Ekiden season rolls on, and for everyone who didn't make the top 10 at the Hakone Ekiden's 100th running this past January that means a trip to western Tokyo's Showa Linen Park this Saturday to line up on the runway of the air defense base next door to try to qualify for the 101st Hakone Ekiden. The 43 Tokyo-area universities at the Hakone Ekiden Qualifier Half Marathon, the Yosenkai, each run 10-12 athletes and are scored on the total times of their first 10 finishers. The 10 fastest teams go to Hakone, and the rest go home except for the 10 fastest individuals from non-qualifying universities, who get the privilege of running as part of a select team.
NTV will broadcast the Yosenkai and its dramatic announcement ceremony live starting at 9:25 a.m. local time Saturday. If you've got a VPN you should be all set. If not, try mov3.co/ntv. JRN will be on-site at the Yosenkai to cover it live.
Chuo University, Tokai University and Tokyo Kokusai University look sure to take the top 3 spots, all three with 10-man 10000 m averages under 29 minutes, at least two sub-63 half marathoners and at least 6 sub-64 people. Chuo is one of those teams that doesn't really belong at the Yosenkai, an A-list program that just had a blowup at Hakone. It happens sometimes. Tokai and TKU were on the cusp last year but both have come back a lot stronger this season and look safe.
Nittai University, Juntendo University and Chuo Gakuin University all look pretty safe to make it too, averaging a few seconds over 29 minutes on 10-men 10000 m average and solid on half marathon credentials, especially CGU which has 6 men under 63 minutes for the half marathon, the most in the field, led by 27:47.01 / 1:00:31 4th-year Reishi Yoshida.
Nihon University and Yamanashi Gakuin University are on a little shakier ground, Nihon with the 4th-best 10-man 10000 m average of 29:00.12 but weak on half marathon performance with only 3 people under 64 minutes, and YGU weaker on 10000 m at 29:14.54 for 9th-best in the field but better over the half marathon with 5 under 64 including 27:23.09 / 1:00:46 runner James Mutuku.
And this is where it starts getting interesting. The 8th and 10th-ranked teams, Kanagawa University and Reitaku University, are both vulnerable to good runs from the next 5 teams, Kokushikan University, Surugadai University, Rikkyo University, Meiji University and Senshu University. Reitaku has never made Hakone and has been the first non-qualifier on multiple occasions, but with Surugadai, Rikkyo, Meiji and Senshu all having superior numbers over the half marathon distance it's up to the Reitaku runners to bring their better 10000 m skills to the longer distance to hold them all off.
Ranked 17th, Tokyo Nogyo University suffers heavily this year from the absence of 2nd-year Kazuma Maeda, the 10000 m U20 NR holder and top Japanese finisher at last year's Yosenkai. With only two runners under 64 minute it would take a miracle for TNU to come through this time.
© 2024 Brett Larner, all rights reserved
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