuin University in the coming year.


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most-Read This Week

Chepkirui Wins Nagoya Women's Marathon

Heavy-duty favorite Sheila Chepkirui took the win at Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon , pulling away after 30 km to cruise in for 1st in 2:20:40. Erratic pacing early saw the first and second groups only seconds apart for much of the first half of the race, the top group slower than planned and the 2nd group a bit ahead of schedule. At halfway in 1:10:37 the front group included Chepkirui, #2-ranked Ruti Aga and last year's runner-up Eunice Chumba , and Japanese contingent Sayaka Sato , Rika Kaseda , Natsuki Omori and Mao Uesugi . Omori was the first to drop, then Uesugi, then Aga, who ultimately dropped out before 30 km. When the pacers stopped at 30 km Chepkirui made a move that dropped Kaseda and strung out Chumba and Sato behind her, but all four came back together once before another surge put Kaseda away for good. As Chepkirui inched away Sato and Chumba passed each other repeatedly, and Chumba could only watch as the top Japanese runner got away from her again thi...
1 comment
Read more

Nagoya Women's Marathon Preview

The Nagoya Women's Marathon , the world's largest women-only marathon and the last race in the selection cycle for September's Tokyo World Championships, happens Sunday. Weather conditions are looking better than what they had in Tokyo and Osaka the last two weekends, 7Ëš at the start and rising to 12Ëš with sunny skies. The wind looks a bit stronger than ideal, but it could be worse. Fuji TV has the live broadcast starting at 9:00 a.m. Sunday local time, and if you've got a VPN you should be able to watch the TVer streaming . One option for  a leaderboard is here , and another here . We'll have some coverage on @JRNLive . Just like last time around there are three Ethiopian and Kenyan-born athletes at the top list, this time it being sub-2:20 women Sheila Chepkirui , winner in NYC last year, and Ruti Aga , winner in Xiamen in January, and last year's Nagoya runner-up Eunice Chebichii Chumba . But last year Yuka Ando still pulled off the win, so there's a c...
Post a Comment
Read more

Who's Running Tokyo Worlds?

The Japanese marathon teams will be the most prestigious ones to be on for September's Tokyo World Championships, and with Sunday's Nagoya Women's Marathon the window for Japanese athletes to get onto the JAAF's shortlist closed. Who's on it? The final decision won't be made until Mar. 26, but let's look through the selection criteria and see who's guaranteed, who's pretty likely, and who has a chance. 1. Marathon medalists at the Paris Olympics - There weren't any, so nobody makes the team this way. Akira Akasaki (Kyudenko) and Yuka Suzuki (Daiichi Seimei) were the top placers, both of them running PBs in the Olympics to finish 6th. You'd think that would count for something a year later, but you'd think wrong. 2. JMC Series IV Champions - The top point scorers in the Japan Marathon Championship Series IV, which ran from April, 2023 to March, 2025, earn places on the marathon teams along with cash prizes. For women that's Yuka ...
1 comment
Read more